Lisa Randall & Marcia Bartusiak

The World We Dream-- Lisa Randall, Professor of Physics, Harvard University; Ron Garan, NASA Astronaut. Putting a man on the moon was once simply a dream. What are some of today's most innovative and thought provoking visions for our future?Image:  NASA/JAXA

Headline news was made earlier this year when the detection of gravitational waves, caused by the collision of two black holes, was confirmed by the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO). And earlier this month, another ripple was detected! The observed ripples in the fabric of space-time validate a key prediction in Albert Einstein's theory of general relativity. One hundred years old, the theory continues to astonish scientists with how correct it is. LIGO’s discovery signals a new era of astronomy and a new way of understanding the warped side of the universe.

Ira Flatow, Moderator
Janna Levin
Nergis Mavalvala
Lisa Randall

Lisa Randall discusses what we know and don’t know about “The Universe Today” at the talk series “Enciende el cosmos” (Turning On the Cosmos) in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, Spain.

Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions is a book by Lisa Randall, published in 2005, about particle physics in general and additional dimensions of space (cf. Kaluza--Klein theory) in particular. About the book:

The book has made it to top 50 at amazon.com, making it the world's first successful book on theoretical physics by a female author. She herself characterizes the book as being about physics and the multi-dimensional universe.

She comments that her motivation for writing this book was her thinking that there were people who wanted a more complete and balanced vision of the current state of physics. She has noticed there is a large audience that thinks physics is about the bizarre or exotic. She observes that when people develop an understanding of the science of particle physics and the experiments that produce the science, people get excited. The upcoming experiments at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) at CERN near Geneva will test many ideas, including some of the warped extra-dimensional theories I talk about. Another motivation was that she gambled that there are people who really want to understand the physics and how the many ideas connect.

Randall is currently a professor at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. However, she stays active in the field because she continues to study both particle physics and cosmology. She stays current through her research into the nature of matter's most basic elements, and the forces that govern these most basic elements. Randall's experiences, which qualify her as an authority on the subject of the book, are her original contributions in a wide variety of physics studies, including cosmological inflation, supersymmetry, grand unified theories, and aspects of string theory. As of last autumn, she was the most cited theoretical physicist in the world during the previous five years. In addition her most recent work involved extra dimensions.

Her background research for the book, on the theories and experiments of extra dimensions and warped geometries, was published in the peer-reviewed Science magazine in 2002.



Lisa Randall (born June 18, 1962) is an American theoretical physicist and a leading expert on particle physics and cosmology. She works on several of the competing models of string theory. Her best known contribution to the field is the Randall--Sundrum model, first published in 1999 with Raman Sundrum. Randall-Sundrum theory predictions are subject to ongoing tests at the LHC. However, the experimental signature that would be required to validate the Randall-Sundrum model would be the discovery of a class of particles called Kaluza-Klein particles. This would constitute a monumental discovery in physics. It would be the first physical evidence that superstring theory is on the right track. Given the magnitude of such a discovery, administration at the Large Hadron Collider would undoubtedly hold a press conference to announce such a discovery. Furthermore, the physics literature would thoroughly address this discovery. Since neither of these events has transpired, the following can be safely concluded. To date, the L.H.C has yet to produce any evidence to validate the Randall-Sundrum model at slightly over half of its energy capability. She was the first tenured woman in the Princeton University physics department and the first tenured female theoretical physicist at both MIT and Harvard University. She has also written two popular science books and the libretto of an opera.

The renowned Harvard cosmologist and theoretical physicist, Dr. Lisa Randall, explores a scenario in which a disk of dark matter—the elusive stuff in the universe that interacts through gravity like ordinary matter, but that doesn’t emit or absorb light—dislodged a comet from the Oort cloud that was ultimately responsible for the dinosaurs’ extinction. Randall teaches us an enormous amount about dark matter, our Universe, our galaxy, asteroids, and comets—and the process by which scientists explore new concepts

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This event was recorded on November 22, 2015 at Science Salon, hosted by The Skeptics Society, in California.

Learn more about Science Salon

Prof. Lisa Randall joins The Deep End hosted by Walter Kirn to discuss the issues of approaching physics and science while living in a non-scientific society and the limits of human understanding. She provides insight on the Higgs Boson God Particle, as well as the use of the Supercollider and the expanding understanding of the universe through modern scientific theory and method.

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Lisa Randall is an American theoretical physicist and a leading expert on particle physics and cosmology. She works on several of the competing models of string theory in the quest to explain the fabric of the universe.

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EPISODE BREAKDOWN:
00:01 Walter Kirn welcomes you to The Deep End.
00:36 Welcoming Lisa Randall.
01:54 What is scientific thinking?
05:56 Understanding theoretical physics and extra dimensions.
10:56 The LHC Supercollider and testing theory.
15:13 Society's approach to the scientific mind.
19:40 Going deeper and further into esoteric science.
24:50 The great journey of science and satisfaction of working out a theory.
30:18 Daily applications and human concerns for scientific exploration.
34:22 Funding and rewarding scientists in society.
37:30 The lag between technology, science and culture.
45:28 How far can the science go?

Harvard professor Lisa Randall (Warped Passages, Knocking on Heaven’s Door) is among our most influential theoretical physicists. Her new book, Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs, explores the consequences of the comet responsible for the dinosaurs’ extinction, speculates about other possible missing elements and illustrates the importance of preserving the elements on Earth that are vital to our existence.

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This session explores the almost unfathomable scales of theoretical physics, from the mysterious properties of dark matter to the depths of our universe and beyond. Experiments, like the Large Hadron Collider near Geneva that smashes together protons at high energies, tell us about the smallest length scales we can observe today while measurements of the universe stretch our observations of large length scales to their limits. Theoretical physicists like Lisa Randall tie the results of these experiments to mysteries about our universe. Professor Randall will tell us about the Higgs boson discovery and its implications. She will also explore possibilities for the nature of dark matter and of space itself. Can there be an unseen extra dimension in our universe? Theoretical physics truly knows no bounds

Link to Part 2 (of 2):

The Origins Project at ASU presents the final night in the Origins Stories weekend, focusing on the science of storytelling and the storytelling of science. The Storytelling of Science features a panel of esteemed scientists, public intellectuals, and award-winning writers including well-known science educator Bill Nye, astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson, evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins, theoretical physicist Brian Greene, Science Friday's Ira Flatow, popular science fiction writer Neal Stephenson, executive director of the World Science Festival Tracy Day, and Origins Project director Lawrence Krauss as they discuss the stories behind cutting edge science from the origin of the universe to a discussion of exciting technologies that will change our future. They demonstrate how to convey the excitement of science and the importance helping promote a public understanding of science.

Video by Black Chalk Productions

Get the most recent updates from the Origins Project by following us on Facebook /ASUOriginsProject and Twitter @asuORIGINS. Contact [email protected] questions.

In November 2011, Lisa Randall spoke to an audience at the Brattle Theatre in Harvard Square about her new book, Knocking on Heaven's Door. In this hour-long video, we offer you a complete, unedited version of her talk.

Lisa Randall is the Frank B. Baird, Jr. Professor of Science in the Department of Physics. Her research connects theoretical insights to puzzles in our current understanding of the properties and interactions of fundamental particles as well as cosmology. She has developed new conceptual frameworks and models that explore extra dimensions of space, supersymmetry, dark matter, baryogenesis, and the Standard Model of particle physics. Randall's research also involves finding new ways to experimentally test and verify ideas, with a current focus on experiments at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN.

The first female theoretical physicist tenured at Harvard, Lisa Randall makes ideas like string theory and quantum mechanics accessible to the rest of us in bestselling books like Knocking on Heaven’s Door and Warped Passages.

Now, she’s onto something new: dark matter—and evidence of how it may be interacting with matter here on earth. For cosmologists, this is sensational. Bill Nye joins Randall to discuss the ideas in her new book, Dark Matter and the Dinosaurs.

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Kaku's latest book is The Future of the Mind: The Scientific Quest to Understand, Enhance, and Empower the Mind (

The Universe in a Nutshell: The Physics of Everything
Michio Kaku, Henry Semat Professor of Theoretical Physics at CUNY

What if we could find one single equation that explains every force in the universe? Dr. Michio Kaku explores how physicists may shrink the science of the Big Bang into an equation as small as Einstein's e=mc^2. Thanks to advances in string theory, physics may allow us to escape the heat death of the universe, explore the multiverse, and unlock the secrets of existence. While firing up our imaginations about the future, Kaku also presents a succinct history of physics and makes a compelling case for why physics is the key to pretty much everything.

The Floating University
Originally released September, 2011.

Directed / Produced by Jonathan Fowler, Kathleen Russell, and Elizabeth Rodd

Interview with theoretical physicist Edward Witten, recorded in 2003.

Attempting to view a 4th dimensional object with our 3rd dimensional eyes.

Is it possible that time is real, and that the laws of physics are not fixed? Lee Smolin, A C Grayling, Gillian Tett, and Bronwen Maddox explore the implications of such a profound re-think of the natural and social sciences, and consider how it might impact the way we think about surviving the future.

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Professor Lisa Randall, professor of physics at Harvard University, explains some of her theoretical models on extra-dimensional, warped spacetime to theoretical and experimental physicists at CERN and how, by using the Large Hadron Collider, physicists may soon be able to probe into higher dimensional resonances of particles, predicted by 5D Kaluza-Klein Theory, and even the Dilaton's which may exist and are predictions of the S-Duals in 11D M-Theory.

Stephen Hawking has also made similar claims, while also stating that cosmological studies done on data from the new Planck Satellite mapping the Cosmic Microwave background may also confirm predictions of M-Theory.

This talk will focus on the Kaluza-Klein mode of the Graviton, the particle which exchanges the gravitational force on a quantum scale. Such a particle has been more than a missing link in the Standard Model, its absence was responsible for having no description of gravity in the realm of quantum mechanics and required the development of M-Theory to fully recognise the function gravity must play in black holes and at the Big Bang. In whatever context the graviton itself may exist, we cannot observe it without building a collider the size of a galaxy, however Kaluza-Klein theory predicts resonances of the Graviton that can be accessible near our own brane world described by M-Theory.

With The discovery of the Higgs Boson, physicists will be able to confirm if Supersymmetry is observable at LHC energies by studying the digamma decay mode for a discrepancy against the current Standard Model. If the cross-section of the 2 gamma rays emitted in a Higgs decay show a large disagreement with standard model results, then there may be Supersymmetric particles interacting with the Higgs. This may be observed when the LHC is at full operational power in 2015.

Along with Supersymmetric particles coupling with the Higgs, certain particles predicted by Kaluza-Klein Theory include the scalar field Radion, or Radigraviton, a light particle which couples with the graviton and has the same decay patterns as a Higgs Boson.
Moreover, since in the 5D brane rescales the mass scale of particles, giving them mass in the TeV scale, due to momentum being carried in this brane.

Gravity in our dimension is a very weak interaction, and has 1/Planck scaled interactions. However in warped dimensions the gravitational interaction is strengthened by 16 orders of magnitude stronger, as the Kaluza-Klein partner to the graviton scales as 1/TeV scaled interactions.

Space-Time warping in higher dimensions lowers mass scales for observed particles, pure Standard Model Gravitons would be of huge mass scales, impossible to reach using human technology.

However, near the brane, higher dimensional partners of the graviton would carry its momentum in a 5D brane and would have a rescaled, much lower mass.
Gravitons could therefore be generated by the LHC at certain, as of yet, unknown energy modes. Several modes may exist and oscillate at higher dimension modes which may lie outside the LHC energies at some point, as it passes the 5D brane outside the bulk space.
Hence, if the LHC does have sufficient energy to reach one of the KK-mode graviton modes then it could be possible to detect Quantum Gravity at the LHC.

Higher modes may also allow artificial black holes to be condensed out of higher fluxes of KK-mode gravitons.
These black holes may only consist of a few, fermionic states of supersymmetric gravitons at the lowest energy state so it would instantly be destroyed by the Hawking Process. This would be a huge leap forward into studying M-Theory.

Lisa Randall is an American theoretical physicist and a leading expert on particle physics and cosmology. She works on several of the competing models of string theory in the quest to explain the fabric of the universe.

What are they, where do they come from, and the proof?

Lisa Randall: So youre jumping to multiple dimensions, which is also something I work on. And I kind of work on it in connection with trying to answer some of those questions that we just mentioned. But the idea of multiple dimensions has been around for ages in terms of just mathematical concepts. But in terms of physics it was more recent after Einstein developed his theory of general relativity. And it was observed that his theory works for any number of dimensions. It doesnt have to be three. But people also think about extra dimensions because of string theory, which is a candidate theory for unifying quantum mechanics and gravity, which seems to require extra dimensions of space. But the other reason we think about extra dimensions is because they might actually have implications for our world and explain properties of matter that weve observed, and how they . . . why masses are what they are for example. Well theres a number of ways to think about what dimensions are. I hope we all know where three dimensions are, which you can say are left, right; forward, backward; up, down. And if you think about it, three . . . we say there are three dimensions of space. And sometimes we need three coordinates to locate some objects in space. So you can say longitude, latitude and altitude. So if there were more dimensions, you would need more coordinates. Now of course for whatever reason we are not physiologically designed to observe those dimensions, but that doesnt mean they dont exist. One way of thinking about it is . . . Maybe the best way of thinking about it is the way that someone named ____________ did it in the late 19th century in a book called . And he said suppose there were two dimensional creatures living in a two dimensional universe? They would have the same trouble conceptualizing three dimensions that we have when we try to conceptualize more than three, such as four. And so he asked questions like,What would observers in this two dimensional universe see, say, if a three dimensional object like a sphere passed through the universe? And what this flatland universe would see would be a series of disks that grow in size and then decreased in size. In the same way that we can certainly think about a two dimensional world inside a three dimensional world, it could be that we observe three dimensions but really there are more. And if a hyper sphere say a four dimensional sphere  passed through our universe, we would see a series of spheres that grew in size and then decreased in size. The fact that we dont observe those extra dimensions doesnt mean they dont exist. And they are hard to conceptualize. They certainly are hard to visualize. But we can think about them mathematically and conceptually without too much trouble. You want evidence, do you? Well we dont know if theres evidence yet. So one reason we think about it is to decide what would be the evidence. So how do we know if these dimensions exist? And of course you cant answer that question until youve really thought it through and thought how are they hidden; what would be the implications? And we havent seen them yet. I mean the reasons that we think about it, like I said, are string theory and the fact that they might have implications for our universe. But how can we test whether it has these implications? Well what were going to do . . . not me but ________ will do is look for evidence of particles associated with travel in the extra dimensions. That is to say if particles traveled in the extra dimensions, there would be partner particles calledKaluza-Kline particles that are like the particles we know about. They have properties that interact similarly, but they have mass. And their mass reflects the extra dimensional geometry. Thats because they have momentum in those extra dimensions. And so what well do is look for evidence of these extra Kaluza-Kline particles. And if we see them, and if they have the properties that we predict, it would be evidence for extra dimensions.  Recorded On: 11/2/07

In clear, nontechnical language, string theorist Brian Greene explains how our understanding of the universe has evolved from Einstein's notions of gravity and space-time to superstring theory, where minuscule strands of energy vibrating in 11 dimensions create every particle and force in the universe. (This mind-bending theory may soon be put to the test at the Large Hadron Collider in Geneva).

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Welcome back to StarTalk hosted by renowned astrophysicist Neil deGrasse Tyson. Neil & co-host Eugene Mirman are joined by Jim Gaffigan, Sarah Silverman and astrobiologist David Grinspoon at the Bell House in Brookyn to discuss the the Curiosity Mars Rover and the exploration of Mars.

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Leonard Susskind
June 26, 2013

Anyone can see that the past is different from the future. Anyone, that is, but theoretical physicists, whose equations do not seem to distinguish the past from the future. How, then, do physicists understand the arrow of time — the fact that the past and future are so different? Leonard Susskind will discuss the paradox of time's arrow and how physicists and cosmologists view it today.

A conversation with the professor of theoretical physics at Harvard.

In this interview, Lisa Randall reflects on what first got her interested in physics, on her work teaching at Harvard, from freshman seminars to graduate classes, and on the role her books play in her work as a public intellectual.

A New Yorker makes the leap from the finite to the theoretical.

Lisa Randall: Lisa Randall. Professor of Physics at Harvard University. And I'm also the author of Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe's Hidden Dimensions. That's always a complicated question. The first part's easy. I'm from Fresh Meadows, New York. It's a part of Queens -- sort of on the outer edge of Queens towards Long Island. And how does it influence who I am today? Well I think growing up in New York can't help but influence who you are. Even though I was in Queens, I went to high school in Manhattan. But also I was subject to the ____________ of being in New York. I was joking with a friend recently. I think my first day of school didn't exist because it was at the time of the teacher's strike. So I think that was characteristic of sort of a sense of uncertainty that existed around that time. So I think the fact that it was a bit of a bizarre educational system in the beginning probably influenced me; but also the fact that it's an intense community where there's lots of bright people around. For me, I think going to Stuyvesant was just nice to get away from the more insular area of Queens that I was in. And I think basically having . . . And we did have some good teachers. And not everyone, but some of them were good. And I think it definitely just influenced how seriously I took academics. You know I just always liked school, so I looked reading. I liked math. It wasn't as much science. I think I liked math. I remember liking math more than . . . The science we learned was a little bit diluted. In third grade we dug up an ant hill and just looked at it. You know that was . . . that was counted as science. So it wasn't really all that technical. But I think I liked just . . . I liked math. I liked the fact that it had answers. You know you didn't necessarily need a great teacher. You could still learn the math, which was nice. But I . . . but I was a big reader too, so I just liked all that when I was a kid. Well you know it doesn't happen at once I think. You sort of go . . . I mean it's funny. You're going into science thinking that you'll have some impact that's sort of more permanent maybe -- that you'll find some truth. And then you realize that truths get overturned, and it's not so easy. And it's not so obvious what will be there. But I think the fact that you can work things out, that you can test them, there's something very reassuring about that. It's not . . . it isn't just opinion at the end of the day. For a while it is opinion until it's tested. But at the end of the day it's . . . it's . . . it's not opinion; or at least we'd like to believe that. And I think it's true, and I think it's been well-tested in many aspects of what it's predicted. So there is still that . . . Even though what . . . what doing science is about is sort of answering questions you don't know the answer to, at the end of the day you sort of have this overriding belief that some things will be known. Well I mean in a broad sense we're trying to understand . . . I do theoretical particle physics, first of all. And so we're trying to understand the substructure of matter. That is to say we're trying to understand what are matter's most basic elements. How do they interact? We're also . . . The kind of work I do also interfaces with cosmology at times -- understanding what's in the universe; how it's involved; how do you explain the properties of what we've observed there as well. So a lot of what we're doing is trying to extend beyond what we know. There's something called the standard model particle physics, and it tells us about particles called quirks, like those inside the proton neutron; particles called leptons, which are like an electron; and it tells us the four forces that we know about. And we're trying to get beyond that. We're trying to understand questions like, What are masses? Why are they what they are? How are those masses related? Why are they related in the way they are? Are the forces related in some way? Where are they unified? Recorded On: 11/2/07

Richard Feynman gave his famous talk There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom (Original Transcript Available Here : on December 29th 1959 at the annual meeting of the American Physical Society at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) as his vision on how physics and engineering could move in the direction that could eventually create nanotechnology.

Really good ideas and strokes of genius are often manifest in the right questions being asked: How small can information be encoded? How can information be written? How can information it be read? All of these important Hows were asked by Feynman in a time when computers had to be put in large rooms and when the impending space race was forcing engineers to do some serious strategic thinking in making technology small enough to be lifted by rockets into space to function as serious tools in scientific exploration and defence.

Feynman himself may not have invented the technology we see in the development and continuity of the computer age, but the fact that even in the early 1960's nanotechnology was being considered as a serious field of study was definitely a factor contributing to the boom in computer technology seen in the late 20th century and continues to reach more spectacular levels of sophistication in the 21st century.

Jump 25 years forward into the year 1984, when Feynman tries to retell his 1959 lecture from a more modern perspective in that many aspects of his vision have been fulfilled, particularly with the invention of the electron microscope, the atomic force microscope and experimental manipulation of the atomic scale of matter. Also discussed is the current practical field of photolithography for the manufacture of bipolar transistors and junctions used in computer chips done on an industrial scale and how this process continues with ever decreasing wavelength capabilities of lasers from UV to X-rays. Feynman also discusses the boundaries of miniaturization and how the scale differences affect the function of certain aspects of technology as well as in nature.

In the true spirit of Feynman, the discussion goes into the colorful details and gives diagrammatic examples of how this field had progressed from 1959 to 1984. We can only imagine how Feynman would have felt about the modern developments in nanotechnology in the 21st century where entirely exotic principles of physics may begin to become technologically significant, including vacuum fluctuations and quantum entanglements. Without a doubt he would have found our developments exciting but always within the realms of understanding by studying the most fundamental language of nature, quantum mechanics, to bring our macroscopic brains into visualizing, however abstractly, the tiny machinery of nature.

It was the universe's most elusive particle, the linchpin for everything scientists dreamed up to explain how stuff works. It had to be found. But projects as big as CERN's Large Hadron Collider don't happen without dealing and conniving, incredible risks and occasional skullduggery.
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Award-winning physicist and science popularizer Sean Carroll reveals the history-making forces of insight, rivalry, and wonder that fuelled the Higgs search and how its discovery opens a door into the mind-boggling domain of dark matter and other phenomena we never predicted.

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Prof. Lisa Randall discusses the laws of physics and how they break down at different scales in the real and theoretical world. By looking at the world through different scales, like on google maps, we can appreciate the different applications of science and physics, she explains to host Walter Kirn of The Deep End.

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On Friday July 13 at noon, faculty and other members of the Physics Department helped the campus community understand the significance of discovering the Higgs Boson, the particle that was predicted by Peter Higgs almost 50 years ago. Mark Richards, Executive Dean of the College of Letters & Sciences, will host this discussion for the Berkeley community.
Professors Beate Heinemann, an experimental physicist and a member of the ATLAS experiment at the LHC in CERN, Switzerland, and Lawrence Hall, a theoretical physicist and former Director of the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics, explained what the Higgs is, why it was predicted and how it was proven to exist. They were joined by panel members Professor Marjorie Shapiro, also a member of the Atlas experiment, Miller Fellow Josh Ruderman and PhD student and ATLAS member Louise Skinnari.

Some criticisms on the dominant position of string theory by theoretical physicist Lee Smolin

Novelist Amy Tan digs deep into the creative process, journeying through her childhood and family history and into the worlds of physics and chance, looking for hints of where her own creativity comes from. It's a wild ride with a surprise ending.

Brian Greene, PhD, professor of physics and mathematics at Columbia University and bestselling author, spoke with Amir D. Aczel at the Museum of Science on March 2, 2011.

The Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics presents a lecture by Nobel Laureate and Berkeley grad, David Gross, of UC Santa Barbara's Kavli Institute for Theoretical Physics. He will discuss The Coming Revolutions in Fundamental Physics.

The lecture is part of the Berkeley Center for Theoretical Physics Opening Symposium on October 19 and 20.

Antimatter, an identical, oppositely charged version of normal matter, is one of the most mysterious substances in the Universe and very little of it survives today. Tara Shears examines the progress being made towards understanding this elusive version of matter, and explains the latest results from LHCb and elsewhere.

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アインシュタインを越える、宇宙のメカニズムの発見になるかもということで、世界のキーパーソンとして注目されている人です。私たちの住んでいる世界が5次元宇宙に囲まれているという5次元宇宙論を提唱されています。produced by カナコト発信所　

Physicist Lisa Randall talks about America's role in the next scientific revolution.

Part 1 of a 2-part mini-lecture series given by Prof. Sean Hartnoll from the Stanford Institute for Theoretical Physics.

Black holes have the remarkable property of irreversibility: if you fall into a black hole you can't get out (classically). This immediately suggested a connection with the other famous irreversibility in physics: the law of increase of entropy. Since the 70s, this connection between black holes and thermodynamic systems has been fleshed out in increasing detail and has lead to surprising conclusions. I will give an introduction to a recent body of work showing how black holes can in fact be used to shed light on exotic materials of interest in condensed matter physics, including the still-not-understood high temperature superconductors.

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(September 20, 2010) Leonard Susskind gives a lecture on the string theory and particle physics. He is a world renown theoretical physicist and uses graphs to help demonstrate the theories he is presenting.

String theory (with its close relative, M-theory) is the basis for the most ambitious theories of the physical world. It has profoundly influenced our understanding of gravity, cosmology, and particle physics. In this course we will develop the basic theoretical and mathematical ideas, including the string-theoretic origin of gravity, the theory of extra dimensions of space, the connection between strings and black holes, the landscape of string theory, and the holographic principle.

This course was originally presented in Stanford's Continuing Studies program.

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Professor Lisa Randall's talk at Strings 2002 held at the Cavendish Laboratory, University of Cambridge, July15-20, 2002.

Event website:


Sorry about the bad video quality. It's been many years...

Enjoy!

The World in 2030: How Science will Affect Computers, Medicine, Jobs, Our Lifestyles and the Wealth of our Nations
Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Dr. Michio Kaku is a theoretical physicist and the Henry Semat Professor at the City College of New York and the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, where he has taught for more than 30 years. He is a graduate of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and earned his doctorate from the University of California at Berkeley.

Dr. Kaku is one of the founders of string field theory, a field of research within string theory. String theory seeks to provide a unified description for all matter and the fundamental forces of the universe.

His book The Physics of the Impossible addresses how science fiction technology may become possible in the future. His other books include Hyperspace: A Scientific Odyssey Through Parallel Universes, Time Warps, and the Tenth Dimension , selected as one of the best science books of 1994 by both the New York Times and The Washington Post, and Parallel Worlds: A Journey Through Creation, Higher Dimensions, and the Future of the Cosmos , a finalist for the Samuel Johnson Prize.

Randall explains where it falls short, and a little thing called a brane.

String theory is trying to reconcile quantum mechanics and gravity, Randall says.

Lisa Randall: Well okay, so first of all what problem is string theory trying to solve? String theory is trying to reconcile quantum mechanics and gravity. And let's take a step back and see what we mean by that, because in fact we do understand gravity. Einstein's theory of general relativity describes gravity, and it's been tested. We've seen evidence of general relativity. Quantum mechanics we know very well has been tested on atomic skills. The point is that there exists scales that we can't test. They're much too small for experiments to be done -- in distance, or much too high energy -- where we wouldn't know how to make predictions. It would look inconsistent. In other words, in the regime of large things where cosmology or general relativity applies, we do fine. It's just quantum mechanics is negligible on those scales. On small scales, atomic scales we can ignore gravity because gravity is so weak. But there exists tiny distances or very high energies where both forces (22:24) would, in principle, be important. Those aren't ones where we can experimentally test; but even theoretically we believe we should have a theory which could work at all distance scales. It's just the fact that we haven't been able to make experiments to test those yet doesn't mean there shouldn't be a theory that describes it. So people have been looking for a candidate theory of what's called quantum gravity for some time. So string theory is a theory of quantum gravity. Or it's a candidate theory of quantum gravity. And it's based on the idea that fundamentally we don't have elementary particles, but we have fundamental oscillating strings. And particles are the oscillation of those strings. And if you . . . You can say how could we not notice those strings in the particles. But if you think about it, if the strings are really tiny, they look like particles. We can't see it. To see that it's actually a string, you'd have to see the additional oscillations that a strong can have. And to do that you'd have to be able to test the energies that it would take to make a string oscillate. And it turns out we need to start having __________ approach anywhere near those energies at this point.So essentially what we're doing is we're taking . . . It's sort of an interaction in the sense that we take some ideas from string theory, such as extra dimensions and branes, and see what could be the implications for particle physics. And if, for example, it was found that we were right, string theorists would have to find ways to predict the kind of geometry we propose. And if that . . . After we did our work . . . At first when we did it, everyone said, Oh this never happens in string theory. But after we did it, people found ways that this could happen in string theory. But also some of the more theoretical work such as the infinite work dimension of space, maybe that goes back to string theory. There are possibilities that people haven't thought about yet. So . . . and it goes back and forth.
 
 
Recorded On: 11/2/07

The mission of the Richard Dawkins Foundation for Reason and Science is to support scientific education, critical thinking and evidence-based understanding of the natural world in the quest to overcome religious fundamentalism, superstition, intolerance and suffering.



After sleeping through a hundred million centuries we have finally opened our eyes on a sumptuous planet, sparkling with colour, bountiful with life. Within decades we must close our eyes again. Isn't it a noble, an enlightened way of spending our brief time in the sun, to work at understanding the universe and how we have come to wake up in it? This is how I answer when I am asked -- as I am surprisingly often -- why I bother to get up in the mornings. To put it the other way round, isn't it sad to go to your grave without ever wondering why you were born? Who, with such a thought, would not spring from bed, eager to resume discovering the world and rejoicing to be a part of it?
-- Richard Dawkins

I am against religion because it teaches us to be satisfied with not understanding the world.

The feeling of awed wonder that science can give us is one of the highest experiences of which the human psyche is capable. It is a deep aesthetic passion to rank with the finest that music and poetry can deliver.

There's real poetry in the real world. Science is the poetry of reality
― Richard Dawkins

You could give Aristotle a tutorial and you could thrill him to the core of his being. Aristotle was an encyclopedic polymath, an all time intellect, yet not only can you know more than him about the world, you also can have a deeper understanding of how everything works. Such is the privilege of living after Newton, Darwin, Einstein, Planck, Watson, Crick and their colleagues.
― Richard Dawkins

Now, my own suspicion is that the universe is not only queerer than we suppose, but queerer than we can suppose. I have read and heard many attempts at a systematic account of it, from materialism and theosophy to the Christian system or that of Kant, and I have always felt that they were much too simple. I suspect that there are more things in heaven and earth that are dreamed of, or can be dreamed of, in any philosophy. That is the reason why I have no philosophy myself, and must be my excuse for dreaming. John Burden Sanderson Haldane (1892-1964) English geneticist. Possible Worlds and other Essays (1927) Possible Worlds

I do not know what I may appear to the world; but to myself I seem to have been only like a boy playing on the seashore, and diverting myself in now and then finding of a smoother pebble or a prettier shell than ordinary, whilst the great ocean of truth lay all undiscovered before me.
Sir Isaac Newton (1642-1727) English physicist, mathematician.

Start with understanding what percentages mean, Randall says.

Lisa Randall: Well the first thing -- this is one thing I always say when I'm asked this question -- is it would be nice if people understood numbers at a very basic, elementary level so that when any issue -- not just a scientific, but especially a scientific issue -- is presented, we don't have to say, Some people think this and some people think that. We can say, Seventy eight percent of the people think this, or this is known at 90 percent confidence level. And for people to have some idea of what that means so that we can describe . . . I mean there's always this hesitation when something isn't 100 percent known. And nothing is ever 100 percent known, and we can test it to some degree of precision. And it would be nice to be able to speak in those terms so that rather than say, Some people think this or some people think that, or, Maybe it's true or maybe it's not, that we can really put . . . attach numbers to that. And I think it would give rise to much more intelligent debates on many subjects. Because the way everything is presented today is sort of in black and white terms. And it would be nice to be able to evaluate. And it's an interesting thing. I mean I had a friend who used to do that to me. You know he would ask a question and he would say . . . and I'd say, Well I don't know the answer to that. I'd say, I don't know whether that's true or not. And he'd say, Well, you know . . . but he sort of was a gambler. So he'd sort of say, you know, What kind of odds would you put on it? And it's interesting because you almost always do have in the back of your mind some sort of probability. And so rather than just say, I don't know, sometimes just say well, you know, Maybe 70 percent chance that this is right. You know and it sort of makes you think a little bit more deeply about these things rather than this very surfaced level which can be dismissive. So I think that's really important -- for people to just have a basic understanding of numbers and what . . . so they can understand scientific evidence better -- what it has shown. But also, I mean, there's obviously just some concepts that I think it's important to know, particularly about issues that are relevant to our society. I don't think that people necessarily have to know about theoretical particle physics. I do, however, think that people who want to know about theoretical particle (26:30) physics should have the opportunity to do so. I mean that was one of the reasons I wrote a book, because it's such difficult material that unless you can really give a lot of the background -- explain quantum mechanics, explain general relativity, he particle physics -- I can talk about extra dimensions in the way we're doing now, but it's nice to have this deeper understanding that comes with really understanding the development of physics; and understanding what are the questions we're trying to answer at a deeper level; and why would we think this might be the right answer. But I don't think everyone has to want to know that; but I do think that people who want to should be able to. And these experiments are expensive, and they involve lots of people. And so if we're asking for the government to support it, it's only fair that we should tell people why they should be excited. It's not just discovering Higgs particles. It's discovering new forces, new elements of nature and what that can mean -- what the implications are. Maybe it's telling us about space time even. I mean it could be really just interesting and deep, even if it's not changing our daily lives. But there are issues that do change our . . . that are important for our lives where the science can be really complex too, such as climate change, which is an important issue. And it's important for people to be able to sort of evaluate what's . . . At this point, almost all of the scientific evidence is given in a sort of he said, she said kind of way. And it would be nice to be able to go a little bit more deep into it. A lot of medical advances, it would be nice for people to, again . . . to be able to really evaluate what the evidence is and how many . . . just what the significance is for various studies. Recorded On: 11/2/07

In his lecture, Professor Miller will consider the concept of creativity in the context of his research into the history and philosophy of nineteenth and twentieth century science and technology, cognitive science, scientific creativity, and the relation between art and science.

Key questions to be discussed include the following:

Why are some people are more innately talented than others?
Can algorithms enable us to better understand the mind of a Bach or a Mondrian?
Can computers be genuinely creative?
Can discoveries be made while dreaming?


Professor Miller's books include Empire of the Stars and Einstein, Picasso: Space, Time and the Beauty that Causes Havoc, which was nominated for the Pulitzer prize.

The transcript and downloadable versions of the lecture are available from the Gresham College website:

Gresham College has been giving free public lectures since 1597. This tradition continues today with all of our five or so public lectures a week being made available for free download from our website. There are currently over 1,500 lectures free to access or download from the website.
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Lisa Randall on how some things will be known. What I like about her is that she's not just brilliant, but also not the kind of atheist who would try to turn science into an atheistic business (style Richard Dawkins). She has much more of an open mind. For more videos, check out:

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Intellectual beast mode is clearly articulated by Harvard theoretical physicist Lisa Randall in these seven awesome moments on the Higgs Boson, science vs religion, super-symmetry, string theory, membranes and more.

Professor Lisa Randall, professor of physics at Harvard University, explains some of her theoretical models on extra-dimensional warped spacetime to theoretical and experimental physicists at CERN and how, by using the Large Hadron Collider, physicists may soon be able to probe into higher dimensional resonances of particles, predicted by 5D Kaluza-Klein Theory, and even the Dilaton's which may exist and are predictions of the S-Duals in 11D M-Theory.
Stephen Hawking has also made similar claims, while also stating that cosmological studies done on data from the new Planck Satellite mapping the Cosmic Microwave background may also confirm predictions of M-Theory.

This Talk will focus on the Kaluza-Klein mode of the Gluon, the particle which exchanges the strong nuclear force (the color force) on a quantum field scale between quarks.

For Unification of all 4 fundamental forces, the Standard Model, non-Abelian gauge groups along with the 5D bulk KK-mode Graviton must all exist on the bulk between the branes,
If the Fermions and Gauge Bosons do exist on the Bulk in higher dimensional space, with or without warping, along with the KK-mode Graviton then there must be KK-modes of the gauge Bosons themselves, one of which would be the KK-mode of the Gluon which may be the true form of the gluon itself.
A lot of people are sceptical of the KK-mode of the Gluon, mainly becuase it is difficult to resolve in a detector, unlike the KK-mode of the Graviton.
The Electroweak sector may also have KK-modes of the W and Z Bosons, which would couple strongly with the Top Quarks.
Higher energy Top Quarks are the main probes the KK-modes of Standard model forces and particles and this would be true aswell for probing into Supersymmetry.

With The discovery of the Higgs Boson, physicists will be able to confirm if Supersymmetry is observable at LHC energies by studying the digamma decay mode for a discrepancy against the current Standard Model. If the cross-section of the 2 gamma rays emitted in a Higgs decay show a large disagreement with standard model results, then there may be Supersymmetric particles interacting with the Higgs. This may be observed when the LHC is at full operational power in 2015.

Along with Supersymmetric particles coupling with the Higgs, certain particles predicted by Kaluza-Klein Theory include the scalar field Radion, or Radigraviton, a light particle which couples with the graviton and has the same decay patterns as a Higgs Boson.
Moreover, since in the 5D brane rescales the mass scale of particles, giving them mass in the TeV scale, due to momentum being carried in this brane.

Gravity in our dimension is a very weak interaction, and has 1/Planck scaled interactions. However in warped dimensions the gravitational interaction is strengthened by 16 orders of magnitude stronger, as the Kaluza-Klein partner to the graviton scales as 1/TeV scaled interactions.

Space-Time warping in higher dimensions lowers mass scales for observed particles, pure Standard Model Gravitons would be of huge mass scales, impossible to reach using human technology.

However, near the brane, higher dimensional partners of the graviton would carry its momentum in a 5D brane and would have a rescaled, much lower mass.
Gravitons could therefore be generated by the LHC at certain, as of yet, unknown energy modes. Several modes may exist and oscillate at higher dimension modes which may lie outside the LHC energies at some point, as it passes the 5D brane outside the bulk space.

Hence, if the LHC does have sufficient energy to reach one of the KK-mode graviton modes then it could be possible to detect Quantum Gravity at the LHC.
Higher modes may also allow artificial black holes to be condensed out of higher fluxes of KK-mode gravitons.

These black holes may only consist of a few, fermionic states of supersymmetric gravitons at the lowest energy state so it would instantly be destroyed by the Hawking Process. This would be a huge leap forward into studying M-Theory.

Lisa Randall is an American theoretical physicist and a leading expert on particle physics and cosmology. She works on several of the competing models of string theory in the quest to explain the fabric of the universe.

Professor Lawrence Krauss and Professor Michio Kaku explain the physics behind the events in the first second of The Big Bang, events which range from the first fractions of a second after creation: The Plank Era; The field symmetry breaking; formation of elementary particles; Matter-antimatter annihilation (explained by Dr. Tara Shears); Formation of atoms and the last scattering of photons which make up the Cosmic Microwave Background (Explained by Dr. David N. Spergel) to the billions of years of stellar evolution: the formation of stars and Galaxies which developed the visible universe as seen today.

Using High Energy Particle Accelerators and Observational and Theoretical Astrophysics, scientists are able to recreate the first few fractions of a second after the Big Bang, to the point of symmetry breaking, and in conjunction by using space and earth-based observatories observe the remnants of the Big Bang itself using powerful analysis of the CMB by the WMAP and Planck Spacecraft combined with the modelling of the large scale structure of the universe as done by The Sloan Digital Sky Survey..

The Initial Conditions of the Universe are still a mystery and debate has gone on recently to whether or not there were even any initial conditions at all, maybe the universe can form from no initial conditions in standard space-time and that the very fabric of space, curled up in perhaps infinite dimensions creates an infinite set of paths for scalar fields to branch off of and interfere to create the flow of energy from the initial big bang.

Such a theory is predicted by M-Theory, which gives the Multiverse picture of curved Space-Time in 11 Dimensions which, through quantum mechanics, create many scalar fields that couple at different strengths in each universe creating a different set of physical laws in each universe.
Not all universes could be suitable for life, each universe seems to have the Planck Constant encoded into it, as it is the Uncertainty Principle and the Sum over Histories that lead to the Multiverse picture in the first place, however the coupling strengths of gravity and electromagnetism are completely arbitrary in this view.

In some of these Universes, Electromagnetism could be very strongly coupled in certain schemes meaning that basic chemistry would not arise in some universes. In other Universes the Strong Nuclear force may be too weak to give sufficient binding energy to atomic nuclei, making fusion impossible. In other Universes, Gravity may be coupled far more strongly, creating a Universe of Galaxy Cluster-sized black holes. Other Universes still may be composed of nothing but vacuum energy.

Hence we must be living in a Universe suitable for life as we are here observing it, that is the nature of The Anthropic Principle which is used to answer the question, why is the universe the way it is? However, the true meaning of the answer comes from Theoretical Physics and M-Theory: The Universe need not be suitable for life, our one just happens to be.

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If you like exotic physics, then you will love Lisa Randall. Please enjoy seven mind-twisting moments with Harvard physicist Lisa Randall.

January 23, 2012 - In this course, world renowned physicist, Leonard Susskind, dives into the fundamentals of classical mechanics and quantum physics. He discovers the link between the two branches of physics and ultimately shows how quantum mechanics grew out of the classical structure. In this lecture, he works through some of the mathematics behind vectors and operators as used in physics.
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