Change

After a decade working as an experimentalist, first as a postdoc and an astrophysicist in Sweden and Belgium and then as junior faculty and a neutrino physicist in Chile, it looks like I am moving on to other things.

I am proud of the physics measurements that I have contributed to.

This decade has been enabled by many scientists: Betsy Beise, Bogdan Wojtsekhowski, Olga Botner, Allan Hallgren, Carlos de los Heros, Catherine De Clercq, Roman Pasechnik, Will Brooks, Ivan Schmidt, Claudio Dib, Gabriel Perdue, Diego Aristizabal, and Pedro Ochoa.

It has very much been enabled by my long-suffering family.

Change in Science

Reading Sabine’s recent blog posts (physicists still perplexed I ask for and because science matters), and my own experience, has solidified my perception that fundamental physics has a social problem.

I think it comes down to economics, scientists are trained via incentives in the feedback cycle of publish, get positions and grants so that they can continue to publish. It impacts both experimentalists and theorists, and can cause waste in money and effort and, worst of all, true advances can become accidental.

In 2004 I changed from HEP theory because I thought what was needed, in HEP, was experiment. Today, I am more inclined to think that HEP Theory is needed, but not the sort that results in quick publications.

I have a radical suggestion.

Instead of rewarding publications with tenured positions and significant grants, why not return back to the older model where only a few people are tenured with nice positions and large enough grants to hire junior faculty and scientists (postdocs)?

The idea is to try and reward real advances rather than publications. By real advances I mean advances that would end up in an upper level undergraduate text book. This would fix the incentives.

I am not suggesting that we remove tenure or plum positions from anyone. I am suggesting, going forward, that large grants, tenured positions and the invitation to sit on significant decision making bodies should go to those senior scientists who have made significant advances.

The rest should have some continuing position, like untenured Research Professor, until such a time as their work is proven to be valuable. Or move on into Teaching or Industry. And such positions (untenured Research Professor and Teaching Professor) should be paid respectably.

Partisan questions before the Supreme Court

Two big decisions came down today from the United States Supreme Court.

One is a ruling that while extreme gerrymandering is wrong, that the Court is not able to fix it. While both parties benefit from extreme gerrymandering, Republicans currently benefit the most. The partisan advantage here is for Republicans.

The other is a ruling that while a census question about citizenship may be fine, that the current arguments are inadequant effectively removing the citizenship question from the 2020 census.  This decision came after information was uncovered that the Republicans supporting this question were not seeking to uphold the Voting Rights Act as claimed but were instead seeking to change voting districts for Republican advantage.The partisan advantage here is for the Democrats.

It seems to me that the court, which has a Republican lean, is trying to balance partisan questions.

Thoughts on the Simulation Hypothesis

There are books and many blogposts about the Simulation Hypothesis. Some scientists, such as Sabine Hossenfelder and Aron Wall, do not appear to find it very interesting. Some posts by Sabine (do we live in computer simulation and the simulation hypothesis and other and no we probably don't live in computer) influenced my own view on the topic.

While I think that the Simulation Hypothesis is not very interesting scientifically, I think that it is interesting philosophically or religiously (here I think that I disagree with Aron and Sabine). The Simulator is obviously not the God of Classical Theism, but the Simulator can be the Christian God (under some interpretations).

In fact, it is possible for the Simulator can have all of what I consider to be the most important qualities of the Christian God: being the source of existence of everything that we interact with, having a desire to have a personal relationship with us, having the ability to create change within us, being good, being one and having the ability to hear our prayer.

Also, we already have examples with our own simple simulations of simulation creators placing themselves in their simulation, so the notion of the Simulator having a presence in the Simulation (Jesus) is not difficult. Finally, resurrection would be simple for the Simulator as it would just be changing a few 'memory states' in the Simulation.

So while I claim that the God I worship, the Christian God, is the God of Classical Theism and so do not desire for the Simulation Hypothesis to be true, believing in it does seem to me to be just another way of saying "I believe in god(s)" and it can even be another way to say "I believe in the Christian God".

Thoughts on SuperGod

One of the blog posts that I have wanted to respond to on this blog for a long time is that of god and supergod by Noah Smith.

First I wanted to address the notion of SuperGod. Obviously, that might be pretty important for someone whose belief system is centered on Classical Theism (a Christian philosopher's take on classical theism). But for many of us Christians, the reason why we worship and follow God is not just because He is the Classical God. Rather, it is because of what He has done for us. If you look at the history of Abrahamic religions, our place in the relationship has been consistently reacting to what He has done for us.

While God came to Abraham and said go and Abraham went on faith, the rest of the relationship with Israel was based… on the part of Israel… on what God had done in the past (lead Abraham, lead Israel out of Egypt and bondage, give Israel Canaan) and what God promised to do (making Abraham’s children as the stars, giving Abraham’s children the Promised Land, all people being blessed through Abraham’s children (including the gentiles: Isaiah)).

And a Christian here and now should experience God in their lives. Not just as an abstract idea or concept, but an experience of transformation and redemption. God doesn’t just do the big picture stuff of creating humanity, setting laws and dictating the fate of nations. He desires, and is waiting to have, a personal relationship with each of us. And if we have been transformed and redeemed by Him, then we are not only ’saved’ but we also serve as the ‘hands’ of God, bringing about His will on earth.

That being said, I appreciated Noah’s sermon about not abdicating responsibility and saying ‘God will do it’ or ’the free market will do it’ or ’the forces of history will do it’. I just disagree with the ‘it’s all on you’. Rather, 'it's on God, working from within you'.

Didache

Recently I read the Didache for the first time. It is instruction for Christians in the early church and is generally dated to the first century (although some date it to the second century wiki ). I was confronted, again, with the fact that recent versions of protestantism are not a return to some pure original Christianity. Rather, Christianity before Constantine looks a lot more like Orthodox Christianity but with less pomp.

I am interested in understanding early Christianity, not only because I love history, but because I want to understand what the setting was when the canonical books of the Bible were selected. Christians then were a lot like Christians are now (and in the intervening centuries). Some spent a lot of time in study and thought very deeply, but many accepted and embraced the message but were (theologically) simple and their Christianity was acceptable to the disciples of the Apostles.

Reading the Didache has inspired me to again try and intenalize the reality that a relationship with God depends on continual revelation. Also, I have changed my practice to include the Lord’s Prayer every day. Many protestants assume we are sophisticated and truly understand prayer and do not pray the Lord’s Prayer often. The Didache instructs Christians to pray it 3 times a day and, humbly, I am taking on the practice of praying the Lord’s Prayer every day. I might be sophisticated and be drawn to theological sophistication but to grow I need to start simple.

(Didache)

Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be Thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done on earth, as it is in heaven. Give us today our daily (needful) bread, and forgive us our debt as we also forgive our debtors. And bring us not into temptation, but deliver us from the evil one (or, evil); for Thine is the power and the glory for ever..

Graduate school

When I was a freshman, Freeman Dyson visited my college. He taught a class for non-majors and gave a couple of lectures for the physics students. One that I attended had a number of us, including Dyson, leave the lecture hall to go to the theater and watch the Matrix. One thing he said at the time stuck with me, at least the concept (since the words didn’t). That was that physics was something you do and not what you study, that you needed to get involved in research and not just take classes.

I didn’t truly understand this idea and internalize it until I almost dropped out of my third year of graduate school. It has become one of my guiding philosophies as a physicist and physics professor. 

I have observed that online graduate degrees are popular (universities withstood moocs but risk being outwitted by opms). I don’t see the point of them. Even a non-lab undergraduate degree loses out on a lot of value being online only and graduate degrees lose out on most of their value. I think that a good undergraduate degree should be 70-80% course work, a masters degree should be 30-50% coursework and a PhD should be around 10% coursework. The non-coursework component can be done with industrial mentors instead of academic mentors, but the good mentors will generally be at the same location as the good academic mentors. Who is going to do the legwork, and how is that legwork going to be valid, for industrial mentors in a location without the academic mentors?

I think the real signal with these online graduate degrees provide is that new things have been learned. But that isn’t the purpose of a graduate degree.

Since I graduated with my PhD, I have continually learned new things and worked in new fields. I have never taken a course, just reading papers (and books sometimes) to understand where the field is or to find a good technique. I think that instead of doing this that many people are taking a Masters (and spending money on it). They do get a certificate that others can see, but they don’t get the deep knowledge that traditionally comes from a Masters (or PhD).