Had a fun conversation with Phil Halper (@philhalper.bsky.social) and Dr. Niayesh Afshordi (@nafshordi.bsky.social). The episode will be uploaded soon. #physics #scicomm

The loop of life #physics #scicomm

Dr. Kristaps Balodis is coming to the podcast. He is a postdoc at Carleton University, working on representation theory of finite groups and p-adic local Langlands. He also has a YouTube channel (K-theory) to discuss various topics in mathematics. What questions do you have for him? #math #scicomm

Dr. Christian Ferko is coming to the podcast. He is a theoretical physicist at Northeastern University and IAIFI. He primarily works on sigma models and machine learning (especially the link between neural networks and QFTs). What questions do you have for him? #physics #scicomm

The upcoming episode will have both Phil Halper and Dr. Niayesh Afshordi as guests. Together, they have co-authored a book titled "Battle of the Big Bang," which compiles and discusses various cosmological theories. What questions do you have for them? Let me know in the replies. #physics #scicomm

PRD article published today. We derive the density of states for Friedan boundaries of the free compact boson CFT and give a heuristic argument to show that these boundary states do not satisfy a consistency condition called the cluster condition. #physics #research journals.aps.org/prd/abstract...

I got the award for theoretical physics research from my department ✌ #physics #research

👀 #maths

This is Einstein equation written explicitly in terms of the metric tensor (the last equation) #physics #scicomm

Had an insightful discussion with Manki Kim ( @renet.bsky.social ) on KKLT and other topics. The full discussion will be uploaded soon. #physics #scicomm

Dr. Daniel Whiteson is coming to the podcast. He is an experimental high-energy physicist, working on the ALTAS experiment. He also does science outreach, which includes creating the series "Elinor Wonders Why". What questions do you have for him? Let me know in the comments. #physics #scicomm

Dr. Rajesh Gopakumar is coming to the podcast. He is a theoretical physicist at and the head of ICTS Bangalore. He has worked on topological strings, holographic duality, and CFTs, among other things. What questions do you have for him? Let me know in the replies. Thanks. #physics #scicomm #podcast

Recording of the live session at Zetagravit. The audio drops at certain places because of losing the connection. Twitter: x.com/i/spaces/1Ow... YouTube: www.youtube.com/live/j84ElX-...

Finally, I got a slightly bigger book shelf. Thanks @quantumfoundations.bsky.social for the birthday gift ✌️ #reading #books

Had a wonderful and long discussion with Dr. Zohar Komargodski regarding different topics (including RG flows, generalized symmetries, alternative theories, and hep-th job market). The full podcast will be released soon. This episode is over 3 hours long, so brace yourselves 😅 #physics #scicomm

I will appear on Zetagravit for a live session to discuss topics in string theory. This session will be live on X and YouTube. It will happen on 14th December at 10:30 am Eastern time (9 pm Indian standard time). I hope you can join this session. #physics #scicomm

Just realized this common trait 😒 #physics #scicomm

If I ever had to swear in court, I would use one of these books to swear on. #Physics #scicomm

Dr. Nabil Iqbal is coming to the podcast. He is a theoretical physicist at Durham University, working on generalized symmetries, CFTs, RG flows, and related areas. What questions do you have for him? Let me know in the replies. #physics #scicomm

Dr. Zohar Komargodski is coming to the podcast. He is a theoretical physicist at Stony Brook University (and Simon Center for Geometry and Physics), working on CFTs, RG flows, symmetry enhancement, and related topics. What questions do you have for him? Let me know in the comments. #physics #scicomm

Just another map of the string theory duality frames. #physics #scicomm

Had a nice conversation with Dr. Raghu Mahajan. We talked about string theory as a whole and about the careers of younger scientists. The full episode will be uploaded soon. #physics #scicomm #Podcast

I submitted a request to the Bsky team for two changes to the Bsky website. 1) Internal bookmarking 2) The ability to turn off notifications for likes (I can't find a way to do it). I hope they make these changes soon. Are there any other changes that you think are important?

We had our annual conference in our department today (called PASCAL). I gave a talk on some of my work on 2D CFTs. It was fun. #physics #scicomm #research

Why criticizing string theory has become a "cool thing"? In the last few years, I, many of my friends & colleagues have noticed that many people (physicists & non-physicists) have started to criticize string theory. It is becoming the new "cool thing to do". 1/39 #physics #scicomm

There are some branes in string theory and M theory that I didn't talk about. These include NS5 brane (which has magnetic charge under the Kalb-Ramond field), M2 brane, and M5 brane (which are found in M theory). M2 & M5 carry electric and magnetic charges respectively. 13/13 #physics #scicomm

Similarly, type II B has a 0-form, 2-form, 4-form, 6-form, 8-form, and 10-form RR fields. Therefore in this theory, we must have objects with -1,1,3,5,7 and 9 dimensions which are sources of these fields. These sources are D(-1), D1, D3, D5, D7 and D9 branes. 10/13 #physics #scicomm

Type II A has 1,3,5,7 and 9-form RR fields. So, in this theory, we must've objects with 0,2,4,6, and 8 dimensions which are sources of these fields. These objects are the Dp branes. A Dp brane has p space dimensions. So, type II theory must have D0, D2, D4, D6, and D8 branes. 9/13 #physics #scicomm

Now we can have a generalized version of the vector potential which we call p-forms i.e. they are mathematical objects with p indices (a technical but unimportant point here is that these objects should be antisymmetric in all the indices). 6/13 #physics #scicomm

In special relativity, the scalar & the vector potentials can be combined into a vector potential but this potential is a four-vector. This potential which has one index is called a 1-form (or one-form). 3/13 #physics #scicomm