Thursday, March 21, 2013

And the third milnor prizes goes to Polyakov (maybe)

I didn't write a single line about the second milner prize so I'll write a brief post about the third.

 As can be read in "not even wrong" and in the blog of matt strassler it seems (but is not confirmed at the time of writing this entry) that the winner of the this third prize is Alexander Polyakov.

 Everybody who has ever read a book on string theory know the name because of the Polyakov's action and the Polyakov path integral that are the very basics of the worldsheet aspect of string theory. Besides string theory Polyakov has made very valuable contributions to QFT such as instantons and magnetics mopopoles.

 All in one it is clear that the prize is absolutely well deserved. In fact my only concern is why he hasn't also a nobel prize. It is absolutely clear that there are people awarded with a nobel who have by far less merits than Polyakov for the prize. Well, at this point I think that among theorists the milner prize should be more valued than the nobel not only for the money but for the prestige of the previous winners.

 By the way, if someone wonders why I write so few posts in the last times there is an easy answer: The LHC is doing a hard work to hide any possible evidence of physics beyond the standard model. The Higgs is of the most boring type possible and no SUSY, no extra dimensions no nothing. Well, this is not the end of the world for theorethical physcis and it is sure that some surprises could be around the corner (but maybe not where people usually expects them xD) but it would have been fun to have some BTSM physics in colliders at this point.