Edge interview with Nobelist Frank Wilczek

[Martin]

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/wilczek09/wilczek09_index.html

 

Several who post at SFN I know have read Wilczek's new book The Lightness of Being.

 

This interview, or longish essay, by him expands and clarifies the ideas about the future of unification and particle physics that he presented in the book.

It's a good addition to it. Some of the stuff might be worth discussing.

[npts2020]

http://www.edge.org/3rd_culture/wilczek09/wilczek09_index.html

 

Several who post at SFN I know have read Wilczek's new book The Lightness of Being.

 

This interview, or longish essay, by him expands and clarifies the ideas about the future of unification and particle physics that he presented in the book.

It's a good addition to it. Some of the stuff might be worth discussing.

 

I have never even met anyone who has met the man but he doesn't seem to mind trying to explain his ideas in language everyone can understand. In the article he gives an excellent description of what practical application his ideas might have. I especially liked the part about him saying most of his ideas are probably wrong but he has fun with them and it is OK to be wrong.

[iNow]

Is there, perchance, a video of this, or is it just a text essay?

[Martin]

Is there, perchance, a video of this, or is it just a text essay?

 

I looked around and couldn't see live video link. As far as I know, there's no video of this talk.

 

There are several videos of Wilczek talks available and he's a pretty good talker. If anyone wants links to talks, just say. iNow and I could probably both post some without much difficulty.

 

But this particular talk, if it exists on video, I dont know how to find.

[iNow]

Thanks for checking, Martin. I didn't mean to make you spend any extra time searching. When I read your post a few days ago, I made a mental note to come back so I could "watch" it. When I came back today to do so, I realized I was mistaken and it was just an essay (a good one, though ).

 

I've definitely grown too used to being part of the YouTube generation.

[Yuri Danoyan]

Volume 56, Number 6 · April 9, 2009

Leaping into the Grand Unknown

By Freeman Dyson

The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces

by Frank Wilczek

Basic Books, 270 pp., $26.95

 

Frank Wilczek is one of the most brilliant practitioners of particle physics. Particle physics is the science that tries to understand the smallest building blocks of earth and sky, just as biol-ogy tries to understand living creatures. Particle physics is running about two hundred years behind biology. In the eighteenth century, Carl Linnaeus started systematic biology by giving Latin names to species of plants and animals, Homo sapiens for humans and Pan troglodytes for chimpanzees. In the nineteenth century, Darwin created a unified theory for biology by explaining the origin of species. In the twentieth century, Ernest Rutherford laid the ground for particle physics by discovering that every atom has a nucleus that is vastly smaller than the atom itself, and that the nucleus is made of particles that are smaller still. In the twenty-first century, particle physicists are hoping for a new Darwin who will explain the origin of particles.

 

 

 

http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=22575.

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