Sad to hear that Alasdair McIntyre has died. I read `After Virtue' as an undergraduate and it permanently influenced the way I view the world and think about ethics, politics and religion. A truly great book.
For LVS exponential, arising from the beautiful underlying no-scale structure of GKP compactifications, string loop tracker is the attractor during this roll -- can make the early universe dominated by a gas of superstrings even AFTER inflation. 3.3
As volume modulus rolls towards asymptotic corner of moduli space where promising vacua such as LVS are located, string tension decreases and string loops grow.
Energy density in string loops grows relative to background (and radiation) leading to stable tracker 2/3
New paper today! With Noelia Sanchez-Gonzalez,
@ProfEdCopeland
and Ed Hardy
arxiv.org/abs/2505.14187
We find that a superstring phase -- 75% energy density in fundamental strings -- is an attractor in post-inflationary phase of scalar rolling down exponential potential. 1/3
Yes -- e.g the phrase 'cruel April' carries a pile of rich connotations, and similarly many two-word phrases carry very dense and rich meanings that go far beyond their syntax
A fight over poetry & Kolmogorov complexity is the sort of high culture fight I like!
Perfect equations are like perfect poems: they both exhibit maximal Kolmogorov complexity.
This is also why good notation is to mathematics as the canon is to literature.
Had an enjoyable night last night at @cheltpoetfest.bsky.social hosting 2 science & poetry themed events, including being in conversation with @josephpconlon.bsky.social & @robinince.bsky.social. Thank you @annasaund.bsky.social for inviting me & @paulawhitcher.bsky.social for some of the photos.
The new Pope, patristics and the Big Bang.
Leo XIV is an Augustinian. Augustine's discussion of time (Book XI of both Confessions & City of God) is brilliant and prophetic (read them!): 'the world was not created in time but with time'.
We live in spacetime -- not space and time.
This Friday in Cheltenham -- do come along if you are nearby.
Baron Brain, neurology expert
Nominative determinism
These seem a mixture of private and non-private grift (many, including myself, would view the former as much worse). Perhaps this case is similar to other previous ones -- certainly it would be more harmonious for everyone if it ends up viewed as consistent with existing norms.
To me, this was a clear aspect in the result of the most recent American presidential argument (but I don't want to argue this point if you disagree).
Because the needed comparison is with other more Europhile parties.
And important because generally, attempts to win
electoral arguments by legal/procedural means tend to end disastrously.
Well, my prior (given what is in the public domain about *private* grift in the European Parliament) is that non-private grift such as this would be common ( and brief research gives plenty of informed support for this).
Is the scale different? Hard for me to say.
The test here is 'would someone from a party like the CDU (ignore the Germany/France distinction for the moment) be prosecuted on similar facts?'.
And the answer might be yes -- as said, I don't know the precise facts.
e.g. prosecuting an unpopular politician for driving at 75mph on a clear motorway would not show they were also subject to the law, it would be rightly seen as a democratic affront *even if they were clearly guilty*.
I find the expression 'above the law' trite because most people and most politicians routinely violate the criminal law (driving above the speeding limit) and are not prosecuted, indeed would be outraged if they were prosecuted for it.
I will not go beyond saying that it is important that the same prosecution standard for 'misuse of parliamentary funds for party business' is applied to all parties (*this* is what is key to the `rule of law').
I don't know the precise facts and it could be that there was something especially egregious here.
But it strains any reasonable belief that this was the only party using `parliamentary' funding for party business; the EP does not have a good reputation here.
Without knowing the precise factual details, the worry is the sense that many politicians are 'at it' on some level (cf MPs expenses) and that the prosecution was purely political in nature.
Next Friday I am talking at the Oxford literary festival: physics, poetry and the intersection of the two. Tickets available from oxfordliteraryfestival.org/literature-e...
Here's the list of events! @ruthpadel.bsky.social opens the festival. Among the many highlights are @robinince.bsky.social, Michael Simmons Roberts, Robert Seatter, @josephpconlon.bsky.social, Sean Borodale, Fiona Benson, & the 15th Festival Slam.
www.ticketsource.co.uk/cheltenhampo...
Jewel amongst dross.
(one for the physicists and mathematicians)
Possibly the only sonnet on Dirac's Principles of Quantum Mechanics
Sonnets on Dirac's book Principles of Quantum Mechanics are not in the swampland. Hear me read one this afternoon.
Thanks to my wonderful grad students (especially Martin) for this cake for my birthday today!
Do you want to listen to ten poems on science? Thu 30th Jan, 2pm UK time.
Register for the Brilliant Poetry reading here
bit.ly/brilliantpoe...
To me, everyone who is clearly excellent (by Oxford standards) gets in irrespective of anything else.
At the boundaries, it is right to consider all information as we try and take the best candidates.
This looks very different from the inside. In evaluating an Oxford physics test score, does it matter if (a) X is at university (b) is post A-level with completed double maths (c) can only take single maths because their school does not offer it?
Yes. This is all contextual information.