Phymaths podcast # 49 || Guest: Dr. Zohar Komargodski

Description Dr. Zohar Komargodski is a theoretical physicist at the Simon Center for Geometry and Physics and he works on RG flows, generalized symmetries, and condensed matter physics among other things. A list of his works can be found in the link below. Some links 1) Dr. Komargodski's works: https://inspirehep.net/authors/1021214 2) Link to the high energy physics resources page on my website: https://hassaansaleem.com/graduate-level-theoretical-physics-resources-in-progress/ Contact Info My website: hassaansaleem.com Follow on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hassaan.3142/ Join the Whatsapp channel: https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029Va9DkjmAzNbs7IlGuv1X Follow on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Hassaan_PHY Email Queries: [email protected] Time stamps (0:00) Coming Up (0:43) Guest's intro (1:08) His interest in physics (2:52) His interest in high-energy physics (4:17) Overview of RG flows (8:03) Relation with effective field theories (13:36) Extra terms in Maxwell equations (15:00) What does a theory 'flowing' mean? (18:22) Fixed points in RG flows (CFTs) (20:48) What a CFT can flow to? (21:12) c-theorem (28:55) a-theorem (30:58) Similar theorems in higher dimensions (32:25) Symmetries preserved under RG flows (36:21) How to define an anomaly? (38:52) What is a 'thooft anomaly? (44:47) Is ABJ anomaly an anomaly? (47:28) Unsolved problems regarding RG flows (49:52) Holographic methods for RG flows (51:22) Overview of generalized symmetries (58:04) Applications (His paper on monopoles) (1:04:50) Applications (Pion decay and Yang-Mills) (1:08:16) Prospects of generalized symmetries (1:10:06) Which ideas to take seriously? (1:13:22) Phrase "Theory of Everything" is misleading? (1:19:00) Comments on LQG and quantizing gravity (1:35:17) MOND (Philosophy and comments) (1:46:28) Geometric Unity (Philosophy and comments) (1:53:58) SU(5) theory (1:55:57) Tackling science misinformation (2:00:01) The "Lying for grants" lie (2:05:10) Mistakes in papers (2:07:57) Tackling misinformation (continued) (2:10:57) Misinformation, funding and progress (2:15:38) Mathematical consistency (2:21:21) Size of string theory community (2:25:09) High energy Physics job market (2:29:18) Misconceptions about the number of papers (2:34:51) How to interpret letters from unknown academics? (2:38:48) How to take Ph.D. students? (2:42:39) Advice for younger researchers? (2:43:37) How to be motivated with slow progress? (2:46:47) (People's question) Symmetry breaking (2:48:42) (People's question) Cosmology (2:50:11) (People's question) Recommendation letter (2:51:16) (People's question) Food places in NYC (2:52:48) Ending Corrections: (1:44:21) NGC 1277 appears to have a "deficit of dark matter" but the acceleration that was probed in the 2023 study was not sufficiently small to probe the MOND regime. So, this study doesn't rule MOND out right away. (2:43:51) He is actually talking about the book "What I Talk About When I Talk About Running" by H. Murakami