Saturday, July 2, 2011

Stringy Summer II

By now everyone has heard that there was no string theory at Strings 2011. You have to hand it to them: they learn fast when forced. One might even feel sorry for their current plight, despite their obnoxious standard of living, especially the more mathematical ones, who innocently believed what the employed physicists told them. Perhaps mathematics degrees should include history lessons. This year we may help them all out with a little mathematics.

5 comments:

  1. And then there are the mathematicians who thought they knew more physics than the physicists. It is difficult to feel sorry for them.

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  2. Witten, Gukov and Gaiotto, and perhaps others, all talk about knots in a magic 6d theory, related to a complexified CSFT with Jones polynomials becoming quantum kinds of modular forms. Sound a bit familiar? Hint: remember that $B_3$ covers the classical modular group.

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  3. That looks quite interesting (and accessible). I'll definitely be reading it closely.

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  4. Mitchell, no matter how much of an expert you are, it's not that accessible. There are still gaps to fill in.

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