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What's the matter with the Large Hadron Collider? (Original Post) jberryhill Nov 2012 OP
Mine craps out whenever I switch from Blu-Ray to Cable. Atman Nov 2012 #1
I love the smell of color-glass condensate in the morning AldoLeopold Nov 2012 #2
Color-glass condensate. longship Nov 2012 #3
Thanks for posting, jbh! Fascinating... Surya Gayatri Nov 2012 #4
Charming, just charming n/t Fumesucker Nov 2012 #5
Is this going to go in a strange direction? jberryhill Nov 2012 #6
When the spin doctors get hold of it, it will Fumesucker Nov 2012 #8
You had to top that, did you? DetlefK Nov 2012 #10
I'm a bottom feeder. Fumesucker Nov 2012 #12
Make sure you wont get lept-on. DetlefK Nov 2012 #13
The wit is scintillating jberryhill Nov 2012 #14
Watch out! Electron-avalanche incoming! DetlefK Nov 2012 #15
Get me some Charmonium! Odin2005 Dec 2012 #16
I love this thread. Tuesday Afternoon Nov 2012 #7
I keep tellin' you kids "somebody's gonna get their eye put out!". ret5hd Nov 2012 #9
Reading stuff like this makes my brain short out a little bit... Javaman Nov 2012 #11
A quote tama Dec 2012 #17
From physics blogs tama Dec 2012 #18

longship

(40,416 posts)
3. Color-glass condensate.
Wed Nov 28, 2012, 03:46 PM
Nov 2012

Gluon and quark interactions are weird. I don't even pretend to understand the color force (strong nuclear force).

I have a copy of Frank Wilczek's book, The Lightness of Being which I have read a couple of times. (Highly recommended, BTW.) Wilczek describes asymptotic freedom, for which he won the Nobel, fairly well. It's why free quarks are not seen. But this article takes me into the deep end where I cannot swim. And I have a B.S. in physics!

Isn't the LHC just about the greatest thing humans have ever done? I think so. Who knows where it will take us!?

Javaman

(62,521 posts)
11. Reading stuff like this makes my brain short out a little bit...
Thu Nov 29, 2012, 10:42 AM
Nov 2012

While I really love reading articles on physics, I must confess, most of the time, I read them to try and improve my understanding of the world around me, but sadly, I fail much of the time. It's the dichotomy of me being bad at math and knowing how important it is; that keeps me trying.

 

tama

(9,137 posts)
17. A quote
Mon Dec 3, 2012, 07:38 AM
Dec 2012
Physics and theoretical physics are disciplines, whose development has taken a about 500 hundred years, a life work of totally devoted brilliant people. Nowadays these 500 years can be compressed to 3-4 years in university classes. This is wonderful but during this time one of course gets only some important impressions, not much more. There is no hope of compressing 500 years to a couple of web articles. This would be however needed as a background to develop introduction to TGD for dummies .

Anyone can learn macro-economics but theoretical physics is a REALLY difficult discipline. Think only that the best mathematical brains have worked for 28 years in vain with superstring models. They did not get anywhere. We still have Einstein's theory as THE theory of gravitation.

The following old saying still applies. "God give me the wisdom to see what I cannot do and give strength to do what I can ". In my case this means that I cannot write a five page essay leading the reader to enlightment but I can improve endlessly the articulations of TGD so that who have the needed background can easily understand it when the Zeitgeist allows them to read an article about TGD in presence of colleagues.

http://matpitka.blogspot.fi/2012/12/is-it-possible-to-learn-tgd.html#comments

It's very difficult also the other way around; the theoretician quoted is wondering if his theory can be communicated (to someone with required math skills) and doing his best, but remains unsure...

But his communication problems make him look only more human in my layman eyes, which I find positive, while I wish nothing but success for their efforts.
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