Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Dennis O'Bell who wrote (12970)	12/6/2001 2:38:42 PM
From: FaultLine	Respond to of 281500

OT: Edward Whitten, our own Isaac Newton When you think of it, things we take for granted today are really so amazing nobody would have had the imagination to invent them, ever! This brings to mind one of my favorite modern figures in science, Edward Whitten, said by many to be the Isaac Newton of the modern age. From what I've gather, Whitten has been asked by the Physics community to dedicate his life to solving the String Theory equations. He accepted this task over a decade ago and has been making difficult progress; it may, in fact, take decades, perhaps centuries to complete this task. I've heard some describe the soft-spoken Whitten as "the smartest man in the world." He is Professor in the School of Natural Sciences at the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton (and I think he holds Einstein's Chair in Physics). --fl -------------- Written at 50 Happy Birthday Edward Whitten maa.org The Mathematical Associatino of America Keith Devlin Stanford "Like Newton, the physics Witten does is deep, fundamental, and center stage. Both men set out to answer ultimate questions about the nature of the world we live in. In Witten's case, he works in the hot research areas of supersymmetry and string theory. "Just as questions in physics led Newton to develop some far reaching new mathematics that found many applications, often well outside of physics, so too Witten's mathematics has been of a depth and originality (and incidentally of a difficulty equaled by few mathematicians) that will surely find other applications. Witten has used infinite dimensional manifolds to study supersymmetric quantum mechanics. Among the results for which he was awarded a Fields Medal was his proof of the classic Morse inequalities, relating critical points to homology. "Witten's work in manifold theory brings up yet another comparison with Newton. Neither of them were concerned with finding mathematically correct proofs to support their arguments. Relying on their intuitions and their immense ability to juggle complicated mathematical formulas, they both left mathematicians reeling in their wake. It took over two hundred years for mathematicians to develop a mathematically sound theory to explain and support Newton's method of the infinitesimal calculus. Similarly, it might take decades -- maybe even centuries -- before mathematicians can catch up with Witten. ------------ Edward Witten -- Recipient, 2000 Frederic Esser Nemmers Prize in Mathematics "Witten is regarded as the world’s premier theoretical physicist. Known for his many contributions to particle physics and string theory, he has almost single-handedly constructed a new branch of mathematical physics. "He is a leading scholar in the field of superstring theory which seeks to describe all the fundamental forces of nature in one conceptual framework. The theory suggests that the basic building blocks of nature are not tiny particles but small loops and snippets of what resembles string. He has also proposed an extension of string physics, “M-Theory,” to unify the five separate string theories into one “master” theory. ------------- Edward Whitten -- A Bio Sketch www-groups.dcs.st-andrews.ac.uk School of Mathematics and Statistics University of St. Andrews, Scotland "One of Witten's subsequent works was a paper which Atiyah singles out for special mention in [3], namely Supersymmetry and Morse theory which appeared in the Journal of differential geometry in 1984. Atiyah writes that this paper is: "... obligatory reading for geometers interested in understanding modern quantum field theory. It also contains a brilliant proof of the classic Morse inequalities, relating critical points to homology. ... Witten explains that "supersymmetric quantum mechanics" is just Hodge-de Rham theory. The real aim of the paper is however to prepare the ground for supersymmetric quantum field theory as the Hodge-de Rham theory of infinite dimensional manifolds. It is a measure of Witten's mastery of the field that he has been able to make intelligent and skilful use of this difficult point of view in much of his subsequent work." -------------- What Is String Theory? physto.se -------------- Tr(-1)^F In Three and Four Dimensions Edward Witten, (IAS) online.itp.ucsb.edu online.itp.ucsb.edu Real Audio and Lecture Notes Presentation at the University of California at Santa Barbara ---------------