89. First week of November on NEQNET

Below is the list of  what I wrote on this blog during the first week of November… not bad actually, it looks like with Agata’s birth I have become more productive, not less… Surprising

In the mean time, the number of subsribers to this blog has hit the magic number 100 (and peaked at 108 ) Thanks for subscribing, new readers, you are very much welcome!

Physics

* More talks: M2 branes and AdS/CFT, correlations of low multipoles in CMB

Igor Klebanov’ is talking on the membrane minirevolution at Perimeter; Glen Starkman argues that CMB is inconsistent with standard model of cosmology.

* Chaos in YM and confinement

I explain how relevant could be chaotic behavior of classical solutions of the Yang-Mills EOMs for the quantum YM at strong coupling. The maximal number of comments/post ever made on this blog.

* Chaos in quantum field theory

I discuss issues that may appear at quantization of classical theories that admit chaotic behaviour.

* A talk on scalar QFT, exact renormalization group and RG fixed points

I am trying to learn what is exact renormalization group. The main conclusion is that I don’t see how it can say anything new about UV structure of the theory compared to old poor Wilson RG.

* Watching worlds collide: bubbles, bubbles, bubbles

I discuss the paper by Matt Kleban et al. about collision of Coleman-de Luccia bubbles on the landscape and their effect on CMB.

* Edward Witten?s talk on 3D gravity

Edward Witten’s talk on 3D quantum gravity given at the Institute for Advanced Study. In comments Lubos explains why he thinks that monster group is irrelevant for extremal CFTs corresponding to .

Biology

*How eukaryotic cells feel direction

It is explained how the directional sensing in eukaryotic cells works; stochastic theory of the membrane reaction is introduced.

Politics and economics

* Excess of cash and origin of bubbles

I argue that the ultimate reason for bubbles to take off is the excessive activity on markets, when institutional and public investors have too much cash to invest.

* Obama is a president. What is there for us in it?

How Obama is going to deal with financial crisis and science/innovation funding? Let us see. Featuring Bee in comments!

Poetry

*Publishers and monkeys

James Kotsybar is trying to prove (using strong wording) that publishers are who they are.