Talks

We present a new description of discrete space-time in 1+1 dimensions in terms of a set of elementary geometrical units that represent its independent classical degrees of freedom. This is achieved by means of a binary encoding that is ergodic in the class of space-time manifolds respecting coordinate invariance of general relativity. Space-time fluctuations can be represented in a classical lattice gas model whose Boltzmann weights are constructed with the discretized form of the Einstein-Hilbert action. Within this framework, it is possible to compute basic quantities such as the Ricci curvature tensor and the Einstein equations, and to evaluate the path integral of discrete gravity. The description as a lattice gas model also provides a novel way of quantization and, at the same time, to quantum simulation of fluctuating space-time.

Over Twenty-five years into the internet era, over twenty years into the WorldWideWeb era, fifteen years into the Google era, and a few years past the Facebook/Twitter era, we've yet to converge on a new long-term methodology for scholarly research communication. I will provide a sociological overview of our current metastable state, and then a technical discussion of the practical implications of literature and usage data considered as computable objects, using arXiv as exemplar. From the physics standpoint, there is a surprising amount of statistical mechanics in text-mining and machine learning.