John Carlos Baez (b. 1961) is a leading American mathematical physicist, well known for his work on spin foams in loop quantum gravity. More recently, his research has focused on applications of higher categories to physics. Mathematical physics is the scientific discipline concerned with the application of mathematics to problems in physics and the development of mathematical methods suitable for such applications and for the formulation of physical theories1. ... In physics, a spin foam is a four-dimensional graph made out of two-dimensional faces that represents one of the configurations that must be summed to obtain Feynmans path integral (functional integration) describing the alternative formulation of quantum gravity known as loop gravity or loop quantum gravity. ... Loop quantum gravity (LQG), also known as loop gravity and quantum geometry, is a proposed quantum theory of spacetime which attempts to reconcile the seemingly incompatible theories of quantum mechanics and general relativity. ... Category theory is a mathematical theory that deals in an abstract way with mathematical structures and relationships between them. ...

However, Baez is no doubt best known to most denizens of UseNet as the author of This Week's Finds in Mathematical Physics. Started in 1993, this irregular series of postings, featuring an unpredictable but often fascinating mix of gossip, superb exposition, intellectual bravura, sometimes pointed criticism, and lively follow ups, has earned a devoted following world-wide, and is often regarded as an inspiration for the concept of the personal weblog. Baez is also well known on the World Wide Web as the author of an ironical crackpot index. Usenet is a distributed Internet discussion system that evolved from a general purpose UUCP network of the same name. ... A weblog (now more commonly known as a blog) is a web-based publication consisting primarily of periodic articles (normally, but not always, in reverse chronological order). ... This NeXTcube used by Berners-Lee at CERN became the first Web server. ... The crackpot index is a number that rates scientific claims or the individuals that make them, in conjunction with a method for computing that number. ...

Baez earned his Ph.D. at MIT in 1986, under the direction of Irving Segal. He can trace his mathematical genealogy directly to the Prince of Mathematicians himself, Carl Friedrich Gauss (see oversized figure below). The only name in this net which may not be familiar to non-Russian mathematicians is that of Nikolai Bugaev, biological father of Boris Bugaev, a.k.a. Andrei Bely (the polymath author of the celebrated novel Petersburg), and Doktorvater of Dmitri Egorov, through whom many famous Russian mathematicians also descend from Gauss. The Massachusetts Institute of Technology, or MIT, is a research and educational institution located in the city of Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA. MIT is a world leader in science and technology, as well as in many other fields, including management, economics, linguistics, political science, and philosophy. ... Irving Ezra Segal (1918-1998) was a mathematician known for work on theoretical quantum mechanics. ... (help· info) (April 30, 1777 – February 23, 1855) was a German mathematician and scientist of profound genius who contributed significantly to many fields, including number theory, analysis, differential geometry, geodesy, magnetism, astronomy and optics. ... In topology and related areas of mathematics a net or Moore-Smith sequence is a generalization of a sequence, intended to unify the various notions of limit and generalize them to arbitrary topological spaces. ... Nikolai Vasilievich Bugaev (Russian: , September 14, 1837 - June 11, 1903 ) was a prominent Russian mathematician. ... Leon Bakst Portrait of Andrei Bely Andrei Bely (Андрей Белый) was the pseudonym of Boris Nikolaevich Bugaev (October 14, 1880 (Old Style)- January 8, 1934), a Russian novelist, poet, theorist, and literary critic. ... Petersburg or St. ... Dmitri Fyodorovich Egorov (Russian: Дмитрий Фёдорович Егоров, December 22, 1869 - September 10, 1931) was a Russian mathematician born in Moscow. ...

The singer Joan Baez is a cousin of John Baez. Joan Baezs 1975 bestseller Diamonds & Rust. ...

Abbreviated mathematical genealogy of John Baez; appropriately enough, the topology is a causal net rather than a simple tree, possibly because technically speaking, Weierstrass's doctorate was only an honorary degree.

Baez currently teaches at the University of California, Riverside. Image File history File links Abbreviated mathematical geneology of John Carlos Baez (b. ... Topology (Greek topos, place and logos, study) is a branch of mathematics concerned with spatial properties preserved under bicontinuous deformation (stretching without tearing or gluing); these are the topological invariants. ... A tree with 6 vertices and 5 edges In graph theory, a tree is a graph in which any two vertices are connected by exactly one path. ... Karl Theodor Wilhelm Weierstraß (October 31, 1815 – February 19, 1897) was a German mathematician who is often cited as the father of modern analysis. (The letter ß may be transliterated as ss; one often writes Weierstrass. ... University of California, Riverside The University of California, Riverside is a public, coeducational university situated in Riverside, California beside Box Springs Mountain. ...

External links

• Baez's home page
• This Week's Finds

References

• John Carlos Baez. The Mathematics Genealogy Project. American Mathematical Society. URL accessed on August 13, 2005. (As of 2005, Gauss in fact has some 28,500 mathematical descendents around the world, so for a mathematician, descending directly from Gauss is not really terribly unusual.)

• Baez, John C. (ed.) (1994). Knots and quantum gravity, Oxford: Clarendon Press. ISBN 0-198-53490-6.

• Baez, John C.; Segal, & Muniain, Javier (1994). Gauge fields, knots and gravity, Singapore: World Scientific. ISBN 9-810-22034-0.

• Baez, John C.; Segal, Irving E.; and Zhou, Zhenfang (1992). Introduction to algebraic and constructive quantum field theory, Princeton: Princeton University Press. ISBN 0-691-08546-3.