Clarissa AL Lee's Lateral Worlds

The purpose of this talk is to look at an aspect of speculative physics, which is the larger topic of my dissertation-in-progress, in relation to what it signifies in theoretical quantum physics (both ordinary and relativistic, including aspects of quantum field theory) and in experimental particle physics, elucidating the points of connections between them. However, as the objects I am concentrating on for the purpose of the dissertation are the big experiments of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) in the form of ATLAS and CMS (and a to a much lesser extent, CDF, D0, and the LHCb), as well as the potentialities of the LHC itself as media for thinking about the ontological conditions of knowledge-making and dissemination, I focus mainly on 1)   Decision-making that takes place during data-analysis to understand how selection is made. I will mostly be looking at the data collected in the process of the Higgs searches, as well as that relating to searches of particles within the ...

Question: Events of the past two weeks have culminated in a lot of deep-thinking as to what I intend to do out of grad school. Well, the larger question is why am I in a Phd Program after having spent time out in the world making money. Answer (or an attempt at one): Background and Rationale: The reason is because I wanted to come back to a world of hard-thinking, books, research and trying out new ideas as well as answering big questions that the 'real' world I was inhabiting did not enable me to do. At least not the world where i was in Malaysia. Sure, I got research work and writing jobs, but most were not particularly fulfilling. I've taught as an adjunct before and I know that I am not interested in that kind of life either. I like teaching in a different form (probably experimental form); I have been thinking that alternative forms of teaching may suit me better, rather than high-school or the college classroom). As a newly minted physics graduate, I never got...

It has been a tough one month, but I am glad things are settling back down. After the first two conferences in late January and February, just as I was beginning to properly write the paragraphs that will form the first chapter of my dissertation, an accident happened that set me back by two weeks. However, I am happy to report that I have since recovered and am proceeding and slowly on my way. Now is the hardest part of this chapter as I am putting together the important theoretical knowledge I will need to buffer any argument I would make. It is easy to feel dumb when you have to work through a lot of unfamiliar (and half-forgotten) mathematical processes to arrive at a systematic way of organizing a physical state or phenomena, but I am happy to note that as I write notes and write short unconnected sentences (even doing some derivations), I am beginning to see how they all come together. Bohr, Einstein, Heisenberg, Schroedinger, Dirac, Pauli, Feynman, Gell-Mann -> the connection...

Attempts at exploring the sciences from a humanist’s viewpoint is not new, and was probably what instigated the writing of C.P. Snow’s famed Two Cultures. It has not always been the case that the sciences are thoroughly separated from the humanities, as its earlier incarnation as natural philosophy obviously suggests. Now, science, as we know it, is separated from its histories and philosophies that exist as academic disciplines in separate departments. If we were to venture further back in time to the Medieval and Renaissance period, we will encounter exploration of the sciences done simultaneously through mechanical and artistic experimentations, as many fascinating critiques and explorations into the work and life of Leonardo Da Vinci have indicated. When modern scientific knowledge and authority were abrogated by institutions and disseminated after receiving their stamps of approval, experimentation and discoveries were carried on as before, including beyond the hallowed wa...

Recently, I've been geeking out alot on Amazon, looking for non-library material to fill my dissertation hit list. As I receive each of these books, I'll talk about them here. What I am happy about, most recently, is that I finally found a compromise for my dissertation: I get to, somewhat, write about what interests me, while conforming to the strictures of my discipline and the dissertation. But the challenge ahead remains. Now I have to write that first chapter,  compile a bibliography (that I will add to over here), and also expand that proposal outline into a fleshy prospectus. This Monday, I found an English translation to L Mandelstamm and Ig Tamm article on "The Uncertainty Relation Between Energy and Time in Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics." It was in a bound volume of the Russian Journal of Physics that Duke Library happens to have. What brought about that interest? Well, it has to do somewhat with quantum fluctuations and semi-classical mechanics. Ye...

 I think I have to jettison this idea for now. Won't work into the dissertation time-frame...but definitely fruit for consideration post-dissertation. --------------------------- I've been thinking about the necessity of performing some sort of a science apprenticeship as a way of better understanding how science at a deep level. I don't think taking courses will help as much as attempting to work on a problem. But what problem should that be? Time to hit the archives.

In case anyone is interested, you can find my contribution to the HCP 2011 Symposium in Paris over here . It's called "Speculative Reading, Speculative Physics" :)