Mugwort

Stephen Hawking said something to the effect that since the Higgs was discovered particle physics was less interesting. To him but not to me. Particle physics is better off than ever. Experimentally, things are going to change immensely. Deep learning revolutionize particle physics and it's only going to get better. Technology gets better. Regarding theory, I personally think particle physics is in that same awkward stage as calculus before Weierstrass, Dedekind and Cauchy made their pioneering discoveries in analysis. Even after that there was still much to do. That was just the beginning Lebesgue, Danielle integral, Moore-Smith convergence. We're at the very beginning stages of particle physics theory. Nobody even knows what the Feynman integral really IS. Most of the mathematics we currently use is sophisticated but in another sense, quite dippy. Even superstring theory is suffused with what we'll likely look back on as broken maths. All the easier discoveries have been made and now the game is going to be different. That's a great place to be.

That simply isn't true. Not discovering a new particle outside of the standard model, not discovering supersymmetry, or bumping against an energy desert does NOT spell the end of the line for particle physics any more than GR isn't over just because they discovered gravity waves. What you guys don't understand is that model building is not a hard activity at all. SU(5), SO(10), E6 whatever. Graduate students do those calculations all the time. What is hard is understanding concepts and there are more than a few surprises hidden away inside the standard model. Strange matter is poorly understood. There may be ways to pretty up the standard model that haven't been discovered yet. People like to go around complaining how "ugly" it is. It's not. It's prettier and smarter than they are, they're just jealous. Particle physics is doing just great and the only thing wrong with it is that it is dramatically underfunded.

Yes! My primary reason for my deleting FB was that it was a waste of time. The privacy issues were there from the beginning. I never doubted our data wasn't used in all kinds of unsavory ways but this is the cost of having a "free" social network. What else did anyone expect? What really surprised me was how addicting FB is and how it changed the way almost everyone interacts with each other. Facebook's biggest crime is deliberately addicting its users, especially young people. If for nothing else, I hope MZ gets a subpoena for that.

The main problem I have with geometric algebra is that it's an alternative framework to express exactly the same things. Some things are expressed or derived easier in G.A. e.g. the Kerr solution of General Relativity, electron Zitterbewegung, etc. The problems with G.A. as I see it... 1) It's a specialized tool that does not generalize well to simple everyday physics problems. Don't get me wrong, I like G.A. and learned it from Hestenes' papers almost 20 years ago. I just don't see the point in trotting out G.A. to solve certain problems or illustrate some theory any more than I would abandon Gibbs vector calculus and insist on doing all calculations in 4-vector notation using field tensors and differential forms. I wouldn't even want to use it to teach differential geometry. Once someone knows these subjects I'd say go for it and learn G.A. It's actually very easy once you know the more conventional stuff.

2.) I don't know how things are now but in the past G.A. had the feeling of a cult theory. Unlike most cults, this one had substance. The problem learning the material first with G.A. is that you won't be able to understand other papers, books or solved problems of others. You'll be dependent on using G.A. and unable to make sense of Goldstein or Spivak.

3.) I'm all for alternative ways of doing things. If you have time to burn there's a "Bird Tracks" method of doing calculations in Lie algebras which is very different than the traditional Cartan matrix, Dynkin diagrams. I advise you to avoid learning these topics the first time around in a weird mathematical language. After you know you're way around these topics go for it.

Full dose is much better.

People like Apple. Google and Facebook are a different story.

Censorship doesn't serve the interests of Google nor the government.

If Google deactivates accounts then Google loses data. In big data it's best practice to keep everything, discard nothing. Government loses an opportunity for surveillance which could potentially be important. Why would we for example shut down White Supremacist accounts when doing so removes the possibility of keeping tabs on them. It makes them quieter, has a chilling effect and their activities go underground. Where's the benefit in that? By closing "bad" accounts like Right Wing white supremacy groups the public never sees their material which unless you happen to be one of them always discredits them. Censoring these unpopular groups only protects them from discrediting themselves from the larger public and we lose valuable clues or evidence in the event someone is plotting a crime or has already committed a crime.

In this particular story involving Manning, Google shutting down an account with information critical of the government makes Google and the government look bad. It does more harm to their public image than good. This material has already been available for a very long time and nothing new is learned. Why bother to censor? Neither Google nor the government stand to gain anything and only open themselves up to lose.

For all the censorship Google or the government engages in, in practice nothing of substance is ever covered up anyway.