Allan Adams: The discovery that could rewrite physics
Allan Adams: A descoberta que pode reescrever a física
Allan Adams is a theoretical physicist working at the intersection of fluid dynamics, quantum field theory and string theory. Full bio
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verão mais estrelas,
further, more galaxies.
mais além, mais galáxias.
faint, fading afterglow,
do universo primordial
incrivelmente pequena,
incrivelmente turbulenta,
naquela direção
naquela outra
to everyone in this room,
para todos nesta sala,
aglomerados,
da mecânica quântica
que foram esticadas
segunda-feira.
é mais fixe.
era incrivelmente denso,
ondas gravitacionais
na estrutura do espaço
para todos os efeitos.
estava a fazer
cada vez mais longe
three years on the South Pole
3 anos no Polo Sul
mais frio, límpido
o céu noturno e estudando
pelas pequenas alterações
embora isso seja impressionante
deep about the early universe.
sobre o universo primordial.
numa grande bolha
conclusivas da expansão,
que nunca veríamos
matéria turbulenta do universo.
and spending three years
do céu noturno,
that looks kind of like that.
num universo que se parece com isso.
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Allan Adams - Theoretical physicistAllan Adams is a theoretical physicist working at the intersection of fluid dynamics, quantum field theory and string theory.
Why you should listen
Allan Adams is a theoretical physicist working at the intersection of fluid dynamics, quantum field theory and string theory. His research in theoretical physics focuses on string theory both as a model of quantum gravity and as a strong-coupling description of non-gravitational systems.
Like water, string theory enjoys many distinct phases in which the low-energy phenomena take qualitatively different forms. In its most familiar phases, string theory reduces to a perturbative theory of quantum gravity. These phases are useful for studying, for example, the resolution of singularities in classical gravity, or the set of possibilities for the geometry and fields of spacetime. Along these lines, Adams is particularly interested in microscopic quantization of flux vacua, and in the search for constraints on low-energy physics derived from consistency of the stringy UV completion.
In other phases, when the gravitational interactions become strong and a smooth spacetime geometry ceases to be a good approximation, a more convenient description of string theory may be given in terms of a weakly-coupled non-gravitational quantum field theory. Remarkably, these two descriptions—with and without gravity—appear to be completely equivalent, with one remaining weakly-coupled when its dual is strongly interacting. This equivalence, known as gauge-gravity duality, allows us to study strongly-coupled string and quantum field theories by studying perturbative features of their weakly-coupled duals. Gauge-gravity duals have already led to interesting predictions for the quark-gluon plasma studied at RHIC. A major focus of Adams's present research is to use such dualities to find weakly-coupled descriptions of strongly-interacting condensed matter systems which can be realized in the lab.Allan Adams | Speaker | TED.com