Physics, Old and New

Two videos and a (part of a) paper

I’m in sort of a weird place, blog-wise, these days. My original raison du blog was writing about physics, but I’ve done very little of that since starting up this Substack. Most of my physics writing has been intended for paid outlets of one variety or another, so I’ve primarily been using this as a space to get (Academic) Politics Thoughts out of my head and into pixel form. I do miss doing physics commentary, but it’s much more labor-intensive, and not necessarily rewarded with engagement, which can be frustrating.

Concluding slide from the public lecture linked below, so this will have a still image for algorithms to grab.

I really do mean to make an effort to write more physics stuff, but while I figure out what form that can take, I’ll offer three proxy Takes on physics and physics-adjacent matters:

— The Quantum Physics of an Ordinary Morning: The link goes to a video player showing a recording of my public lecture from the World Quantum Day event at the University of Illinois the weekend before last. The talk is one of the Breakfast with Einstein variants, presenting three examples (three Things make a talk…) of ways that quantum physics shows up in mundane morning activities. This also has a not-so-secret (I say it explicitly between the first and second examples) second purpose, namely answering the question “Where do you get off putting Einstein’s name in the title of a book about quantum physics, given that he rejected quantum theory?” As you’ll see from the talk (or, you know, if you buy my book…), though, he played an absolutely pivotal role in launching the theory.

— Moving backwards in time, I did an interview with Brian Keating’s Into the Impossible podcast, which is available on YouTube:

This was recorded several weeks back, and released when I was in Illinois. As is often the case when I see myself recorded, one of my biggest take-aways is that I really do wave my hands around a lot when I talk. The conversation is keyed to A Brief History of Timekeeping (buy my other book…), but ranges somewhat widely. It was fun to do, and if you’re a podcaster type and need a guest to talk about science-y stuff, I’m always happy to do more of this…

— Moving even farther backwards, I’m one of an eclectic list of authors on a paper in Physica Scripta titled “The Sounds of Science” (also available in arxiv form). This came out of a conference presentation I did quite a while back— from my email, it looks like 2019— after which I was approached by an editor who was soliciting answers to the question “Will there be new physics?”

Predictably, a lot of the answers to this interpreted “new physics” as “ a theory of particle physics beyond the Standard Model,” but I wanted to take this in a slightly different direction, so I talked about new and exciting things that can be done using “old physics,” the well-tested principles and formulae that we already have. The process of compiling, editing, and reviewing this took long enough that some of the cutting-edge topics I referenced are not so cutting-edge any more, but I stand by the general answer: Whether we find a new theory of particle physics or an improved understanding of the foundations of QM that would count as “new physics” or not, we are nowhere near exhausting the potential of the “old physics” yet.

So that’s three very different formats (public lecture about historical topics, podcast interview about time and timekeeping, and formal academic article) with more-or-less current versions of my thoughts about physics. Which ought to be enough to make a point of some sort…

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If you find any of this interesting, you should definitely buy my books, but a simpler and cheaper (free, even, though a little extra beer money is always appreciated) option is to click this button:

If you feel moved to respond more immediately to any of this, the comments will be open: