Recently, Brendon Brewer posted an interesting piece titled “Life in the Universe” on how the information that life appeared early in Earth’s history affects one’s inferences about whether it is easy to form life or if life is rare. Its…
Astronomy, Planetary Exploration
New Horizons Returns First Images of Pluto
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The New Horizons probe (after being launched in 2006) is finally approaching Pluto with an arrival on July 14, 2015. It has been traveling since two years before my son Henry was born. This is a very important event, since…
Abstracts and Talks, Foundations, FQXi, Mathematics, Philosophy, Physics, Probability Theory, Quantification
FQXi Essay titled “The Deeper Roles of Mathematics in Physical Laws”
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This week I submitted my essay to the 2015 FQXi Essay Contest, Trick or Truth?, which is focused on the surprising success of mathematics and its relationship between mathematics and physics. My essay titled “The Deeper Roles of Mathematics in…
Abstracts and Talks, Foundations, Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Space-Time
The Influence Network: A New Foundation for Emergent Physics
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My former student Prof. Newshaw Bahreyni and my current student James Walsh and I will be making a joint presentation at the Beyond SpaceTime 2015 Workshop organized by Christian Wuthrich, Nick Huggett, and David Rideout in San Diego in March…
Books and Papers, Foundations, Physics, Quantum Mechanics, Space-Time
A Potential Foundation for Emergent Space-Time
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My former student Newshaw Bahreyni and I have published our paper on a potential foundation for emergent space-time at the Journal of Mathematical Physics. Here is the abstract: We present a novel derivation of both the Minkowski metric and Lorentz…
Books and Papers, Data Analyis, Probability Theory
Textbooks on Bayesian Probability Theory
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I have been teaching the course titled “Bayesian Data Analysis” for almost 8 years now at the University at Albany. Here is a course description: Course Description: Introduction to both the principles and practice of Bayesian and maximum entropy methods…