The h Bar

bolbteppa

2:06 PM

The error on a technical level apparently: old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/9igc4d/…

Semiclassical

oof

bolbteppa

6th HLF – Lecture: Sir Michal Francis Atiyah

►

'he promised to present it in a way that will also be accessible to the non-mathematical portion of the audience'

Semiclassical

i don't really get why the fine-structure business isn't getting more attention

bolbteppa

When it was claimed it would be accessible to the 'non-mathematical' it should have been called off on that alone

The guy at the beginning tempered it with 'his recent work on the RH'

Semiclassical

I haven't the courage to watch that lecture if I'm honest

bolbteppa

2:16 PM

The fine structure stuff has been out there for months nobody brought it up, I think at this stage it's become un-ignorable

Yeah

Semiclassical

@bolbteppa actually, I"m not so sure about that---the ICM talk was only published on Youtube on 9/12

bolbteppa

Ah I see

Semiclassical

I think I got mixed up because it was delivered in Rio de Janiero and somehow I got "January" in my head

which is pretty silly :/

That said, the ICM lecture was the easiest point of concrete reference

So you'd have thought that more people would have watched it already

bolbteppa

$\alpha$ on a big slide in the talk pbs.twimg.com/media/Dn2HxtEWkAEvbFy.jpg gawd

Semiclassical

yeah

I remember that when I stumbled upon the relevant bit of the ICM talk, I had to stop and listen to it again

"did he just claim to have solved the mystery of alpha? that can't be right....nope, i heard him right."

bolbteppa

2:24 PM

He said gravity comes from the octonions old.reddit.com/r/math/comments/9icamx/…

'The 4 real division algebras... translate into the 4 basic forces' oh no

(This is simply unbelievable at this stage)

Semiclassical

that has to do with the Quanta article back in July I think: quantamagazine.org/…

bolbteppa

Maybe this will be the purpose of his forthcoming paper on Newton's constant :(

Semiclassical

which does include a specific reference to Atiyah

bolbteppa

Woah

"Fields medalist and Abel Prize–winning mathematician Michael Atiyah, for example, that the final theory of nature must be octonionic. “The real theory which we would like to get to,” he said in 2010, “should include gravity with all these theories in such a way that gravity is seen to be a consequence of the octonions and the exceptional groups.”

He added, “It will be hard because we know the octonions are hard, but when you’ve found it, it should be a beautiful theory, and it should be unique.”"

I missed that sentence back when this article was a big deal, yikes

Semiclassical

yeah, it sorta blended in with the rest

bolbteppa

2:28 PM

That alone is a huge red flag, why in the world "should" the 'real theory' have gravity as a consequence of the octonions!

Semiclassical

Though I think that "gravity is related to the octonions" is an order of magnitude less bad than "I can derive the fine structure constant"

bolbteppa

Yeah I probably read it in a 'may be related' way

Semiclassical

I don't think the former is a very plausible statement, but it's not as credibility-shaking as the latter

enumaris

3:56 PM

alright so

has the Reimann Hypothesis been proven or what?

Dude said he was gonna show his proof today right

ACuriousMind

Do we really have to drag this topic around in circles?

enumaris

what do you mean?

I just got here

ACuriousMind

Just read the transcript :P

enumaris

how far back?

ACuriousMind

@enumaris Probably this is the only message you need to read.

enumaris

4:00 PM

hmmm

So...the Fields medalist was just clickbaiting or what

Anonymous

in Mathematics, 3 hours ago, by Mike Miller

The preprint by Atiyah does not make any sense. There are many false claims as well as many nonsensical ones. This follows along the lines of his recent preprint on another major open problem. One simple point is that the notion of 'weakly analytic function' as stated is just the same thing as an analytic function, and his claim that these are polynomials on convex sets is false.

ACuriousMind

@enumaris He's 89 years old. You do the math.

Anonymous

@enumaris Let's not... :P

enumaris

@ACuriousMind I'm not a mathematician, I don't do math

ACuriousMind

@enumaris I hope you know what I meant, but in case you didn't, I'll be more explicit: I feel it is disrespectful of his life's work to imply that there's any malice or conscious deception on his part going on. It is a sad fact of life that our minds often start slipping with old age, and no one deserves to have that happen in the limelight.

7

Anonymous

4:08 PM

Yeah, please pin that on the starboard for a week ^

Anonymous

(if possible)

danielunderwood

That's terribly sad. I was always under the impression that academics didn't mentally slip as much as typical people for whatever reason. Maybe it's just that there are fewer academics.

Anonymous

@danielunderwood Maybe they slip a bit later than the average...but everyone eventually slips if they live long enough.

Anonymous

89 is a LOT

Anonymous

Not many people are lucky to live that long

ACuriousMind

4:13 PM

@danielunderwood There is evidence that doing mentally demanding tasks protects against some forms deterioration, but no protection is absolute.

enumaris

let the record show: I did not mean clickbaiting to imply any maliciousness

Lozansky

My mind started slipping around junior year

enumaris

I mostly meant it to ask like if the papers had any value at all, mathematically speaking. I guess the answer is no. Which is unfortunate.

Not sure I like the dudes ridiculing him on reddit tho...that seems uncalled for

ACuriousMind

It is uncalled for. But since when do you expect a sense of decency from reddit?

4

enumaris

:/

This one seems in particularly bad taste imo

Making fun of a man who had paranoid schizophrenia and someone with cognitive decline in one go...hmmm

Anonymous

4:29 PM

I just hope it was not a case of the event organizers spreading misinformation about it and Atiyah was unaware of it (for instance he might just have wanted to conduct a session about RH and not necessarily proving RH). But well, that seems quite unlikely given the amount of public attention it got (and the pre-prints)

danielunderwood

I quit reddit a while back. I don't see the latest news now, but it seems to be an overall positive experience

Anonymous

I never even used reddit :P The UI seems awful

ACuriousMind

@enumaris ...and because it is in particularly bad taste, you needed to post it here? :P

enumaris

I can delete it

nope I can no longer delete it

lol

danielunderwood

On another note, what's it like being in a national lab compared to working in a lab at a university?

Semiclassical

4:37 PM

@Blue every time I get on t here with my phone, it harasses me to mobile app instead

Anonymous

@danielunderwood You mean a government lab?

Anonymous

@Semiclassical lol...ikr

Semiclassical

@Blue even if you grant that, in his ICM lecture he claims to have 'solved' the mystery of the fine-structure constant

which...yikes

enumaris

What does it mean to solve the fine structure constant?

Semiclassical

to be able to derive it mathematically

enumaris

4:39 PM

Ah...

Semiclassical

15 hours ago, by Semiclassical

I'm not sure a good point to pick, but maybe start around here: https://youtu.be/fUEvTymjpds?t=2068

enumaris

so like instead of using physical constants like electric charge and hbar...use..mathematical constants like e and pi?

Semiclassical

listen for the part after he quotes feynman

Sir Cumference

This physics hw is an actual nightmare

enumaris

I can't really watch a video right now

Sir Cumference

4:42 PM

So much algebraic manipulation

I've spent 7 hours...

danielunderwood

@Blue Yeah I think so. I think the lab system in the US is larger than most countries, but I think they're the same as a normal government lab?

Semiclassical

@enumaris ah, right

suffice it to say, he does claim that one can give a derivation of $1/\alpha$

enumaris

without using physical constants like hbar?

Semiclassical

yeah

enumaris

hmmm...

Semiclassical

4:46 PM

the details, such as they are, are apparently in this: drive.google.com/file/d/1WPsVhtBQmdgQl25_evlGQ1mmTQE0Ww4a/view

enumaris

that would imply there is a purely mathematical reasoning behind the fine structure of hydrogen...which is somehow independent of the strength of the electromagnetic interaction...which seems...hmmm...

my instinct says that shouldn't be possible

ACuriousMind

Do we really need to discuss the details? Let me make a very blunt analogy: When your old grandparent thinks it is 1970, is what you do really discussing all the stuff that is wrong with that claim in detail?

Semiclassical

fair

ACuriousMind

I mean, I understand the urge. We're scientists, and when someone makes a claim we dissect it.

But...sometimes that may not be what's needed

Anonymous

@danielunderwood I don't have much idea. @Loong works in a national lab I guess?

Loong

4:51 PM

No

Anonymous

Ah

enumaris

@ACuriousMind Well, although it seems mathematicians have dismissed the claims given by Sir Michael, I still wonder if there's nuggets in there that might be fruitful or if it's at all possible that he's being "ahead of his time" in some way. But the deriving the fine structure constant purely mathematically seems to make that less likely. The point is, I wasn't trying to analyze the claims he made to try to demean him.

ACuriousMind

@enumaris It's okay

I have strong personal feelings about dealing with mental deterioration and I realize not everyone shares them, nor should they need to.

Semiclassical

the main reason I bring up the fine-structure stuff is this: absent other context, the default reaction to "Atiyah claims to have a proof of the Riemann hypothesis" seemed unlikely but not absurd

and it's far easier to default to that when the 'evidence' against it is largely coming from mathematicians, e.g. his prior attempts at S6 and Feit

on the other hand, I think most physicists recognize that a claim to have solved the fine-structure constant is an order of magnitude more implausible. so even if we don't recognize the mathematical grounds, we certainly recognize the physical grounds

the message not being to cast shame on him, but to give clear grounds for why the impulse to not talk about this story is the more defensible one

enumaris

^agree

Anonymous

5:04 PM

The fine structure claim did sound interesting albeit bold to me (although I don't know any of the details). It might make sense to discuss it in another chat room since although it is really interesting to talk about it, we probably don't want to draw negative attention to this main chat (which is what I guess ACM's concern is).

Anonymous

Oh, there already seems to be a related room

ACuriousMind

@Blue This isn't "me the moderator" talking, this is just me. I've seen the mind of someone dear to me fall apart, and it is not a memory I like to revisit.

Anonymous

@ACuriousMind I can understand, yes (I've had a similar experience). And as a matter of courtesy, I don't think we should continue the discussion in this room.

Semiclassical

speaking from my own experience (which is rather limited but still present) I get that

i just think it's important to explain why one shouldn't 'spread the signal'

Physics Meta

5:24 PM

0

Q: The bar to add a comment should be reduced

It can happen many a times that a user with even lesser reputation can have a really valuable point/counter question to add, but it may not be complete in itself or simply might not be able to answer the question satisfactorily. In such a condition the valuable addition may be missed out.

discussion

bolbteppa

5:53 PM

Honestly, we really have no idea what's going on with him, and some huge things happened in his life this year (google) so it's not even fair to say it's an age or mind issue, basically I'd say every big name does something like this in later years, Einstein, Schrodinger, all of them did this kind of thing somehow, so it's probably to be expected :p

Leaky Nun

oh it's still going

can someone loop me on the whole fine structure constant thing?

I know enough about the nonsense on the math side

but I know nothing on the physics side

Anonymous

47 mins ago, by Blue

Oh, there already seems to be a related room

Anonymous

Please continue the discussion there ^

bolbteppa

@Blue Why? We 're talking about the fine structure constant and a big name's claim to derive it and the RH as a sidenote?

Anonymous

@bolbteppa ACM is feeling uncomfortable about this discussion. It isn't anything official

Anonymous

5:57 PM

Let us continue it in another room

Anonymous

43 mins ago, by ACuriousMind

@Blue This isn't "me the moderator" talking, this is just me. I've seen the mind of someone dear to me fall apart, and it is not a memory I like to revisit.

bolbteppa

Fair enough, but I would not be too quick to claim that's what's going on

Anonymous

Thanks :)

Anonymous

I'm following the discussion in the other room

Emilio Pisanty

6:42 PM

@Chair out of curiosity, what flag did you raise on this one?

whatever it is you're raising with that one, it's sending it to the LQP queue, which isn't the greatest venue for them.

raise a moderator flag instead. We want those gone fast - at moderator speeds, not queue.

Lozansky

7:47 PM

Is it true that the frequency response function contains complete information about how a system amplifies and how it phase shifts signals?

I'm inclined to say yes, but maybe there is some pathological counter-example

Physics Meta

8:39 PM

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Q: Has my question been put on hold because it seemed like "a check my work" question?

My question was re-opened but has been put on hold again by other members of this website. Is it due to the fact that I had posted free-body diagrams which made the question seem like a "check my work" question? I have removed the information which caused this suspicion. Please let me know wh...

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enumaris

9:20 PM

hmmm

danielunderwood

mmmh

enumaris

I've finished making my new dashboard

now it's time to do some of the more boring things...

danielunderwood

I found a data science position with some interesting requirements. "Required Education: High School Diploma/GED"...a bit later "Preferred Education: Master's Degree"

Should've put PhD as the preferred so they could just cover everything

enumaris

heh...I guess they don't want to rule out High School grads who have a lot of experience

danielunderwood

Yeah I've seen that a few times for software jobs. Though there it's normally "X...or equivalent relevant experience"

enumaris

9:26 PM

I haven't been super active on the job boards...

tho I do get contacted by recruiters sometimes

danielunderwood

Gotta always be looking. Maybe you'll randomly find a Goldilocks job lol

Though much more often it's "this HR department has lost their minds"

Also I made something like a dashboard today so I could keep track of data while building a custom interface for a work project. Sadly I'm scared that showing it to people at work will end up with "just work on that until it somehow does all the custom functionality we want"

enumaris

XD

I think my current job is pretty good

so I'm only passively looking

the salary could be better tho lol

ACuriousMind

@danielunderwood A colleague of mine made a simple program as a demo of a new technology. It was never intended to be developed further but people have been asking him for months what the status of that program is :D

enumaris

lol

ACuriousMind

9:42 PM

They're always looking so dejected when he tells him it was a demo that we actually entered improving it into our backlog :P

Ultradark

say you have a few light waves oscillating according to the first fundamental frequency. they all intersect. to find the points of intersection do you have to solve a differential equation set equal to another differential equation

ACuriousMind

what fundamental frequency?

Ultradark

ACuriousMind

...that's not what I mean. We're definitely lacking some info about the setup you're thinking about here: Is this light in a reflective cavity or something?

Ultradark

well

can we just call them strings

ACuriousMind

9:47 PM

I'm afraid I'm not following you

Ultradark

trying to find the intersections. All the curves are distinct harmonic waves

described by a sin function

do I have to set up a differential equation?

they are standing waves by the way

ACuriousMind

Oh. I don't think so. If you rotate by 45°, all these lines are $y = A\sin(kx)$ and $x = B\sin(ky)$ for some $A,B$. So the intersections are where $x = B\sin(kA\sin(kx))$ and $y = A\sin(kB\sin(ky))$. Note sure these are analytically solvable, but they're not differential equations

danielunderwood

@ACuriousMind yeah software would be so much easier without users wanting things :D

ACuriousMind

At least, if these really are sines. The picture doesn't look like sines to me...

Ultradark

They're sines with differing amplitudes

in the unit square

ACuriousMind

9:54 PM

Then what I said holds

Ultradark

I just thought to be able to solve the system at any time $t$ you'd have to set up some sort of diff eq

is that the wrong way to think about it?

ACuriousMind

Well, what do you need the time dependence for, here? The picture isn't time-dependent, and it certainly suffices to find the intersection

I.e. you can determine the intersections at every snapshot in time, you don't need the information of how the evolution actually proceeds

Ultradark

oh I guess I don't need time dependence

ACuriousMind

And even if you have time dependence, you just put it into the sine. Then solve for $x,y$ as functions of $t$. There's no differential equation because you already solved the differential equation when you determined these oscillators are sine functions

Ultradark

ohhhh okay

Emilio Pisanty

10:59 PM

@ACuriousMind @Semiclassical well, if those are indeed the equations, at least they're easy to solve

they're already in fiexed-point form, so all you need is a reasonable starting seed and then you just crank the function and hope it converges

... assuming it's already in the right form to converge.

Requirement was that $|f'(x)|<1$, as I recall.

Physics Meta

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Q: Applying resource-recommendation/link-only policies

In principle, questions tagged resource-recommendation that do little more than provide a link should be deleted like any other (almost) link-only answer, but is it really so? If we look at most answers to, e.g., the super-question Book recommendations, we see that most of them have a simple one-...

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