2005 December 15
Betriebsausflug: Weihnachtsmarkt, Mannheim
2005 November 18
Read The Schopenhauer Cure by
Irvin D. Yalom (HarperCollins 2005)
My review: Psychologically illuminating dramatized portrait of philosopher
Arthur Schopenhauer that explains the style if not the power of his philosophy
2005 October 20-21
Participated as product representative for SAP NetWeaver BI Accelerator
(formerly HPA) at
SAP Business Intelligence and Analytics Conference
Düsseldorf, Germany
2005 October 12
Received my copy of SAPinsider containing my article
Speed, Scalability and Flexibility All at Once with New High Performance
Analytics
SAPinsider, Oct-Nov-Dec 2005, pages 53-56
PDF: 4 pages, 583 KB
2005 September 24
Finished reading novel
Saturday by
Ian McEwan (Jonathan Cape 2005)
My review: A day in the life of a neurosurgeon, deeply insightful, meticulously
researched
2005 September 12
Finished reading
Warped Passages by
Lisa Randall (Allen Lane 2005)
My review: Some wonderful new ideas for physics beyond the Standard Model, and
maybe testable too, but still very speculative
2005 September 4
Finished reading
The Labyrinth of Time by Michael Lockwood (Oxford University
Press 2005)
My review: An Oxford philosopher takes on some deep physics and presents many
good views and a few debatable ones
2005 August 11
Flew a Piper Arrow aircraft for a few minutes between
Bournemouth International
Airport and Sandown on the Isle of Wight
At Sandown: center me, right my brother-in-law
2005 August 10
Enjoyed a family pilgrimage to Chartwell House, Kent
Winston Churchill and his
family lived there for many years
Chartwell House
2005 July 24
This weekend I read two new volumes in The Frontiers Collection:
Relativity and the Nature of Spacetime by Vesselin Petkov (Springer 2005)
Information and Its Role in Nature by J. G. Roederer (Springer 2005)
2005 July 12
BMW, Munich, Germany
Presentation on SAP NetWeaver capability High Performance Analytics (HPA)
2005 June 23
Baur au Lac Club, Zurich, Switzerland
Dinner with old boys from Exeter College Oxford
Baur au Lac Hotel
2005 June 6
University of Trier, Germany
Delivered lecture entitled SAP NetWeaver and High Performance Analytics
to Diploma students in department of business informatics
2005 March 19
A First Course in String Theory
Barton Zwiebach
A self-contained explanation of string theory at a level understandable
to advanced undergraduates, beginning graduate students, and physicists in
all areas of research
"Zwiebach .. presents a remarkably
comprehensive description of string theory that starts at the beginning,
assumes only minimal knowledge of advanced physics, and proceeds to the
current frontiers of physics."
David Gross
From Chapter 1:
String theory is an excellent candidate for a unified theory of all forces
of nature. It is also a rather impressive prototype of a complete theory of
physics. In string theory all forces are truly unified in a deep and
significant way. In fact, all the particles are unified. String theory is a
quantum theory, and because it includes gravitation, it is a quantum theory
of gravity. .. It is almost certain that string theory will give rise to a
new conception of spacetime.
From Chapter 15:
In summary, while a
fully realistic model of particle physics has not yet been built in string
theory, consistent progress towards this goal has been made. As we have
seen, there are now string models which have precisely the particle content
of the Standard Model. .. String theory is a theory of all the interactions,
and it includes gravity.
2005 March 7
Received my subscription copy of:
Journal of Consciousness Studies, Vol 12 No 2 (2005)
Pages 78-83 present my review:
Roads to Reality — Penrose and Wolfram Compared
comparing the books
—
The Road to Reality by
Roger Penrose
— A New Kind of Science by
Stephen Wolfram
2005 February 7
Quo Vadis Quantum Mechanics?
A. Elitzur, S. Dolev, N. Kolenda (eds.)
AR Quantenmechanik ist sowohl
der Kronjuwel als auch der größte Skandal der Physik. Sie ist die tiefste,
erfolgreichste, exakteste, und fruchtbarste physikalische Theorie die je
entworfen wurde. Sie verbirgt absurde Rätsel und bizarre Paradoxe, die die
wissenschaftliche Suche nach vernünftigen Regeln in der Natur verhexen.
Das Buch ist eine direkte Antwort auf diese Rätsel und Paradoxe.
Konzipiert und durchgeführt wurde das Projekt vom "Center for Frontier
Sciences" an der Temple University in Philadelphia. Geschrieben in
stilistisch schönem, wenn auch teilweise recht technischem Englisch, enthält
das Buch fundamentale Beiträge von sechzehn der brillantesten und
anerkanntesten Denker in der Physik.
Die Auflistung von Autoren und
ihren Themen spricht für sich: Avshalom Elitzur über Lösungen zu den Rätseln
der Quantenmechanik, Hans-Peter Dürr über die Umgehung klassischer
Vorurteile, Časlav Brukner und Anton Zeilinger über Quanten-Information,
Daniel Greenberger und Karl Svozil über Zeitreisen, James Hartle über
Interpretationen der Quantenmechanik, Nobelpreisträger Anthony Leggett über
die Grenzen der Quantenmechanik, Nobelpreisträger Gerard t' Hooft über
Determinismus hinter Quantenmechanik, Carlo Rovelli über relationale
Quantenmechanik, Lee Smolin über Matrix-Modelle, Diederik und Sven Aerts
über ein Rahmenwerk für Quantenmechanik und Relativität, Simon Saunders über
Wahrscheinlichkeit, Jeremy Butterfield über Hamilton–Jacobi Theorie, Yakir
Aharonov und Shahar Dolev über Quantenverschränkung, Basil Hiley über
nichtkommutative Quantengeometrie, Elitzur und Dolev über eine neue Theorie
der Zeit, Geoffrey Chew über Event-basierte Quantentheorie, Fritz-Albert
Popp über Biophotonik, und Henry Stapp über Quantentheorie und den
menschlichen Geist.
Das Ergebnis — eine Sammlung sowohl aus
leserfreundlichen Überblicken, die sogar Laien gerecht werden, als auch aus
technischen Analysen mit hartem mathematischem Inhalt — ist eine Fundgrube
für alle, die rigoroses Denken über die tiefsten und schwierigsten Fragen in
der Wissenschaft schätzen.
AR Quantum mechanics is both the crown
jewel and the greatest scandal of physics. It is the deepest, most
successful, most exact, and most fruitful physical theory ever devised, and
yet it harbors the most absurd riddles and bizarre paradoxes that ever
bedeviled the scientific search for reasonable laws in nature.
This
book is a direct response to that paradox. The project was conceived and
carried through by the Center for Frontier Sciences at Temple University in
Philadelphia. Written in elegant but often very technical English, the book
brings together fundamental contributions by sixteen of the most brilliant
and distinguished thinkers in physics.
The roll call of authors and
their topics speaks for itself: Avshalom Elitzur on how to approach the
puzzles, Hans-Peter Dürr on escaping classical prejudice, Časlav Brukner and
Anton Zeilinger on quantum information, Daniel Greenberger and Karl Svozil
on time travel, James Hartle on interpretations of quantum mechanics, Nobel
laureate Anthony Leggett on where quantum mechanics may break down, Nobel
laureate Gerard t' Hooft on determinism beneath quantum mechanics, Carlo
Rovelli on relational quantum mechanics, Lee Smolin on matrix models,
Diederik and Sven Aerts on a framework for quantum mechanics and relativity,
Simon Saunders on probability, Jeremy Butterfield on Hamilton–Jacobi theory,
Yakir Aharonov and Shahar Dolev on quantum entanglement, Basil Hiley on
non-commutative quantum geometry, Elitzur and Dolev on a new theory of time,
Geoffrey Chew on event-based quantum theory, Fritz-Albert Popp on
biophotonics, and Henry Stapp on quantum theory and the mind.
The
result — a collection including accessible surveys that even lay readers can
enjoy and technical analyses with hard mathematical content — is treasure
trove for all who value rigorous thinking about the deepest and most
challenging issues in science.
Chemie in Labor und Biotechnik
02/2005
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