Sean Carroll – Four Way Interview

Sean Carroll is a theoretical physicist at the California Institute of Technology. His papers on dark matter and dark energy, the physics of extra dimensions, and alternative theories of gravity have been widely praised. he is also one of the founders of the group blog cosmicvariance.com. His book on time and entropy is From Eternity to Here.

Why Science?

The best thing about science is the sense of surprise. Human imagination is a powerful force, and we can invent all kinds of crazy ideas. But studying the universe teaches us things we never would have come up with on our own. Science lets us peer into corners of the universe that are incredibly far from our everyday experience, and the amazing thing is that we are eventually able to understand what’s going on.

Why this book?

Time is familiar; we all use it every day. But there are still mysteries that surround it. One of the deepest mysteries – “Why is the past different from the future?” – leads us directly to thinking about the origin of the universe. Studying the nature of time is a great way to start with the world immediately around us, take seriously what we observe, and end up thinking about some of the biggest questions out there.

What’s next?

Mostly I’m doing research, thinking about the role of time in quantum field theory as well as approaches to the very beginning of the universe. If I do write another book, it might be about connecting the laws of nature to the meaning of life. (No reason not to think big.)

What’s exciting you at the moment?

I love the fact that physics is a constantly shifting field; excitement moves from problem to problem as we come up with new ideas and are surprised by new data. There are a bunch of experiments running right now that could have a huge impact — searches for new particles, new forces, dark matter, gravitational waves. I’m looking forward to having some of our cherished ideas overturned by harsh reality. That’s when things get exciting.

Comments

Why Nobody Understands Quantum Physics - Frank Verstraete and Céline Broeckaert **

It's with a heavy heart that I have to say that I could not get on with this book. The structure is all over the place, while the content veers from childish remarks to unexplained jargon. Frank Versraete is a highly regarded physicist and knows what he’s talking about - but unfortunately, physics professors are not always the best people to explain physics to a general audience and, possibly contributed to by this being a translation, I thought this book simply doesn’t work. A small issue is that there are few historical inaccuracies, but that’s often the case when scientists write history of science, and that’s not the main part of the book so I would have overlooked it. As an example, we are told that Newton's apple story originated with Voltaire. Yet Newton himself mentioned the apple story to William Stukeley in 1726. He may have made it up - but he certainly originated it, not Voltaire. We are also told that ‘Galileo discovered the counterintuitive law behind a swinging o...

Ctrl+Alt+Chaos - Joe Tidy ****

Anyone like me with a background in programming is likely to be fascinated (if horrified) by books that present stories of hacking and other destructive work mostly by young males, some of whom have remarkable abilities with code, but use it for unpleasant purposes. I remember reading Clifford Stoll's 1990 book The Cuckoo's Egg about the first ever network worm (the 1988 ARPANet worm, which accidentally did more damage than was intended) - the book is so engraved in my mind I could still remember who the author was decades later. This is very much in the same vein, but brings the story into the true internet age. Joe Tidy gives us real insights into the often-teen hacking gangs, many with members from the US and UK, who have caused online chaos and real harm. These attacks seem to have mostly started as pranks, but have moved into financial extortion and attempts to destroy others' lives through doxing, swatting (sending false messages to the police resulting in a SWAT te...

Battle of the Big Bang - Niayesh Afshordi and Phil Harper *****

It's popular science Jim, but not as we know it. There have been plenty of popular science books about the big bang and the origins of the universe (including my own Before the Big Bang ) but this is unique. In part this is because it's bang up to date (so to speak), but more so because rather than present the theories in an approachable fashion, the book dives into the (sometimes extremely heated) disputed debates between theoreticians. It's still popular science as there's no maths, but it gives a real insight into the alternative viewpoints and depth of feeling. We begin with a rapid dash through the history of cosmological ideas, passing rapidly through the steady state/big bang debate (though not covering Hoyle's modified steady state that dealt with the 'early universe' issues), then slow down as we get into the various possibilities that would emerge once inflation arrived on the scene (including, of course, the theories that do away with inflation). ...

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