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.)

On January 14, 2011, Caltech hosted TEDxCaltech, an exciting one-day event to honor Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate, Caltech physics professor, iconoclast, visionary, and all-around "curious character." Visit TEDxCaltech.com for more details.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• TEDx
• TEDxCaltech
• Caltech
• Feynman
• physics
• diagrams
• gravity
• science
• technology
• research

[robke136]

@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.

[robke136]

@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.

[DigitizedSelf]

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

[robke136]

@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

[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)

[1Pelito1]

jokes nobody laughs at. that's funny