The Most Beautiful Equation: How Wilczek Got His Nobel | Frank Wilczek | Big Think

The Most Beautiful Equation: How Wilczek Got His Nobel
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Frank Wilczek was one of three recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 thanks to his work researching the so-called strong force. In this video interview, the MIT physicist details his work with David Gross and the pursuit of an equation to rival Newton's gravity and Maxwell's electromagnetism.
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FRANK WILCZEK:

Frank Wilczek is an American theoretical physicist, mathematician and a Nobel laureate. He is currently the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). Wilczek, along with David Gross and H. David Politzer, was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for their discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction. He is on the Scientific Advisory Board for the Future of Life Institute. His new book is titled A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design.
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TRANSCRIPT:

Frank Wilczek: There are four fundamental forces of nature as we now understand it. There’s gravity and electromagnetism, which are the classic forces, which were known already in prehistory and known in some form to the ancient Greeks, but which had mature theories in the case of gravity already in the 17th century with [Isaac] Newton and in the 19th century with [James] Maxwell and very beautiful descriptions and, in case of gravity, made even more beautiful with [Albert] Einstein’s general theory of relativity in the early 20th century. But in the course of studying subatomic physics and what goes on at very, very short distances, people found they needed two additional forces — gravity and electromagnetism aren’t enough. And the two additional forces are called the strong and weak forces. What I got the Nobel Prize for was figuring out the equations of the strong force. And equally important not just guessing the equations, but showing how you can test them and see that they were right. This was something I did as a graduate student. I was, of course, working very closely with my thesis advisor, a very, very gifted and powerful physicist named David Gross. What — so how did we go about doing it?

Well there were some — the experimental situation regarding the strong interaction was very confused, desperately confused. There was no theory even remotely worthy of standing beside Newton’s theory of gravity or Einstein’s or Maxwell’s theory of electromagnetism. There were just a lot of rules of thumb and a lot of confusing data. What we did was focus on one particular phenomenon and try to understand just that. Putting off all other aspects of this confusing situation. The phenomena we tried to understand seemed so paradoxical, so crazy that we thought if we could understand that, we could understand anything basically. And also because it seemed so profound and fundamental. Actually David thought that we could prove that it couldn’t — that you couldn’t understand it within the standard framework of quantum mechanics and relativity. And that would be a very important result too because it would tell physicists they had to go back to the drawing board. This aspect that we were trying to explain was the fact that quarks, which were somewhat speculative, but a pretty clear indication of reality at that time — when they get close together they hardly interact at all. Or when they’re moving at very high velocity relative to one another, high energy, again they don’t interact very much at all.

But if you try to pull them apart a significant distance, which means, in this case, 10 to the minus 13 centimeters or more, or if they’re moving slowly then they have very, very powerful forces. In fact you can’t extract single quarks from matter. They always exist bound to one another inside protons and neutrons. So we needed a force which gets weaker at short distances and grows as the distance grows. That’s a very paradoxical and difficult thing to imagine and make consistent with the other laws of physics that we know. Now there were powerful mathematical techniques for investigating that kind of question that had been developed for other purposes called renormalization group. So we were able to bring those techniques...

[bogdanyer]

i like how his face lights up when he starts to remember how he felt at the time of discovery

[rollyatm]

Please bring him back to talk about more stuff I love the way he talks and explains things. He got so happy and excited I loved it!

[DLMiralles]

David Gross came to my introductory physics class...

[johncalvados]

If you tie a rubber band to two objects, they don't interact much when they are close together. If you attempt to pull them a significant distance apart, they react with great force. I call it Rubber Band Theory, it encompasses the theory that things are connected, and I'm waiting on my Nobel Prize.

[kiffe]

where do scientists always get these ugly ties?

[xMrJanuaryx]

This was great. I wish I could relate.. which is probably a good thing.

[FreeFromChrist]

I love the enthusiasm, but he didn't actually explain shit.

[Kusefise]

I love listening to people that are smarter than me talk.

[yosemity]

And my inability to grasp much to any of that explains why I'm not a physicist 8^/

[jeffxanders]

He's touching upon the nature of magnetism and it Is profound as the universe is magnelectric. See Ken Wheeler on magnetism for the primer that's missing from physics - a basic understanding of magnetism.

[Lupocide]

Alternatively: "In the Reciprocal System, the space-time progression is a linear or translational motion. Photons are linear vibrations moving as waves due to the perpendicular space-time progression. The next type of motion is rotation. Rotational motion or spin applied to a photon creates a subatom. All subatoms are rotating photons.
The "quark" and "string" theorists posit that subatoms are a certain number and arrangement of "quarks" or "strings." But we have observed neither. Besides, what is a quark? What is a string? They are "unanalyzable" in these theories. We do observe photons, however, so why wouldn't it be possible that they could be set spinning?"

[TheGaminggk]

I wish he was my physics professor. Im taking Electromagnetism course for my Engineering major and that shit is hell. My professor is literally reading the book and slides. :(

[SpotterVideo]

Is there an alternative interpretation of "Asymptotic Freedom"? What if Quarks are actually made up of twisted tubes which become physically entangled with two other twisted tubes to produce a proton? Instead of the Strong Force being mediated by the exchange of gluons, it would be mediated by the physical entanglement of these twisted tubes. When only two twisted tubules are entangled, a meson is produced which is unstable and rapidly unwinds (decays) into something else. A proton would be analogous to three twisted rubber bands becoming entangled and the "Quarks" would be the places where the tubes are tangled together. The behavior would be the same as rubber balls (representing the Quarks) connected with twisted rubber bands being separated from each other or placed closer together producing the exact same phenomenon as "Asymptotic Freedom" in protons and neutrons. The force would become greater as the balls are separated, but the force would become less if the balls were placed closer together.

String Theory was not a waste of time. Geometry is the key to Math and Physics.

What if we describe subatomic particles as spatial curvature, instead of trying to describe General Relativity as being mediated by particles?

Quantum Entangled Twisted Tubules:
“We are all agreed that your theory is crazy. The question which divides us is whether it is crazy enough to have a chance of being correct.” Neils Bohr
(lecture on a theory of elementary particles given by Wolfgang Pauli in New York, c. 1957–8, in Scientific American vol. 199, no. 3, 1958)

The following is meant to be a generalized framework for an extension of Kaluza-Klein Theory. Does it agree with the “Twistor Theory” of Roger Penrose? During the early history of mankind, the twisting of fibers was used to produce thread, and this thread was used to produce fabrics. The twist of the thread is locked up within these fabrics. Is matter made up of twisted 3D-4D structures which store spatial curvature that we describe as “particles"? Are the twist cycles the "quanta" of Quantum Mechanics?

When we draw a sine wave on a blackboard, we are representing spatial curvature. Does a photon transfer spatial curvature from one location to another? Wrap a piece of wire around a pencil and it can produce a 3D coil of wire, much like a spring. When viewed from the side it can look like a two-dimensional sine wave. You could coil the wire with either a right-hand twist, or with a left-hand twist. Could Planck's Constant be proportional to the twist cycles. A photon with a higher frequency has more energy. ( E=hf, More spatial curvature as the frequency increases = more Energy ). What if gluons are actually made up of these twisted tubes which become entangled with other tubes to produce quarks. (In the same way twisted electrical extension cords can become entangled.) Therefore, the gluons are a part of the quarks. Quarks cannot exist without gluons, and vice-versa. Mesons are made up of two entangled tubes (Quarks/Gluons), while protons and neutrons would be made up of three entangled tubes. (Quarks/Gluons) The "Color Force" would be related to the XYZ coordinates (orientation) of entanglement. "Asymptotic Freedom", and "flux tubes" are logically based on this concept. The Dirac “belt trick” also reveals the concept of twist in the ½ spin of subatomic particles. If each twist cycle is proportional to h, we have identified the source of Quantum Mechanics as a consequence twist cycle geometry.

Modern physicists say the Strong Force is mediated by a constant exchange of Mesons. The diagrams produced by some modern physicists actually represent the Strong Force like a spring connecting the two quarks. Asymptotic Freedom acts like real springs. Their drawing is actually more correct than their theory and matches perfectly to what I am saying in this model. You cannot separate the Gluons from the Quarks because they are a part of the same thing. The Quarks are the places where the Gluons are entangled with each other.

Neutrinos would be made up of a twisted torus (like a twisted donut) within this model. The twist in the torus can either be Right-Hand or Left-Hand. Some twisted donuts can be larger than others, which can produce three different types of neutrinos. Gravity is a result of a very small curvature imbalance within atoms. (This is why the force of gravity is so small.) Instead of attempting to explain matter as "particles", this concept attempts to explain matter more in the manner of our current understanding of the space-time curvature of gravity. If an electron has qualities of both a particle and a wave, it cannot be either one. It must be something else. Therefore, a "particle" is actually a structure which stores spatial curvature. Can an electron-positron pair (which are made up of opposite directions of twist) annihilate each other by unwinding into each other producing Gamma Ray photons?

Does an electron travel through space like a threaded nut traveling down a threaded rod, with each twist cycle proportional to Planck’s Constant? Does it wind up on one end, while unwinding on the other end? Is this related to the Higgs field? Does this help explain the strange ½ spin of many subatomic particles? Does the 720 degree rotation of a 1/2 spin particle require at least one extra dimension?

Alpha decay occurs when the two protons and two neutrons (which are bound together by entangled tubes), become un-entangled from the rest of the nucleons

. Beta decay occurs when the tube of a down quark/gluon in a neutron becomes overtwisted and breaks producing a twisted torus (neutrino) and an up quark, and the ejected electron. The phenomenon of Supercoiling involving twist and writhe cycles may reveal how overtwisted quarks can produce these new particles. The conversion of twists into writhes, and vice-versa, is an interesting process.

Gamma photons are produced when a tube unwinds producing electromagnetic waves.


Within this model a black hole could represent a quantum of gravity, because it is one cycle of spatial gravitational curvature. Therefore, instead of a graviton being a subatomic particle it could be considered to be a black hole. The overall gravitational attraction would be caused by a very tiny curvature imbalance within atoms. We know there is an unequal distribution of electrical charge within each atom because the positive charge is concentrated within the nucleus, even though the overall electrical charge of the atom is balanced by equal positive and negative charge.

In this model Alpha equals the compactification ratio within the twistor cone, which is approximately 1/137.

1= Hypertubule diameter at 4D interface

137= Cone’s larger end diameter at 3D interface where the photons are absorbed or emitted.

The 4D twisted Hypertubule gets longer or shorter as twisting or untwisting occurs. (720 degrees per twist cycle.)


How many neutrinos are left over from the Big Bang? They have a small mass, but they could be very large in number. Could this help explain Dark Matter?


Why did Paul Dirac use the twist in a belt to help explain particle spin? Is Dirac’s belt trick related to this model? Is the “Quantum” unit based on twist cycles?



I started out imagining a subatomic Einstein-Rosen Bridge whose internal surface is twisted with either a Right-Hand twist, or a Left-Hand twist. The model grew out of that simple idea.

I was also trying to imagine a way to stuff the curvature of a 3 D sine wave into subatomic particles.

[Deusmecumest]

Humble genius. Truly beautiful to watch and listen.

[samuelluria]

How foolish, to attach to this video, a title, which would imply an explanation of said equation, and then, to completely avoid any explanation of it. Thanks for wasting my time.

[pogmog]

I really like this guy, and his cool tie.

[thomashan]

It’s surprising to know that humans can understand the invisible properties of something extremely small. Yet still can’t figure out the properties of large orbiting things.

[eurethnic]

His discovery followed the natural path from science to engineering. Why is he surprised?

[herissonrodrigues]

I would like to invite him to take a cup of coffe or something and talk about anything beacause he's so excited and genuinely happy in his explanation...

[rutrho]

I guess we have to take his word for it.