The String Coffee Table

Finally!

Posted by Robert M.

Okay, I’m a bit embarassed but I’ve finally gotten around to contributing something to the String Coffee Table. I’m embarassed because Jacques first contacted me in mid-June and here I am making my first post in mid-September.

I just got back from Columbus, where I spent a few days at a great workshop titled Quantum Theory of Black Holes. I decided at the last minute to trek down from Ann Arbor, making the three and a half hour drive with a couple of intrepid grad students. This was spurred, in no small part, by a combination of excellent speakers and no registration fees. When we showed up we were surprised to find that, besides the people who were actually speaking, there were very few participants. I can’t begin to explain how happy this made me. Having such a small group made every talk very interactive. Many of the talks went well over the allotted time because of this, but getting to hear everyone’s opinion on each topic was worth it. Furthermore, having a small group meant that there was no waiting in line to talk and ask questions during the break.

Once I’ve had a chance to look over my notes from the talk I’ll try and put together a more detailed post on some of the physics. One of the main themes that came out of the talks had to do with whether or not two-dimensional black holes exist in String Theory. The short version of this is that, in situations where we have a complete Matrix-Model description of what is going on, people seem to be finding evidence that there aren’t black holes (at least in the singlet sector). Clearly, this involves quite a few caveats, but it was interesting to see several people approaching the same conclusion. Unfortunately, I missed Herman Verlinde’s talk this morning where I think he was going to announce similar conclusions. I’ll try to refine this statement and add some comments on the physics later.

One of the reasons that there was such a small group at the workshop was that there were quite a few remote participants. The talks were all held at Ohio State’s Access Grid site. This means, in theory, that any other group with an Access Grid site can participate fully. There was a giant projection screen in the room with the speaker’s slides, as well as live video feeds of all the remote locations. One of the talks on the first day was Sumit Das, broadcasting from Kentucky. Unfortunately, there seemed to be quite a few bugs and we missed large portions of the talk. There was one awkward moment when the “live” feed of Sumit began to loop over and over. One by one, we all came to grips with the horrifying conclusion that Sumit was, in fact, an android that had crashed, and was now stuck in an interminable loop repeating the same point from his slides. Luckily, it was just a problem with the connection. In all seriousness, it’s a great concept with a few bugs that need ironing out. I’m told that the host site should have a microphone at each seat so that the remote sites can hear all of the questions and comments from the audience. The OSU site did not have all of its microphones, so I’m sure that the remote audiences missed out on some of the great back-and-forth between the speakers and the audience.