November 1999

Gary Hines \u2774 on the Concert Hall stage, Janet Wallace Fine Arts Center in August 1999. Story on page 32.https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/mactodaycovers/1053/thumbnail.jp

Is Space-time Really Doomed?

For many years now it has become conventional for theorists to argue that "space-time is doomed", with the difficulties in finding a quantum theory of gravity implying the necessity of basing a fundamental theory on something quite different than usual notions of space-time geometry. But what is this space-time geometry that is doomed? In this essay we'll explore how our understanding of four-dimensional geometry has evolved since Einstein, leading to new ideas about such geometry which may not be doomed at all.Comment: Essay written for the Gravity Research Foundation 2022 Awards for Essays on Gravitatio

February 1998

Rhodes Scholar Gretchen Rohr \u2798 in the old courtroom of the Minnesota Supreme Court. Story on page 2.https://digitalcommons.macalester.edu/mactodaycovers/1046/thumbnail.jp

"So what will you do if string theory is wrong?"

I briefly discuss the accomplishments of string theory that would survive a complete falsification of the theory as a model of nature and argue the possibility that such a survival may necessarily mean that string theory would become its own discipline, independently of both physics and mathematics