Welcome to my Substack: Theoretical physics / Quantum Holonomy Theory / Jesper Møller Grimstrup
News about my work in theoretical and mathematical physics
Ever since I ran the crowdfunding campaign “A Theory of Everything” in 2016, in which I generated funding for my research project in theoretical and mathematical physics, the list of people who has opted to receive my newsletter about my work with the mathematician Johannes Aastrup has kept growing to a point where I now have to seriously consider how to administer very long email lists. This is one of the reasons why I have now decided to start a Substack: it simply makes the administrative side much easier.
But there is another reason for starting this Substack, which is that over the years I have been met with a tremendous amount of interest and curiosity from non-experts about my work in theoretical physics; people who wish to know more and who are interested in following the gradual progress of my research project. It is my hope that this Substack will make it easier to reach those people and to communicate to them, both about the ideas and aspirations behind my own work, but also about my views on theoretical high-energy physics in general.
The point is that theoretical and mathematical physics is so much more than just technical details. As researchers we publish our work in peer-reviewed journals, and our papers are then hopefully read by our peers who speak the math-lingo that is necessary to understand the analysis. But these research papers represent only one side of the story, the technical side, which is the bolts and nuts of mathematical physics, how our machinery is assembled and what it can and cannot do. There is also another side, which is the birds eye view of things, the poetry of it all, what it means and where we hope to go with it all. Our dreams and aspirations.
It is this second side of the research coin that I hope to communicate to a broader audience through this Substack. It is all the stuff that is left out in the rigorously written research papers — in a way it is the most important part.
Because you don’t have to be a mathematical physicist to appreciate the beauty of a novel idea — although it sometimes helps — or a fascinating vision, or the adventurous thrill of a treasure hunt. The search for truth and meaning is universal, it is not only the soul of science but also one of the pillars of our civilisation; our hunger for answers and thirst for wonder is an integral part of who we are. We all have that thirst and thus, deep down, we all understand and recognise this second side of science regardless of how well we speak mathematics.
If we only pay attention to the technical side and ignore the big picture view then we will end up getting lost. We need to pay attention to the big picture of things because without that we will simply bury ourselves is increasingly technical analysis and over time morph into bureaucrats and forget what it was all about. Which, it can be argued, is precisely what is happening in certain parts of theoretical high-energy physics today.
So this is my intention: to use this Substack as a creative outlet to communicate the big picture to those who don’t speak math as well as to those who do.
My work
The central idea in my work with Johannes Aastrup is that for a theory to be fundamental — and perhaps even final — it must be based on principles that are so simple that they render further scientific reductions close to meaningless. If a theory is truly final then it must be immune to scientific reductions. This idea has lead us to the hypothesis that a final theory should be based on the mathematics of empty space, i.e. that everything should be deduced from a mathematical framework that simply encodes basic features of space itself. I wrote about this idea in my book “Shell Beach - the search for the final theory” in 2021 just as I have written about it on my blog, and of course in our research papers. Technically, our idea is to consider non-trivial dynamical geometries of configuration spaces of spin-connections — such configuration spaces emerge from the mathematics of three-dimensional space — and to use the toolbox of noncommutative geometry. It turns out that many of the key building blocks of modern theoretical physics emerge from this ansatz.
The mathematical framework that springs from this idea is very technical and involves some truly difficult mathematical analysis, some of which still remains to be carried out. But behind all that analysis there is another story written in another language, a story about us, generations upon generations standing under the same starlight sky, looking up on our Milky Way, wondering. Wondering. Why?
The point is that if we are right then the story that I am talking about will have a surprising ending, an ending where we actually find what we are searching for, but where what we find is not what we had hoped for. Imagine if we one day actually find an answer, and imagine if that answer tells us nothing at all.
I find that idea truly poetic: that at the bottom of it all, at the deepest levels of reality, there is simply … nothing. That it is all based on nothing.
Imagine if we were to discover such a truth. If we came to a point where it was clear to everyone that a final theory exists and that it is based on the mathematics of three-dimensional space. That it is, ultimately, empty. In a sense: trivial. Where would that leave us? What would such a discovery do to us? It would not provide answers to any of our deepest and most urgent questions — why are we here? What is the meaning of it all? — but it would close the door to reality called science. Forever. It would leave us hungry for truth but without anywhere in the external world to seek answers — at least scientific answers — because the scientific project, which takes us to ever shorter distances or ever higher energy scales, would be finished.
I find that thought both fascinating and frightening.
The sociology of science
Since 2012 I have worked as an independent researcher without a university affiliation; prior to that I was employed at various universities in Europe as a researcher in theoretical physics. Today I am financed by private sponsors.
This unusual career path has both its upsides as well as its downsides as I described in my book “Shell Beach - the search for the final theory”. One of the upsides is that it gives me complete freedom when it comes to speaking out about what is going on in my research field today. Indeed, it is my intention to write more about the culture and sociology of contemporary theoretical high-energy physics on this Substack. This is a topic that is sometimes omitted or even avoided, except for a few brave souls, although it is obviously important.
For a research field that has come up against a wall — since the discovery of the standard model of particle physics in the 1970’s there has been no major breakthroughs and today it is completely unclear in which direction the field should move forward — it is striking how few new ideas there are in the field of theoretical high-energy physics. Topics like string theory, supersymmetry, loop quantum gravity, and the AdS/CFT correspondence, which dominate the field today, are all between 30 and 40 years old. This remarkable absence of new ideas — ideas that do not fall within research projects that already exist — and especially the absence of ideas launched by young researchers, calls for a deeper reflection about the sociology of the field: why people chose to work on some ideas and not on others, why certain modes of research are being promoted while others are not, and why certain types of researchers thrive in the academic arena while other types do not.
As I said, I plan to write more about this issue too.
More information
It is my intention to write newsletters whenever I have something significant to report on; and else I will remain silent. Thus, it may be that I shall not write anything for long periods of time. Sometimes research involves deep contemplation for weeks and months (or simply taking a break and spending time at the beach), periods where progress is slow or completely absent, and whenever that is the case I do not wish to bother anyone with useless noise. There is enough noise in this world, what we need is signal.
Also, you can find more information about my work and my other activities on my homepage .
Finally, as I already mentioned my work as a fulltime researcher is funded by private sponsors and doners. If you wish to support my work you can do so via PayPal or ko-fi.com.
Have a nice fall (or spring, if you live down-under).
With this I end this short communication. Stay tuned, more will follow soon. And please don’t forget to subscribe and to invite others to join.
Kind regards, Jesper