{"id":8572,"date":"2016-06-08T00:07:18","date_gmt":"2016-06-08T04:07:18","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=8572"},"modified":"2016-06-09T00:25:02","modified_gmt":"2016-06-09T04:25:02","slug":"short-items-26","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=8572","title":{"rendered":"Short Items"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>String theory continues to make progress. Today the news is from <a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/entertainment\/movies\/la-ca-mn-megan-fox-ninja-turtles-20160526-snap-story.html\">Megan Fox<\/a>:<br \/>\n<blockquote><p>\u201cSometimes I just know things,\u201d she explains. \u201cI accidentally tap into stuff sometimes. I used to do it as a kid, and I do it as an adult. I crossed over and saw a future string.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>String, as in string theory. Fox is into stuff like that. She\u2019s also spiritual. On her Instagram profile, she describes herself thusly: \u201cChild of the Cherokee Tribe \u2026 forest nymph \u2026 Lunar Leo mother goddess to 2 bohemian revolutionaries-my kamikaze free spirit &#038; my peaceful warrior.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>A few months ago it was <a href=\"http:\/\/www.usmagazine.com\/celebrity-news\/news\/jaden-smith-sees-himself-as-a-modern-day-prophet-w158807\">Jaden Smith<\/a> moving the subject forward:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Jaden sees himself as a modern-day prophet and is working on a collection of essays,\u201d a pal says in the new issue of Us Weekly. \u201cThey\u2019re new takes on string theory and chaos theory, but more mystical.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>After all, he\u2019s getting an out-of-this-world assist with the tome. Explains the source, \u201cJaden thinks he has spiritual ties to people in other dimensions and galaxies, and they are helping him write.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/li>\n<li>At some sort of other extreme, Sabine Hossenfelder has very sensible things to say about the string theory phenomenon <a href=\"http:\/\/backreaction.blogspot.com\/2016\/06\/dear-dr-b-why-not-string-theory.html\">here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>If you read <a href=\"http:\/\/journals.aps.org\/prl\/abstract\/10.1103\/PhysRevLett.116.042501\">Physical Review Letters<\/a> or the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.ft.com\/intl\/cms\/s\/0\/94974922-2ca9-11e6-bf8d-26294ad519fc.html#axzz4AwG5uIdX\">Financial Times<\/a> you might think that a &#8220;key to an unseen portion of the universe&#8221; had been found.  Luckily for you, Natalie Wolchover is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.quantamagazine.org\/20160607-new-boson-claim-faces-scrutiny\/\">on the case<\/a>, uncovering the story of why you might not want to take that new fifth force seriously quite yet.<\/li>\n<li>If you&#8217;re interested at all in the story of the superluminal neutrinos, you might want to read  Gianfranco D&#8217;Anna&#8217;s  fictionalized account of the story, <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/60-7-nanoseconds-infinitesimal-instant-life\/dp\/3952466506\">60.7 Nanoseconds<\/a>, which has just appeared in English<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Update<\/strong>:  <a href=\"http:\/\/www.catholic.org\/news\/technology\/story.php?id=69335\">This string theory story<\/a> is so bizarre I don&#8217;t know what to make of it:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>While working on String Theory, Kaku, discovered what he sees as evidence that the universe is created by an intelligence, rather than merely formed by random forces. He suggests he can explain it by what he calls, &#8220;primitive semi-radius tachyons.&#8221; We do not yet have a succinct explanation of this idea from Kaku, other than he&#8217;s referring to tachyons, which are theoretical particles that unbind particles from one another.<\/p>\n<p>Without getting into physics itself, Kaku concludes that we live in a Matrix-style universe, created by an intelligence.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I have concluded that we are in a world made by rules created by an intelligence&#8221;, he said. &#8220;Believe me, everything that we call chance today won&#8217;t make sense anymore. To me it is clear that we exists in a plan which is governed by rules that were created, shaped by a universal intelligence and not by chance.&#8221; <\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>String theory continues to make progress. Today the news is from Megan Fox: \u201cSometimes I just know things,\u201d she explains. \u201cI accidentally tap into stuff sometimes. I used to do it as a kid, and I do it as an &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=8572\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-8572","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=8572"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8572\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8575,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/8572\/revisions\/8575"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=8572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=8572"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=8572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}