Marco Tavora Ph.D.

Subsequently, I spent two years as a postdoc researcher at Yeshiva University under the supervision of Lea F. Santos working on many topics such as quantum chaos, spin systems, many-body localization, disordered systems, and quantum phase transitions.

Research

Today I work as a consultant, researcher, and expository writer. My main interests are theoretical physics and mathematical physics. Topics that interest me include:

• The mathematical and physical aspects of dualities in physics, connections between quantum field theory and mathematics, topological quantum field theories, (2+1)-dimensional topological gravity, non-perturbative quantum field theory, topological solitons, arrow of time physics, and so on.

Questions such as these ones can keep me up at night: what is a quantum field theory (QFT) really? Does it need to be revamped, for example, to make dualities easier to spot? Is QFT unavoidable? Are Lagrangians really needed in QFT? Are quantum fields only useful mathematical tools? Are the connections between mathematics and physics deeper than we currently think? Is supersymmetry just a powerful mathematical technique or does it really exist in Nature? Is the geometrical approach to the nature of gravity correct or, quoting Feynman, gravity is just “another field to [add] the pot?” Are special initial conditions absolutely necessary for time-symmetrical laws to have solutions containing some “type” of “arrow of time?”

I have recently developed a deep interest in the philosophical work of the German polymath Gottfried Leibniz and the Austrian-British philosopher Ludwig Wittgenstein.

The quote below by the great composer Franz Liszt (about the piano) aptly describes my feelings towards physics and mathematics: "My piano is to me [...] the intimate personal depository of everything that stirred wildly in my brain during the most impassioned days of my youth. It was there that all my wishes, all my dreams, all my joys, and all my sorrows lay." I am also fond of the following remark by Paul Dirac, one of the founders of quantum mechanics: "If you are receptive and humble, mathematics will lead you by the hand. Again and again, when I have been at a loss on how to proceed, I have just had to wait until I have felt the mathematics led me by the hand. It has led me along an unexpected path, a path where new vistas open up, a path leading to new territory, where one can set up a base of operations, from which one can survey the surroundings and plan future progress."For more details check my LinkedIn page and my Medium page.

My Writings

My articles on ManyStories:

Myself in a Nutshell

I consider myself a would-be "bird" according to Freeman Dyson's famous classification. My three favorite words are:

- Abstraction

- Unification

- Generalization

I find nothing more magical than uncovering connections between domains of knowledge that seem, at first, to be entirely unrelated.

I deeply agree with the following quotes. The first is by Einstein:

“it is a wonderful feeling to recognize the unity of a complex of phenomena that to direct observation appear to be quite separate things."

The second, also by Einstein, is:

"I am not interested in this or that phenomenon, in the spectrum of this or that element. I want to know His thoughts. The rest are details."

The next one is by the mathematician Alexander Grothendieck, considered by many to be the greatest mathematician of the 20th century. In his autobiographical reflections, “Récoltes et Semailles,” he wrote:

“...[The] most totally consuming ambition is powerless to make or to demonstrate the simplest mathematical discovery... What brings success, in this case, is the acute perception of the presence of something strong, very real, and at the same time very delicate. Perhaps one can call it "beauty" in its thousand-fold aspects. That someone is ambitious doesn't mean one cannot also feel the presence of beauty in them; but it is not... ambition which evokes this feeling...”

This is by the excellent writer Robert Greene:

We must focus on a purpose or mission in our life. We must not lose touch with our true nature. If this happens, our goals become shaped by those of others. If our work does not satisfy us, our interest eventually vanishes, and the quality of our work suffers. We become less involved in our careers, fail to notice what is happening in our fields, and inevitably fall behind the others. We lose the ability to make decisions and end up following theirs. We lose our sense of direction

The next quote is by the philosophy giant Baruch Spinoza:

“After experience had taught me that all the usual surroundings of social life are vain and futile; seeing that none of the objects of my fears contained in themselves anything either good or bad, except in so far as the mind is affected by them, I finally resolved to inquire whether there might be some real good having power to communicate itself, which would affect the mind singly, to the exclusion of all else: whether, in fact, there might be anything of which the discovery and attainment would enable me to enjoy continuous, supreme, and unending happiness.”

My Physics Peer-Review Articles

I have published 11 articles in some of the most prestigious peer-reviewed journals in the world at my Google Scholar profile, by clicking the button below).

My Talks At International Conferences

For a selected list of international conferences where I presented my research, you can click on my Conferences page or the button below.

Semantic Scholar and ORCID articles:

My articles on Semantic Scholar are here:

My ORCID profile is below:

Tech Stuff

My Data/Coding Portfolio

My portfolio of codes is in another section of this website (you can also click the button below). There I explain my projects' goals, procedures and provides brief descriptions of the techniques used. 

My Github profile

For more details, you can check my Github profile.

My Rankings on Codersrank.io and Git-awards

My profile and ranking on codersrank.io are below:

To see my ranking on git-awards click the button below:

Thanks for stopping by!

Marco Tavora