Basic string theory videos
A good number of string theory videos are appearing on Scitalks now. I've given long lists of videos and there are many still to be put up on the site. There are now many good movies from Clifford Johnson and Barton Zweibach at the introductory level and lots more advanced talks by Ashoke Sen, Matthew Strassler and others.
For the pop science level I think that Brian Greene's video series The Elegant Universe was excellent, and the book is also superb. It's what got many undergrads, including myself, interested in the subject.
From Strings 2005 the talks by Robert Dijkgraaf and Leonard Susskind are good presentations to the general public on a variety of stringy issues.
Some nice lectures by David Gross on a fundamental theory of reality. Parts I, II and III.
Also from the Princeton centenary lectures Juan Maldacena on gravity, black holes and string theory.
Soon I will be discussing slightly more advanced videos for which at least a degree in physics is expected.
I should note that not all of these videos are up on the Scitalks site yet. When they are I urge you to contribute, first in the initial stages of this site where you can vote for a video, but secondly when the tagging and social networking aspects of the site come online later in the year.
(I can't claim to have seen all of the above movies completely, I have seen some of them in their completeness and others I have watched samples from different sections to see that they are appropriate for this level. They are also all from very well known researchers in string theory. If people find problems with the videos then either tell me, or get in contact with the people at Scitalks).
4 comments:
Hi Jon
This is a great idea , Susskind is an expert in the Landscape theory but I don't know whether you want to put videos in that subject?
Hi Sally,
Do you mean because the landscape and its interpretation is a controversial issue?
J
Yeah..well some people don't believe in it! but I think it would be good to put them so that people know what's going on in that field! don't you think?
Many people are certainly troubled by the landscape and how we should interpret it. There are a range of opinions on the subject ranging from those who thing that the landscape doesn't exist, to those who believe we are not interpreting it correctly, to those who believe fully that we are lead to an anthropic conclusion. There are also of course the camp who study the statistics of the solutions to find the likelihood we would end up with the solution we see.
The debate continues and I think that it's important to have discussions about this. If you know of any good videos countering Susskind's talk I would be glad to include them. I think for the basic level talks such issues are less important than getting a general idea of the subject. I hope that we will be able to have more detailed critiques in the more advanced lectures.
All the best and thank you for the comments,
J
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