Allan Adams: The discovery that could rewrite physics
Алан Адамс: Відкриття, яке може переписати фізику
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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іще більше зірок,
further, more galaxies.
ще більше галактик.
все далі і далі,
faint, fading afterglow,
згасаючий відблиск.
то не маю на увазі себе.
to everyone in this room,
для всіх у цій кімнаті,
і кластери галактик,
іще крутіше.
був неймовірно щільним,
у нічне небо--
three years on the South Pole
на Південному полюсі,
deep about the early universe.
оточена іще чимось іншим.
горщика всесвітньої матерії.
and spending three years
і провівши три роки
that looks kind of like that.
який виглядає десь ось так.
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