Markopoulou Kalamara recently accepted a five-year renewable post at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics in Waterloo, Ontario, Canada. Fotini, whose parents are both sculptors, says, “My strength is to put things together out of nothing, to take this ingredient and another one there and stick something together.” So she started with Penrose’s spin networks, mixed in some LQG anc came up with networks that do not live in space and are not made of matter, but actually give rise to space and matter themselves. Her theory already predicts one of the most distinctive features of General Relativity–light cones, regions of spacetime within which light can reach a particular event, which ensures that cause precedes effect.
The time to verify the theory experimentally is fast approaching. One experiment may be to track gamma-ray photons from billions of light-years away. If spacetime is in fact discrete, as her theory says, then the speed of light should vary slighly with the wavelength. If her causal spin networks theory is correct, it would mean that the universe functions like a giant quantum computer.
Like you, Drog, I was drawn to physics as the area where all the facts came together into the one crystal-clear blinding insight of Truth – not. The relativity-quantum mechanics paradox is the core issue of our time, in my opinion, and I just don’t have any deep insights or snappy one-liners to add to the discussion. I’ve always berated myself that my wide ranging (read short) attention span and my pedestrian rather than soaring level of mathematical skills have effectively preventd me from digging in to theoretical physics to go seek the answers myself. Instead, I endlessly prowl the popular accounts of other’s work for the Answer. I’ve followed the decades of work by Edward Witten closely and I do think of anybody he has paid the dues required to actually have a claim to a One True Path with string theory, even if the end of that road is still shrouded in the mists. Now along comes 31-year-old Fotini Markopoulou Kalamara and bam, she’s got the answer? Maybe. I also think, however, she’s obviously right up there with Trinity as a geek’s dream girl come true, and I really envy her “oh, I stopped one day at a killer lecture, stuck around, got hooked and thought I’d win my Nobel here before moving on to classical cooking…” storyline. Wish MY academic career had gone so smoothly. So who knows, maybe the universe runs not on strings or loops but on sour grapes instead…
It’s probably not easy to accept that someone with a natural gift for a given subject just comes along and beats your years of painstaking hard work. It’s these people who often make the difference in scientific advances. It’s nothing to be ashamed of to be beaten to it by someone who “just gets it”. There’s no substitute for well-guided natural talent. Most chess grandmasters achieve their status in their mid-teens and at that age are already better at what they do than most of their classmates ever will be (not to say they’ll make more money).
At least you understand the physics. You wouldn’t want to sit in this chair, full of awe and enthusiasm but woefully undereducated. Be glad that you at least had good teachers who showed you the beauty of the universe.
I got to peek through the window : “look at what these guys are doing”. To realise that you fundamentally don’t understand what’s going on and probably never will, them is sour grapes indeed, my friend.