TEDxCaltech - Zvi Bern - Feynman Diagrams: Past, Present, Future

Zvi Bern is currently Professor of Physics at UCLA.  He received undergraduate degrees in physics and mathematics from MIT and a PhD in theoretical particle physics from UC Berkeley.  He is widely known in theoretical physics for research into improved ways of calculating Feynman diagrams without using Feynman diagrams, offering new insights into quantum gravity and into experiments to be carried out at the Large Hadron Collider at CERN. He has won a Sloan Foundation Award and an Outstanding Junior Investigator Award from the U.S. Department of Energy.

About TEDx, x = independently organized event: In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized. (Subject to certain rules and regulations.)

[danomicky]

he had a great point about the value of creativity in solving problems

[rasanmar]

I like the last conclusion very much. Nothing more powerful than a good idea. Computers never would do that.

[BlenBlen]

A feynman digram is a visualization of possible particle scattering within in a probabilistic field. It depicts a particle interfering with its field through time. It is a doodle to figure, and cancel out, infinite and improbable loops within quantum interactions with fields. It isn't really applicable to other problems.

[CosmiaNebula]

Did they ever find out how the 35 year debate is settled?

[DigitizedSelf]

Awesome! Unfortunately I suspect that people, who get what Feynman diagrams are, often already know of the unitarity method (or N=8 SuGra for that matter)

[BillM]

I thought it was interesting. I wish he had gone further into the Unitarian method. Apparently a lot of people didn't think so but I enjoyed it.

[TheMrMxyspptlk]

Fast forward 13 years. Any news about 5 loops?

[robke]

@DigitizedSelf Agree, but he would never be able to explain his unitarity method to me in the 9 minutes. I am happy to have a vague idea about it, and if I ever get into a problem that I can not solve using Feynman diagrams, I will remember this talk and look up the method.

[SK-legm]

“Science is the belief in the ignorance of experts.” - Richard Feynman

[alexandrugheorghe]

Fast-forward more than 5 years later, has a follow-up video been made?

[robke]

@DigitizedSelf I get your point now. Indeed, perhaps this is not really meant to be a TED talk

[DigitizedSelf]

@robke136 That's nice, but I'm fairly certain you'd run into it quite fast if you look for efficient ways of doing QCD calculations in perturbation theory - none the less it's good you got an idea of it anyway.

My original problem was that I generally consider TED talks to be of interest to larger section of society, whereas this only has interest to a small section, namely the ones who know what Feynman diagrams are but don't do QCD calculations.

[ukaszsurzycki]

what are meaning of 25 infinity dimmension of Hilbert matrix of course we can use it as intermidiate level of calculation but for me cohherent methods closeup to Paul Andrien Dircac can be used even Delta is infinity value at 0 but it's peak of probability unitariry as well....acording to Feynman infinity imagination not so easy to follow exactly the same :) it 's fine to be close to physical intuition
but acording to cylinder of Einstein we get holes in sky, big bang neutron stars gravity waves much more evindent but space mision like LISA and probably much cheaper than LIGO....:)

[PrivateAckbar]

People go over things so quickly. HOW can we look at things at 10 to the -3?

[robke]

@DigitizedSelf Well no, Feynman diagrams are 'common knowledge' in the field of physics, while the unitarity method is something quite specific. I have actually learned a lot in this TED talk

[jadbeydoun]

What if the good idea was a quantum computer?

[etbadaboum]

Feynman's jokes were much better!

[DigitizedSelf]

@robke136 Well, it's not like he's teaching you anything 'quite specific' though :-/

[anthonymullen]

I started to yawn at about halfway. I shan't make to the end.

[anthonymullen]

I started to yawn at about halfway. I shan't make to the end.