Nima arkani hamed biography of williams

Physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed to Give a Talk at Brookhaven Lab on 'Space Time, Quantum Mechanics and the Large Hadron Collider, October 19

September 26, 2011

UPTON, NY — Nima Arkani-Hamed, a professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, New Jersey, will give a BSA Distinguished Lecture titled "Space-Time, Quantum Mechanics and the Large Hadron Collider," on Wednesday, October 19, at 4 p.m. in Berkner Hall at the U.S. Department of Energy's Brookhaven National Laboratory. BSA Distinguished Lectures are sponsored by Brookhaven Science Associates, the company that manages Brookhaven Lab, to present topics of general interest to the Laboratory community and the public. The lecture is free, and no preregistration is required. All visitors to the Laboratory age 16 and older must bring a photo ID.

Arkani-Hamed will explain that fundamental physics started in the early twentieth century with two revolutionary theories: Einstein's laws of general relativity, which explain that space and time are distorted by mass and energy; and quantum mechanics, which explains the behavior of atoms and molecules. Physicists confirmed these theories with exquisite precision through experiments over the last three decades, but they are still searching for an all-encompassing theoretical structure that unifies both of them.

According to Arkani-Hamed, combining these two theories shows mathematically that space-time is doomed and the existence of the universe is implausible. Physicists are attempting to understand these discrepancies and may find the answers to the challenges of fundamental physics in experiments at the world's largest and highest energy accelerator, the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN, the European Organization for Nuclear Research. In his talk, Arkani-Hamed will discuss the great theoretical physics challenges of today and what physicists expect to learn by 2020, based on their studies at the LHC

Physicist Nima Arkani-Hamed discussed classical ideas of space-time and charts a path for the future in his lecture on Thurs. Sept 22.
The Department of Physics and Astronomy hosted a seminar by leading contemporary physicist Arkani-Hamed from the Institute of Advanced study at Princeton University. Arkani-Hamed is a highly cited scholar in theoretical physics with accolades including the inaugural $3 Million Fundamental physics prize and has been featured in the popular documentary ‘Particle Fever’ about the discovery of the Higgs Boson at the CERN supercollider in Europe. Arkani-Hamed presented the ‘Physics and mathematics for the end of spacetime.’
Spacetime is any mathematical model used in physics to explain physical phenomenas of the universe by combining space and time in one continuum. Quantum mechanics is used to explain the behaviour of subatomic particles. Both these principles have defined the era of modern physics. These principles however present a challenge for the physicists of the 21st century.
“Both of these ideas, the principles of spacetime and quantum mechanics have to modified or extended in some way,” Arkani-Hamed said.”Because of the existence of gravity and quantum mechanics, we believe that the concept of spacetime is doomed and there are many simple thought experiments that tell us that space time is doomed.”  
Arkani-Hamed discussed the physics of the big bang and the black hole, challenging the classical beliefs. Using thought experiments, Arkani-Hamed brought out the challenges with existing physics of measurements.  
“Finite systems have an intrinsic imprecision on anything that they can observe,” Arkani-Hamed said. “When you have quantum mechanics and gravity there is no measurement you can do in a fixed sized room that can return an observable, that ‘s very interesting”.
Arkani-Ha

The New Year will bring together researchers from pure mathematics and physics in Canterbury for the conference Total Positivity: a bridge between Representation Theory and Physics. We will welcome Professor Nima Arkani-Hamed (Institute for Advanced Studies, Princeton) and Professor Lauren Williams (Berkeley), who will each deliver a lecture series, as well as invited speakers from the UK, France, and Germany.

Professor Arkani-Hamed is the inaugural winner of the Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics. He will present on the interactions between Total Positivity, a phenomenon that arises in diverse areas of pure mathematics, and scattering amplitudes in physics.

Professor Williams (left) has been awarded the 2016 AWM-Microsoft Research Prize in Algebra and Number Theory. She will speak about her work connecting Total Positivity and Integrable Systems.

This interdisciplinary conference is supported by the Anglo-Franco-German Representation Theory Network, and aims to be a springboard for fresh interactions between physics and mathematics.
Full details at http://www.kent.ac.uk/smsas/personal/sl261/Conference/Canterbury2016/TPatKent.html

Robyn Williams: Now that voice, that genius once more:

Richard Feynman: For example, I invented some way of doing problems in physics, quantum electrodynamics, and made some diagrams that help to make the analysis. I was on a floor in a rooming house I was in in my pyjamas, I'd been working on the floor in my pyjamas for many weeks, fooling around, but I got these funny diagrams after a while and I found they were useful. They helped me to find the equations easier, so I thought of the possibility that it might be useful for other people, and I thought it would really look funny, these funny diagrams I'm making, if they appear someday in the Physical Review, because they looked so odd to me. And I remember sitting there thinking how funny that would be if it ever happened, ha ha.

Well, it turned out in fact that they were useful and they do appear in the Physical Review, and I can now look at them and see other people making them and smile to myself, they do look funny to me as they did then, not as funny because I've seen so many of them. But I get the same kick out of it, that was a little fantasy when I was a kid…not a kid, I was a college professor already at Cornell. But the idea was that I was still playing, just like I have always been playing, and the secret of my happiness in life or the major part of it is to have discovered a way to entertain myself that other people consider important and they pay me to do. I do exactly what I want and I get paid. They might consider it serious, but the secret is I'm having a very good time.

Robyn Williams: The brilliant Richard Feynman. His name will recur as we go in this Science Show on the nuclear zoo. You may not follow all the twists of what you're about to hear, but rest assured it is part of this next Copernican revolution in physics Frank mentioned before. I bring you the amplituhedron through Joel Werner i