Популярно о конечной математике и ее интересных применениях в квантовой теории

Our views of the physical world are changing rapidly. Humanity's continuing search for coherent structures in physics, biology, and cosmology has frequently led to surprises as well as confusion. Discovering new phenomena is one thing, putting them into context with other pieces of knowledge, and inferring their fundamental consequences is quite something else. There are controversies, differences of opinion, and sometimes even religious feelings which come into play. These should be discussed openly. Philosophical issues that are of a general, nontechnical nature should be handled in the opinion pages of the news media, but when the discussed arguments become too technical for that, when peer review is needed to select the really valuable pieces of insight, only a distinguished scientific journal is the appropriate form.

Foundations of Physics is an international journal devoted to the conceptual bases and fundamental theories of modern physics and cosmology, emphasizing the logical, methodological, and philosophical premises of modern physical theories and procedures. We welcome papers on the interpretation of quantum mechanics, quantum field theory, thermodynamics and statistical mechanics, special and general relativity as well as cosmology. Also, we think it is time for the experts on quantum gravity, quantum information, string theory, M-theory, and brane cosmology to ponder the foundations of these approaches. New insights are gained only by intense interactions with professionals all over the globe, and by solidly familiarizing oneself with their findings. Fortunately, there are many authors with a deep understanding of the topics they are discussing who are willing to take the opportunity to present their ideas in our journal, and their clever inventiveness continues to surprise us. Acceptance of a paper may not necessarily mean that all referees agree with everything, but rather that the issues put forward by the author were considered to be of sufficient interest to our readership, and the exposition was clear enough that our readers, whom we assume to be competent enough, can judge for themselves.

От этих слов дух захватывает и, казалось бы, журнал с такой редакционной политикой не должен исходить из предрассудков и должен быть открыт для новых идей. Поэтому я решил, что это как раз то, что мне надо и послал туда статью. Когда долго не было ответа и я спрашивал почему, то секретарь ответила, что ответственный редактор за мою статью – сам 't Hooft и это значит, что или он сам будет рецензировать или кого-то попросит.

Когда ответ, наконец-то, был получен, то в нем было две рецензии: одна от Reviewer 1, а другая была озаглавлена "EDITORIAL COMMENT:”. Судя по тому, что написала секретарь и по стилю "EDITORIAL COMMENT”, нет сомнения, что его написал сам 't Hooft. Но вначале приведу отзыв рецензента.