Universe Speaks in Numbers

LANCE DIXON

‘The most perfect microscopic structures in the known universe’ – that is the exquisite description of sub-nuclear scattering amplitudes given by theorist Lance Dixon, based at the Stanford Linear Accelerator in California.

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ROBBERT DIJKGRAAF

The Dutchman Robbert Dijkgraaf is a rarity – not only is he a top-class mathematical physicist, he is also one of the world’s finest science communicators. In this bracing interview with Graham, Dijkgraaf lucidly describes the state of modern fundamental physics and the continually surprising – and extraordinarily productive – symbiosis between this science and modern mathematics.

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GREG MOORE

Physics and mathematics seem to be in ‘pre-established harmony’, a phrase that has long been popular with physicists and mathematicians working at the subjects’ interface. Greg Moore, based at Rutgers University, has discovered many surprising new relationships between quantum field theories and the string framework and concepts in contemporary mathematics.

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FREEMAN DYSON

Freeman Dyson talking about his being both a theoretical physicist and a mathematician, the troubled relationship between mathematics and physics in his youth, the impressive physicist he knew (no, it’s not Feynman) and string theory.

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Published in North America on 28 May, The Universe Speaks in Numbers was launched twice – at the Institute for Advanced Study, Princeton, and at Harvard University. The two events were quite different but equally successful.

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MICHELA MASSIMI

What do philosophers of physics do, and what light might they shed on the work of today’s physicists and astronomers? Michela Massimi, a distinguished philosopher of science at the University of Edinburgh, discusses these and other matters with Graham in this lively interview.

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NIMA ARKANI-HAMED

This is the second part of Graham’s interview with Nima Arkani-Hamed, recorded at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. Here, Nima is in brilliant form as he recalls how he fell in love with scattering amplitudes – aptly described by the theoretician Lance Dixon as ‘the most perfect microscopic structures in the known universe.’

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MICHAEL GREEN

Michael Green is one of the pioneers of the string framework. In collaboration with the Caltech theorist John Schwarz, he made a crucial breakthrough that led in 1984 to the what became known as the First String Revolution.

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SIMON SCHAFFER

Simon Schaffer is not only a leading historian of science but also a great teacher. He is without peer in his ability to illuminate how thinking about thinking about the natural world developed into our modern understanding of physics, often in ways unknown to most physicists today.

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MICHAEL ATIYAH

In an interview with Graham last November, Sir Michael Atiyah described how he became a ‘quasi-physicist. Ten weeks later, Atiyah was dead. He was one of the most accomplished mathematicians of the past century: no one had done more in the past decades to discover close links between pure mathematics and fundamental physics. Undoubtedly a great mind, he was also an indomitable spirit.

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