🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Aug5.145638.29830@galois.mit.edu>, jbaez@riesz.mit.edu (John C. Baez) writes:

> Knots and physics, like I said.  :-)  
> 
> More precisely, I am interested now in tangles and quantum gravity.
> Rovelli and Smolin wrote a paper in which they came up with a
> fascinating approach to quantizing gravity nonperturbatively (one of THE
> big problems in useless theoretical physics, I should add for those not
> already aware) using loops in R^3.  There are deep relationships
> with knot theory.  Since I had long yearned to mess with quantum gravity
> and had in the meantime learned a bit about Jones' work on knot
> invariants and its many spinoffs, I decided to move in this direction,
> away from my earlier work on nonlinear PDE and quantum field theory.  I
> am now visiting Syracuse U., where I just had a great time talking with
> Smolin, Ashtekar, Crane, Loll, Bruegmann and others who are into this
> sort of thing.
> 
> You must not have been reading sci.physics diligently enough until now
> because I have wasted large amounts of time here trying to get people
> interested in this topic.

You are 100% right! As a matter of fact, I did not know that these wonderful
newsgroups existed at all until a few days ago!! On top of that, when I asked
that soap-bubble problem in the sci.physics group and you wrote me back its
answer, I was so happy because my confusion since the last several weeks was
erased!

  By all means buy Kauffman's book "Knots and
> Physics"! 

I shall buy it in October when I have the money!

 It's a very good introduction.  As long as you don't get the
> silly idea that you can get a job doing this stuff I whole-heartedly
> encourage you to pursue this fascinating area.

Why can't I get a job? Can't I go back to my home country and teach mathe-
matical physics? Isn't THAT supposed to be a job??

If I had known that you existed, I would have applied at M.I.T. for a Ph.D.
program in physics or mathematics. But any how, right now, I am about to become
a TA at the Department of Physics at Purdue University to study for my Ph.D.
degree. (That's within less than 3 weeks!) Do you know of anyone at Purdue with
interests similar to yours? I know that there are a couple of supersymmetry
theorists in the Department, but I don't know yet whether they are interested
in knots. (I wish/hope they are!) 

  I'll send you (and
> anyone) a series of rambling articles on this stuff that I posted here.
> I'll send you ASCII but anyone who can do LATEX should ask for them in
> LATEX form.

I have already requested you before to send me the LATEX form of your articles,
but when I just now read "...who can do LATEX..." I was not sure what LATEX
means. 
> 
> I have written 3 papers on this sort of thing so far and I could send
> them to you but they are likely to be incomprehensible until you learn
> some more physics.
> 
>>I have had some quantum mechanics, but not QFT yet (which I hope to learn in
>>not too distant a future).
> 
> Go for it!
> 
My initial academic advisor at Purdue will be Prof. Lonnie van Zandt, who is a
theoretical physicist working on the physics of RNA and DNA molecules (so I
understand). I have yet to talk to him about exactly what courses I will be
taking this fall. My guess is that I will be able to take QFT within a year.

> Starting in September I intend to post some more articles on knots,
> links, braids, tangles, and quantum gravity.  I also would like to try
> to popularize Louis Crane's ideas on category theory in physics.  He
> tends to terrify physicists when he says things like "the category of
> all categories is a 2-category," but I really think it does present an
> interesting way to try to do manifestly diffeomorphism-invariant quantum
> field theory, so I will try to make it less scary.

I look forward to reading your future articles. Again, thanks for the articles
which you sent me through e-mail today!