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agelessstudent.bsky.social
Retired. Now back to my first passion that led me to PhD in physics. Never stop learning, my friends!
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I know everybody is freaking out about politics right now and understand why, but physics geeks freak out about other things. Wanna freak out a phys grad student? Ask about Grassman numbers and Berezin integrals and why can you use them in path integrals. Then suggest to him he’s overthinking it.

submitted 39 days ago • 1 comment

A physics riddle. What do you have to fix because it ISN’T broken?

submitted 45 days ago • 2 comments

“It is essential that the scientific community — and the public at large — support leaders who pledge to embrace evidence based decision making in science and public health” — Anthony Fauci. Folks this is an objective fitness test for office. We should insist on it!

submitted 52 days ago • 0 comments

Someday I really want to understand string theory. Today I was trying to grok ch. 10 of Polchinski but I just could not concentrate. Turns out it was only because my blood pressure was really high like 206/112. What a relief!

submitted 52 days ago • 1 comment

It is coming up on six months into my retirement, formerly a principle engineer, or IT Tech Fellow, depending on the timing. I’m very happy. Is this unusual?

submitted 53 days ago • 0 comments

The fundamental group for an ordinary plane has just one member: the zero element. Remove a single point and the group has infinite number of elements: one for each integer. The tiniest flaw has infinite repercussions. No wonder mathematicians are sometimes perfectionists.

submitted 69 days ago • 0 comments

homotopy is used to study groups of loops based on topology. It has many applications to physics I stumbled on to an excellent intro to homotopy and fundamental groups people.math.harvard.edu/~landesman/a... Easy to read and makes few assumptions about prior knowledge. Happy studying!

submitted 71 days ago • 0 comments

I’m not too proud to take delight in learning new things even if — especially if — it’s something I should already know. Arrogance and pride are great barriers to a richer life. Please do not ever fall into that trap!

submitted 74 days ago • 0 comments

I like x for grok: Hey Grok: the parallel transport map of a given connection, acting on the set of all closed paths on a vector bundle and containing any fixed point, forms a Lie group under composition of the map, called the holonomy group. Draw an illustration using cats.

submitted 75 days ago • 0 comments

A bot on X asked me “what’s the most mind blowing thing you’ve learned” Such an intriguing question I had to answer. It’s the “holographic principle” — the idea that our universe is like the inside of a soap bubble, filled with nothing but projection of fields living only on the bubble surface. 1/2

submitted 76 days ago • 1 comment

A koan for the student of differential geometry: df(p,v) = Df(p)(v) Mathematicians love to think deeply of simple things. That’s what makes them so cool.

submitted 78 days ago • 0 comments

A bit of string lore: particles that interact via the strong force have mass squares that fall on a straight line vs their spin. Such a relation is mystery to quantum field theory, but a natural consequence of string theory. Intriguing, yes? 1/3

submitted 82 days ago • 1 comment

A funny thing about string theory: the classical underpinnings are very straightforward. The challenge comes in quantizing the system The old fashioned Covariant (canonical) quantization OCQ doesn’t really work because of subtleties introduced by constraints. If forces us to … 1/4

submitted 91 days ago • 1 comment

My bucket list the last 10 weeks - catch up on the basics of some physics that I didn’t learn well enough in college. Sorry but it still seems to me that heterotic is way too hectic.

submitted 92 days ago • 0 comments

Just deleted my account on X. It is just not a healthy place. I’ve heard good things about blue sky though. Looking forward to exploring the social universe!

submitted 94 days ago • 0 comments