331. Interview with Bogzabraloff brothers: science and religion
Save This Post as PDFDear friends,
I have just returned from the two-day trip to sunny (well, compared to Helsinki) Italy, where I was kindly invited to interview Bogzabraloff brothers, two of the deepest thinkers of our time. I have also had a chance to take a closer look at rather nice facilities of the Vatican Observatory, by this is for another story. Please find the interview below, as for me – I am tired as … and go to sleep right now. I am afraid, I will be unable to answer your questions until tomorrow but in the mean time – enjoy the interview! (and pardon my English – Bogzabraloffs speak Russian, and the interview was conducted in Russian).
Interview with Bogzabraloff brothers, 30.03.2009, Castel Gandolfo, Italy
1. Bogzabraloffs
Bogzabraloff brothers are not really famous in the same sense, say, as Steven Hawking – if you are a theoretical physicist, I would estimate the probability that you have never heard those names – Ingvar and Grishka Bogzabraloff – to be about 95% (albeit you are really good and proficient in modern theoretical physics – say, you’ve graduated from Princeton). Yet, twins are the deepest, most original and unconventional thinkers I ever met in my whole life. This is one of the mortal Sins of the modern society – no physicists, biologists, philosophers, geniuses, thinkers get into the focus of public attention. Nowadays, people are more interested in life of drug-addicted porn stars.
In case you are in 95% group, allow me to introduce Bogzabraloffs. Ingvar Bogzabraloff is currently a head of the theoretical division of Vatican Observatory, chair of conformal theology at Pontificia Universit? Urbaniana, Vatican and associated member of the Permieter Institute for Theoretical Theology, Waterloo, Canada. Grishka Bogzabralov does not keep so high profile. He is a senior staff member at Vatican Observatory, spending almost all his time closely collaborating with his famous brother on various research projects.
Their career in science started back in 1973, when their father, Rurik Bogzabraloff, retired theoretical nuclear physicist, not-so-famous collaborator of Richard Feynman and Hans Bethe in Manhattan project, started to teach his 3 year sons some elementary mathematics. At that time both prodigy boys were already able to read, and the progress was fast. According to the family legend (that cannot be really proved nor disproved since no documented testimony exists), 5 year-old Grishka has once asked his father:
- If I am running faster than light, can I see my reflection in the mirror?
… and Rurik had to explain brothers some basics of special relativity. They have learned so fast and yet, the family council decided that brothers won’t live the life of unsuccessful, broken prodigies like James Sidis (they were clearly able to follow his path), trading depth of understanding for a certain boost in their progress.
Rurik Bogzabraloff has made smart decision as we will see later: both former prodigies have received their PhDs from Princeton in the age of 21, where Grishka has studied topology under Wu-chung Xiang, while Ingvar was specialized in high energy physics (his advisor at Princeton was Curtis Callan).
Their incredible understanding of the subject, their wit, their depth, their ability to perform complex calculations right in mind were so surprising that immediately after the defence the Institute for Advanced Study has offered them permanent positions.
I guess it really shouldn’t be a surprise for you if you take a look at their photo from those glorious Princeton days. Look them right into the eyes – they shine with Knowledge. Maybe, they are not yet quite completely self-confident, but that is to change soon as you’ll see 
Bogzabraloffs declined.
- You see, the Institute for Advanced Study is known for breaking science careers, – Ingvar smiles. – Recall, say, Albert Einstein. Somehow, he was plain amazing before he agreed to join IAS. And he was just good afterwords, especially in bicycle driving. Clearly, we had to decline, and they hired Polyakov instead.
Grishka is quietly laughing pretending he is looking at something in the window of their spacious office in Castel Gandolfo. It is well known in some narrow circles what Grishka thinks about Polyakov’s action, Liouville field and condensation of Lagrangian multipliers.
2. Castel Gandolfo
Nowadays, you can be sure that Bogzabraloffs are not just amazingly smart kids – just take a look at the photo of them I have just made. They have became mature, and so matured their thinking. Based on my short experience, Grishka is extremely easy going and friendly person. Talking to him, you cannot help thinking that he is always smiling (although his lips don’t, his eyes do smile all the time ) Don’t ever try to dumb him down, he can get bored really quickly. Yet, he will never show this to you directly preferring instead to humour you, which he is quite professional at. Ingvar is amazingly self-confident and strong. If you ever had a chance to meet young David Gross, you have an idea what to expect.
- So, how did you end up in Vatican?, – I ask.
- (Ingvar) During my thesis defence I was happy to have Robert Chambers from the University of Arizona in the auditory. At that time, the Vatican Observatory was planning to build a telescope in Arizona, and Robert was clearly one of those who knew about this Vatican intention. A couple of days after the defence, when IAS offer was already declined, I’ve got a call from Tucson – they wanted to hire me to do some research work for the forthcoming Vatican project. Honestly, I did not like the idea to go to Arizona at all, especially taking into account the fact that they wanted me to work on cosmology.
- (me) Didn’t you like cosmology at that time?
Grishka is smiling again. During this conversation brothers rarely look at each other, but each time it happens I feel like a thunderbolt passes between them. Thunderbolt of holiness.
- (Ingvar) Not really. The reason of my discomfort wasn’t quite the subject of my studies – I saw the prospects and promises cosmology gave us very clearly at that time. The problem was that Grishka, a mathematician, had to stay at Princeton, as they would hardly want to hire him as well. So, I said – I am yours under one condition.
- (me) Which is…
- (Grishka, smiling) They had to hire me as well.
- (Ingvar) You see, there is a crucial difference between scientific institutions familiar to all of us like, say, IAS or Kavli Institute in Santa-Barbara and Holy See institutions like Vatican Observatory. The latter is very generously funded and reports only to Holy See. The staff there has a lot of administrative and funding freedom. A grantee of Holy See usually has a certain sum of money at his or her disposal to be managed without any further in-depth reporting to Vatican. People in IAS can only dream of such freedom. In our case, this money turned out to be enough to fund Grishka’s position.
- (me) I see, that how you’ve got to Arizona. And Castel Gandolfo?
- (Grishka, smiling) Oh, after our famous work on AdS/CFT and conformal theology Ingvar was kindly invited by His Holiness John Paul II to head the theoretical group here at Castel Gandolfo. The offer was of the type you cannot refuse as fictional Don Corleone used to say.
3. Science and religion
View from the windows of Bogzabraloff’s office
I am sitting in the very old chair (18th century, I guess, but I am not an expert in antics) in their huge sunny office at Vatican Observatory. Behind huge 3 m windows of rare Bohemian glass winds chide and forest birds are singing beautifully. I can also hear that some kind of catholic mass starts in the big neighbouring hall, and monks start to sing even more beautifully than birds behind the window’s glass. Overall, the atmosphere is relaxing, the only thing you can think about in Castel Gandolfo is Science.
- (me) Before we pass to AdS/CFT, let me ask you a rather general question. Do you think that science and religion are compatible? Many famous contemporary physicists – Sean Carroll for example – deny that connection between the two can be ever established.
- (Ingvar) You see, science and religion answer to different questions. The kind of questions science tries to answer is “How”: how does the world around us work, how quarks are getting confined, how does it turn out that the Universe seems to be flat and homogeneous at cosmological scales. On the other hand, religion answers to the question “Why”. Why does our world exist? Why quarks are getting confined? Et cetera.
- (me) And why quarks are getting confined?
- (Grishka, smiling) Quarks are confined because God loves you.
I am struck for a moment by the depth of this thought which never came to my mind before.
- (me) Hmm… Let me think about it… and in the mean time ask you a related question. So, if you are saying that science and religion are incompatible, is it ethical for a scientist to apply for grants from religious organisations like, say, Templton Foundation or even the very Holy See?
Grishka clearly gets bored by this question and turns to his birds again.
- (Ingvar, frowning) I hope you are listening to me carefully, because I never said that science and religion are incompatible. In fact, I am sure that the 21st century will become the century of synthesis between science and religion. Many signs of this forthcoming, the only true Grand Unification are already present, especially to a believer’s eye, and it is wonderful that organisations like Templton Foundation help establishing a healthy dialogue between science and religion.
4. Synthesis
- (me) Speaking of synthesis between science and religion, can you remind the readers of NEQNET the history of your discovery of AdS/CFT back in 1993?
- (Grishka, somewhat excited) Both of us had a month-long vacation in Princeton on summer of 1993 invited by Witten, and a lot of wonderful stuff happened there at that time – for example, Igor Klebanov has worked on black branes. I guess the idea was just in the air. One day it has finally hit us, we checked out the symmetry group of AdS space and compared it to the symmetry group of N=4 super Yang-Mills. All pieces of the puzzle were fitting so nicely – large N limit, R-symmetry on the field theory site etc. etc. Soon we understood that the gravitational physics in the bulk is described by conformal Yang-Mills theory on the boundary, on AdS horizon.
- (Ingvar, smiling) I remember that I once said – Grishka, look! We have just explained how God establishes His Will to us! We were completely carried away by the idea! We were sleeping for 3 hours per night!
-(Grishka) And than we explained the idea of duality to Juan Maldacena and Edward Witten. They did not buy the idea at first. Juan was puzzled, Witten was angry as Hell! (He stops for a moment and cautiously looks at the office’s doors.) Sorry about that.
-(Ingvar) Of course, they were unable to get it. Once again we were proven that IAS is no good place for an actively working theoretical physicist, a deep thinker.
-(me) Can you explain the idea to NEQNET readers?
-(Ingvar) It is actually trivial. God lives on the boundary of AdS space and carries His Will to us by means of holography. Literally. There are long relativistic strings with one end attached to the stack of D3-branes where God is localized and another end – attached to us. His is a Puppeteer, and we are His puppets. We are all but reflections of His Thoughts.
-(me, impressed) Fascinating…
-(Grishka, excited) In a sense, nowadays science is back to the Old Testament and Aristotle times and – while the latter thought that there is a crystal sphere of stars on the sky, in the modern physics this sphere should be just substituted by the holographic screen. The only essential modern correction to Aristotle philosophy is relativity.
-(me) Hmm…
-(Ingvar) I think Sean Carroll deep in his heart understands the concept of holography very well, he is ready to accept this picture. Maybe, he is not quite comfortable with it – otherwise, he would not work so much on badly defined aether models. Maybe, he wants to walk one step at a time – first, back to Galileo times, then – to Aristotle.
-(me) Well, I think that I am not quite comfortable with the idea, too. Isn’t God supposed to be almighty?
-(Grishka, cautiously looking at the door of the office) Most certainly.
-(me) How can He be subject to the laws of physics then? In particular, how can He be described by conformal field theory at the boundary?
(Ingvar, seemingly fascinated) Indeed, conformally invariant God is not an idea for average minds. (He kindly smiles at me as I understand how much of a simpleton I am.) If you know the history of art sufficiently well, you will easily recall that the idea of conformal and scale invariance in religon is not new – dozens of paintings by Leonardo da Vinci, Rafael, later works of Escher devoted to religious topics – feature scale-invariant patterns. Our ancestors clearly knew the Truth. But you are right suggesting that God is not limited by conformal Ward identities for example. Later we developed many dual models without scale invariance or deviations from scale invariance.
-(Grishka) I once wrote to Joe Polchinski… Joe, I wrote, what if you think a bit about hard wall model? And then I explained him all the details.
-(Ingvar) In any event, suggesting that God is described by a conformal field theory is misleading. In the same sense you, me and Grishka are described by the Standard Model. This very fact does not contradict to another fact that your mind, conciousness, your personality exist.
-(me) Thanks so much for the explanations… NEQNET readers will be probably interested to know what are you working on now?
-(Ingvar) There are so many unanswered questions. We are trying to understand the place that Science holds with respect to Religion… Probably, Science has to answer questions that the Holy See is so far unable to answer. What is the physics of God? How exactly does his Will influence our existence? After the discovery of AdS/CFT and holographic principle we are getting closer to the ultimate answers. However, remember that, as I said, we are back to the Old Testament times right now. Therefore, the New Testament times are yet to come. And for them to come we need to understand the physics of Love. How exactly does God love us. I mean, physically. What is the physical mechanism of His Love.
I leave Bogzabraloff’s office in Castel Gandolfo enlightened and relieved. I know the Truth. I am sure that conformally invariant God cares for me. I pray to Him asking for help. Help to receive NEQNET funding from the Templton Foundation. Or even Holy See, who knows. On my way back I notice an amusing piece of paper on the heavy iron doors to Castel Gandolfo and decide to make a photo of it. Here it is:
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“God lives on the boundary of AdS space and carries His Will to us by means of holography” lol. Happy fool’s day
Happy fool’s day to you, too, Tarun