Hi Mohammed and Basem--

An absolutely brilliant essay. I concur fully with your analysis. In fact, your essay is so good that I'm glad I didn't write on your precise topic. You would have put me to shame. And, needless-to-say, I certainly agree with your last bullet on page 3.

I can't believe you two are only undergraduates. Your professors are lucky to have you. I predict shining futures for both of you. Keep up the good work!

Best regards and best of luck in the contest,

Bill.

    Dear Basem and Mohammed,

    Though I disagree with your instrumentalist perspective on physics and your antiplatonist view of mathematics, I am genuinely impressed by your eloquent defense of your positions. It is all the more impressive considering that, if I infer correctly, you are not even native English Speakers.

    Despite our philosophical differences, there is much in your essay that I do concur with, especially the notion that observation and experiment trumps any other consideration in science.

    Your ideas about quantifying aesthetic notions like beauty are interesting and deserve more detailed treatment.Finally, I could not agree more with your last paragraph as my own research effort is geared precisely to developing new mathematics that helps us model and especially understand fundamental aspects of reality.

    Overall, you did a great job

    Best wishes,

    Armin

      Dear Alma,

      Thank you very much for your kind and encouraging words. I agree with you about wrong theories like N=4 super Yang Mills. We suggested using computational complexity as a measure of simplicity because we use computers today for almost all physical computations and simulations. Hence, it's reasonable to choose measure of simplicity relative to computations.

      Kind regards,

      Mohammed

      Dear William,

      Thank you very much for your kind and encouraging words. I am glad you liked our essay. From your essay, I am sure you would have done a better job if you wrote about that topic.

      All the best,

      Mohammed

      Dear Armin,

      Thank you very much for your interesting comments. I respect your opinion about the Platonist view, and I am glad you concur with other points.

      Indeed the importance of experiments and observations in science cannot be overstressed. I think that currently the main problem with theoretical physics is the wide gap between theory and experiment.

      Finally, I am glad to know that you are working on developing new mathematics for better modelling reality.

      Best wishes,

      Mohammed

      Dear Mohammed,

      Thank you for your kind remarks on my essay and I enjoyed reading yours as well. As you know, we agree on many points. It's very true that many theories which were considered beautiful or simple ended up failing to explain observations and experimental data. I liked your discussion on simplicity and computational complexity, and on how the same phenomenon can be described with different mathematical formulations. You present throughout a very interesting essay, and I rate it highly.

      Kind regards,

      Steve Sax

        Dear Steven,

        Thank you for your kind words on our essay. I am glad you enjoyed reading it, and that you agree with us in many points.

        Best regards,

        Mohammed

        Write a Reply...