From Soap Bubbles to String Theory: Mathematical Reasoning in the Physical World

Yoni Kahn Northwestern University University of Cambridge Massachusetts Institute of Technology

A little bit about myself

Miller, 1997-2000

MATHCOUNTS, Mandelbrot, Math Circle Math Enrichment Lots of self-study for contests!

Lynbrook, 2000-2004

Still did contests, but found I wasnt as good (qualified for USAMO freshman year, but never again!) Got interested in physics, took physics classes at SJ State senior year
Majored in physics, but took so many math courses I ended up with a math major as well!

Northwestern University, 2004-2009

This talk

What is physics?
Math

vs. physics

Three mathematical principles in physics

Lots

of examples!

Questions!

Quotes by famous people

God used beautiful mathematics in creating the world. - Paul Dirac

The miracle of the appropriateness of the language of mathematics for the formulation of the laws of physics is a wonderful gift which we neither understand nor deserve.

- Eugene Wigner

(Image credit xkcd.com)

Math vs. Physics

Perfect idealizations Constructing objects to study Proof (deductive reasoning) If a proof is correct, its correct forever

Real world (messy!) Describing objects that exist Theory predicts, experiment tests Theories can always be disproved!

However, many similarities

Shared concepts in math and physics

Intuition

Comes with time and lots of practice!

Problem-solving
All the same strategies apply: what tools do I need? What new data would be helpful? How can I make an unusual problem look familiar? More than one solution to a problem: can learn something unexpected by doing a problem two different ways!

Reasoning by analogy

Absurdly powerful in physics

Same math, different problems!

Soap bubble String theory

What could these possibly have in common? Stay tuned to find out

Symmetry

Warm-up: ABCDEFGH is a regular octagon, and O is the intersection of its long diagonals. What is angle AOB? (No formulas, and no calculators!) Exercise: What kinds of polynomials f (x) have the property that their right half (x > 0) is the mirror image of their left half (x < 0)? Take-home challenge: Given a point P at (x,y), find the coordinates of P, which is the image of P after rotating 90 counterclockwise about the origin. Prove that if P is on the circle x 2 y 2 1, then so is P.

Discrete symmetry

How many rotations or reflections leave this equilateral triangle the same?

Discrete symmetry

How many rotations or reflections leave this equilateral triangle the same?

Answer: three rotations (0, 120, 240), three reflections (about each of the dashed lines)

Discrete symmetry
How do we know there arent any others? For example, what about a rotation, then a reflection?
A rotate 120 clockwise C reflect about dashed line A

Discrete symmetry
How do we know there arent any others? For example, what about a rotation, then a reflection?
A rotate 120 clockwise C reflect about dashed line A

This is the same as reflecting about the vertical line through A! We have obtained one of our original symmetries by composing two other symmetries, one after the other.

Discrete symmetry

Lets call the three different rotations R1 (0), R2 (120), and R3 (240), and the three reflections I1 (about the line through A), I2 (line through B), and I3 (line through C) We can make a multiplication table: R1 R2 = R2 (R1 does nothing) R2 R3 = R1 (rotation by 120, then 240, recovers the original triangle) R2 I3 = I1 (shown on last slide) The symmetries of an equilateral triangle have an interesting structure, which mathematicians call a group. Exercise: finish the multiplication table!

Continuous symmetry

How many rotations or reflections leave this circle the same?

Continuous symmetry

How many rotations or reflections leave this circle the same?

Answer: infinitely many! Rotation by any angle, no matter how small, and reflection about any diameter The triangle had discrete symmetry (only certain angles), but the circle has continuous symmetry

Continuous symmetry
Can we make a multiplication table for the infinite number of symmetries of the circle? Answer: yes! Instead of labeling the rotations and reflections with numbers (like R1, R2, and R3), we label them with an angle . For example:

R() is a rotation clockwise by the angle

I() is a reflection about the diameter which makes an angle with the horizontal Multiplication table: R(1) R(2) = R(1 + 1) (if you rotate twice, add the angles) R(1) I(0) = R(- 1) (check this!)

OK, but what does this have to do with physics?

Put equal electric charges at each vertex of the triangle:
P
+ Q

The electric fields at points P, Q, and R are very simply related by the same symmetry transformations we investigated earlier. - Three solutions for the price of one!

OK, but what does this have to do with physics?

Or, consider the gravitational field of a sphere. Which direction does it point in?

OK, but what does this have to do with physics?

Or, consider the gravitational field of a sphere. Which direction does it point in?

Since a rotation by any angle is a symmetry of the sphere, no direction along the sphere is possible. Must be radial. - No calculations needed!

Real-world example: black holes

Einsteins equations of General Relativity are very hard to solve But, if we assume spherical symmetry, the equations simplify dramatically: there is essentially one unique solution This solution predicts the existence of black holes!

Probability

Warm-up: If I roll a six-sided die once, what is the probability that I roll either a 2 or a 3? Exercise: What is the probability that I roll a 6 two times in a row? Take-home challenge: What is the probability that I roll a 6 twenty times in a row? How many zeroes after the decimal place will this number have? If I roll the die once a second, every second of every day, how many years (on average) will it take before I get twenty 6s in a row? (Does this answer surprise you?)

Dealing with incomplete information

How many molecules are in a glass of water? We have no hope of ever describing the exact location and speed of every single molecule in the glass However, we dont need to! Physics cares about bulk quantities:

Temperature Pressure Density

Solution: probability

We can ask: how do the internal configurations relate to the bulk quantities like temperature? Answer: if each internal configuration is equally probable, then the most probable bulk quantity will correspond to the greatest number of internal configurations So maybe we cant predict temperature exactly, but we can predict it with 99.99999% certainty good enough! Turns a seemingly intractable problem into a problem of counting this branch of physics is statistical mechanics

Example: perfume in a room

If I open a bottle of perfume at the far corner of the room, why can you smell it across the room almost immediately?

Example: perfume in a room

If I open a bottle of perfume at the far corner of the room, why can you smell it across the room almost immediately? Answer: there are a small number of ways the scent-carrying molecules can be concentrated in the perfume bottle, but there are a huge number of ways that the molecules could be randomly distributed across the room The perfume diffuses because of probability!

Probability and quantum mechanics

In the previous examples, we used probability because of ignorance we didnt know enough about the system being studied, so we had to approximate At the level of atoms and electrons, probability is fundamental An atom may not even have a definite position or speed until we measure it, so all we can predict is its probability (weird!)

Mathematics of quantum mechanics

Instead of an equation of motion (describing how a particle moves from its initial position), we have an equation of probability (describing how the probability of finding the particle at a certain place changes with time) Quantum mechanics is phrased in the language of probability: expected value, standard deviation, etc. You will learn this in Algebra II! It really is useful!

Symmetry in quantum mechanics

Experiments show that all electrons are totally, completely, 100% identical This is a kind of symmetry: if I switch two electrons while your back is turned, you cant tell the difference Same applies to protons, photons, etc. all quantum particles have this property (even whole atoms)

Symmetry in quantum mechanics

Mathematically, this exchange symmetry leads to some very cool consequences:
Neutron stars Lasers

Optimization

Warm-up: What is the minimum value of the function f ( x) ( x 4) 2 3 ? Exercise: What is the shortest path between any two points on a sphere? (Hint: think about the North and South Poles.) Take-home challenge: Use a graphing program (or not!) to graph the function f ( x, y) ( x 2 y 2 )2 2( x 2 y 2 ). What is the minimum value of f (x,y)? Is there more than one point (x,y) that gives this minimum value? Where is the axis of symmetry of this function? Investigate the tension between symmetry and optimization in this problem.

Optimization: Whats the best I can do?

Many real-world problems involve finding the best or optimal solution to some problem

Whats the largest amount of food I can buy for $10? Whats the shortest route between home and school? I can drive at 60 mph, bike at 15 mph, and walk at 5 mph. What is the fastest way from point A to point B, given that I only have $15 to spend on gas, and I dont want to spend more than 10 minutes walking?

Sometimes subject to constraints:

Optimizing a function

Mathematically, the most interesting points on a function are its critical points Something unusual happens there:
Slope changes from negative to positive
Concave down becomes concave up

critical points

Optimizing a function

How can we find the minima and maxima of any general function? Calculus provides an answer: finding critical points of f (x) involves finding the zeros of a related function f (x) In other words, we can solve an equation to find the minima and maxima no guessing involved!

Optimization and equations of motion

In physics, we solve equations to find the behavior of a system (motion of a particle, expansion of a gas, speed of waves on water, etc.) What if we could reinterpret those equations as the equations for the critical points of some other function? If the equations of motion are messy and complicated, maybe the function were trying to minimize will be simpler

Example: General Relativity

General relativity (GR) tells us that space must curve in the presence of matter

Gravity is really just the curvature of space!

Einstein wrote down his equations after a long period of guess-and-check Final result was horribly messy: could be solved case-by-case, but hard to see general properties Mathematician David Hilbert realized that Einsteins equations could be derived by minimizing a single function: the total curvature!

Optimization equations are everywhere!

Classical mechanics: motion of a particle minimizes a function called the Lagrangian (kinetic energy minus potential energy) Quantum mechanics: equations of probability are also optimization equations In fact, all elementary equations in physics seem to be optimization equations!

Why? Who knows

Soap bubbles and string theory

Because of surface tension, a soap bubble will find the shape of minimal area subject to constraints (pressure of air inside the bubble, shape of wire frame, etc.) Equations of motion in string theory are optimization equations resulting from minimizing the area of a 2-dimensional surface The mathematics of these two situations is identical! Same math, different problems.

Symmetry, probability, and optimization in string theory

String theory is the leading candidate for a theory of all forces and matter, and relies heavily on all the math weve discussed:
Symmetry: simplifies equations of motion enormously; particles classified by group theory Probability: quantum mechanics (the vibration of the strings gives rise to all quantum particles) and statistical mechanics (counting how many ways strings can fit inside a black hole!) Optimization: equations of motion

Some friendly advice

If math and physics concepts like these look difficult, dont worry! Theyre difficult for everyone. A good foundation in math is essential. Everything you do in class this year will eventually find its way into your future work. Dont rush! Plenty of time to learn more advanced concepts (Ive been studying physics for 6 years, and Ive barely scratched the surface) Ask questions! Your teachers, friends, and fellow students, are your best resources. Parents: support your kids in whatever they want to study. The best way to discover your passions is through exploration.

My contact info
Yoni Kahn: y-kahn@u.northwestern.edu

Backup slide: Exchange Symmetry

Quantum mechanics says P( x1 , x2 ) ( x1 , x2 ) For identical particles, P( x1 , x2 ) P( x2 , x1 )
2

So ( x1 , x2 ) ( x2 , x1 )
+ sign: particles like to clump together (photons in laser) - sign: particles like to stay apart (neutrons in neutron stars, electrons in atoms)

Backup slide: Temperature and Kinetic Energy

Temperature is average kinetic energy (speed) Individual molecules dont matter, only average

Backup slide: GR