I
did not publish anything here within the last few months, as the
review I am writing
took up much more time than expected. A lot of interesting project
developments happened also during this time. I will write on them as
well later, so
that nobody will miss out on the insights we gained and the fun we
had with them.
But
now, I want to write about how the review comes along. It has now
grown into a veritable almost 120
page document. And actually most of it is
texts and formulas, and only
very few figures. This makes for a lot of
content. Right now, it has reached the status of a release candidate
2. This means I have distributed it to many of my colleagues to
comment on it. I also used the draft as
lecture notes for a lecture on its contents at a winter school in
Odense/Denmark (where I actually wrote this blog entry). Why?
Because I wanted to have feedback. What can be understood, and what
may I have misunderstood? After all, this review not only looks at my
own research. Rather, it compiles knowledge from more than a hundred
scientists over 45 years. In fact, some of the results I write about
have been obtained before I was born. Especially,
I could have overlooked results. With by now dozens of new papers per
day, this can easily happen. I have collected more than 330 relevant
articles, which I refer to in the review.
And,
of course, I could have misunderstood other people’s results or
made mistakes. This needs to be avoided in a review as good as
possible.
Indeed,
I had many discussions by now on various aspects of the research I
review. I got comments and was challenged. In the end, there was
always either a conclusion or the insight that some points, believed
to be clear, are not as entirely clear as it seemed. There are always
more loopholes, more subtleties, than one anticipates. By
this, the review became better, and could collect more insights from
many brilliant scientists. And likewise I myself learned a lot.
In
the end, I learned two very important lessons about the physics I
review.
The
first is that many more things are connected than I expected. Some
issues, which looked to my like a parenthetical remark in the
beginning became first remarks at more than one place and ultimately
became an issue of their on.
The
second is that the standard modelof particle physics is even more special and more balanced than I
thought. I was never really thinking that the standard model is so
terrible special. Just one theory among many which happen to fit
experiments. But really it is an extremely finely adjusted machinery.
Every cog in it is important, and even slight changes will make
everything fall apart. All the elements are in constant connection
with each other, and influence each other.
Does
this mean anything? Good question. Perhaps it is a sign of an
underlying ordering principle. But if it is, I cannot see it (yet?).
Perhaps this is just an expression of how a law of nature must be –
perfectly balanced. At any rate, it gave me a new perspective of what
the standard model is.
So,
as I anticipated writing this review gave me a whole new perspective
and a lot of insights. Partly by formulating questions and answers
more precisely. But, and probably more importantly, I had to explain
it to others, and to either successfully
defend or adapt it or
even correct it.
In
addition, two of
the most important lessons about
understanding physics I learned were the
following:
One:
Take your theory seriously. Do not take a shortcut or use some
experience. Literally understand what it means and only then start to
interpret.
Two:
Pose your questions (and answers) clearly.
Every statement should have a well-defined meaning. Never be vague
when you want to make a scientific statement. Be always able to back
up a question of “what do you mean by this?” by a precise
definition. This seems obvious, but is
something you tend to be cavalier about. Don’t.
So,
writing a review not only helps in summarizing knowledge. It also
helps to understand this knowledge and realize its implications. And,
probably fortunately, it poses new questions. What they are, and what
we do about, this is something I will write about in the future.
So,
how does it proceed now? In two weeks I have to deliver the review to
the journal which mandated it. At the same time (watch my twitteraccount) it will become available on the preprint server arxiv.org,
the standard
repository of all elementary particle
physics knowledge. Then you can see for yourself what I wrote, and
wrote about
