The International Center for Mathematical Sciences in Edinburgh recently launched its “Mathematics for Humanity” initiative with a call for research activity proposals (ranging from small collaborations to courses, workshops and conferences) aimed at using mathematics to contributing to the betterment of humanity. (I have agreed to serve on the scientific committee to evaluate these proposals.) […]
I just noticed that last semester Edward Witten was teaching Physics 539 at Princeton, a graduate topics course. Since he’s now past the age of 70, at the IAS he is officially retired and an emeritus professor (the IAS is … Continue reading →
This posting is about the problems with the idea that you can simply formulate quantum mechanical systems by picking a configuration space, an action functional S on paths in this space, and evaluating path integrals of the form $$\int_{\text{paths}}e^{iS[\text{path}]}$$ Necessity … Continue reading →
Two things recently made me think I should write something about path integrals: Quanta magazine has a new article out entitled How Our Reality May Be a Sum of All Possible Realities and Tony Zee has a new book out, … Continue reading →