(Includes the Chasm of Ignorance)
December 2, 2016 6:28 AM   Subscribe

The Map of Physics : "Everything we know about physics - and a few things we don't - in a simple map." (SLYT, via Kottke)
posted by gwint (11 comments total) 24 users marked this as a favorite
 
The Map itself.
posted by bonehead at 6:45 AM on December 2, 2016 [6 favorites]


That chasm seems mighty... small. Relatively speaking.
posted by sutt at 7:16 AM on December 2, 2016


Yeah the amount of stuff we don't know is itself unknowable, more accurate to have a giant torn fringe with "there be dragons" written on it. I'd put a whole sea of uncertainty around "chaos theory" for instance. It's not so much a map as a cartoon.
posted by Nelson at 7:38 AM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


My issue is that the boundaries of what we don't know are not contiguous. Further, we, of course, don't know how big those voids really are or if they link in some way. I'd suggest the map we have looks more like the surface of a 3-d sponge (if not something stranger). Some uncertainties may be closed voids, but a surprising number are open and connected.
posted by bonehead at 7:47 AM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


Metafilter: Includes the Chasm of Ignorance
posted by Death and Gravity at 7:58 AM on December 2, 2016 [2 favorites]


I'd suggest the map we have looks more like the surface of a 3-d sponge (if not something stranger). Some uncertainties may be closed voids, but a surprising number are open and connected.

Yes, but I don't know how well that poster would sell. (Although I imagine it would be a big hit in the dorms at Miskatonic University.)
posted by Atom Eyes at 8:27 AM on December 2, 2016 [1 favorite]


To physics nerds? Are you kidding?

...though I suppose that is a fairly small audience.
posted by bonehead at 8:36 AM on December 2, 2016


No statistical mechanics or biophysics :(
posted by biogeo at 8:39 AM on December 2, 2016


Hyperphysics is a classic.
posted by wobh at 5:53 PM on December 2, 2016 [3 favorites]


It's a nice survey but he could have left out the philosophical questions (free will etc). I don't think they play much of a role in the motivation of physicists.
posted by Koheleth at 5:02 PM on December 3, 2016


-Theories of Everything, Mapped
-Three Lectures on AdS/CFT
-Jarzynski on thermodynamics
-The math of networks: "In 2007 Jim Simons, the mathematician who helped invent Chern–Simons theory and then went on to make billions using math to run a hedge fund, founded a research center for geometry and physics on Long Island. More recently he also set up an institute for theoretical computer science in Berkeley... This week a bunch of mathematicians and computer scientists are meeting here to talk about compositionality. That means: how big complicated things are built from small simple things."
posted by kliuless at 9:28 PM on December 5, 2016 [1 favorite]


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