Basic Research Community for Physics

Time 2022-08-08 10:50:20

Web Name: Basic Research Community for Physics

WebSite: http://www.basic-research.org

ID:274383

Keywords:

Research,Basic,Community,Physics

Description:

BRCP Events Members Contact Login

Welcome

The Basic Research Community for Physics (BRCP) is an independent internationalassociation of scientists founded in 2015 who share the following beliefs:

The current orientation of research is largely directed towards producingspecialized results. However, we consider it equally crucial to debate questionsat the core of each branch of science. Stimulating such debate and questioningfundamental assumptions is inseparable from scientific endeavour and essentialfor keeping sight of the bigger picture.We believe that the questions and problems in scientific research should beapproached in an open-minded and non-dogmatic way. Questioning currentparadigms should be allowed and encouraged instead of being dismissed.We believe in science as a community-based pursuit of knowledge, whichshould not be evaluated by commercial interest. We therefore seek to promotea cooperative and respectful, rather than competitive, atmosphere for scientificresearch.

Constitution in English (PDF)

Constitution in German (PDF)

Newsletter

The BRCP has an irregular public newsletter "friends of BRCP", informing about our own and other interesting events. Please feel free to subscribe with your e-mail address here.

Member statements

For me, the BRCP is an attempt to bring together researchers who share a passion about big picture questions in physics, and who strive towards honest, open and non-dogmatic science.

Johannes Kleiner

I see BRCP as a community of people with the same existential passion about the research of an always deeper understanding of nature. This inevitably involves us to question the basic assumptions underlying science. I believe that BRCP aims to be a community of people ready to radically change their philosophical beliefs and to be flexible in their attitude.

Lorenzo Catani

The BRCP was a relieve for me, finally I met people that can imagine to be critical with science!

Florian Buchholz

For me BRCP is a running experiment in an unorthodox grassroots scientific community emergence, with a focus on foundational concerns, and nonparadigmatic intersubjectivity.

Ryszard Paweł Kostecki

I'm glad an organisation like BRCP exists, which fosters original and independent thinking, something essential for healthy scientific endeavours. I'm happy to engage in discussions, collaborative events and, in general, any activities that provide feedback and stimulus to my own research.

Pedro Naranjo

My main interests are in the foundations of quantum mechanics, and in particular what quantum mechanics can tell us about the fundamental nature of reality. I'm interested in specific theories in physics which try to address foundational questions - in particular I have worked on collapse theories - but more broadly, I'm interested in re-joining physics with philosophy, so that we develop our physics and our metaphysics at the same time.

Daniel Goldwater

I am a PhD Candidate in the Institute for Gravitation and the Cosmos researching quantum gravity, specifically modified black hole spacetimes. I am interested in the nature of spacetime and enjoy the mathematical challenges of working with complex geometries. I have additional interests in analog gravity, evidence-based pedagogy, and community building. I graduated with Honors in Astrophysics from Brown with my thesis refuting a black hole firewall model. My early work includes an RI NASA Space Grant researching star formation rates in galaxy clusters, as well as an REU at UW Madison investigating the merger history of fossil galaxies.I have ongoing projects with Martin Bojowald, investigating various black holes with modifications introduced in the Hamiltonian constraint. The first is analyzing the volume-computability relationship of a black hole in which the singularity is replaced by a bubble of Euclidean space. I am investigating the properties around the point of metric signature change and implications for black hole “deaths.” Another of my projects is determining the properties of a spacetime with a scalar field introduced as a quantum correction. Funded by a Chateaubriand Fellowship, I have also begun collaborating with Karim Noui at the University of Paris-Saclay. I am applying novel quasinormal mode calculation methods to identify the nuances of gravitational wave signals from mergers of these modified black holes. The results should be testable with LISA.As a Teaching Assistant, I developed various class activities. This included a presentation about building an inclusive community, in which I address the existence of systemic bias, its common manifestations, and how to handle these experiences. Having received a very positive response from my classes, and presented a version of this at the department colloquium, I plan to work with Louis Leblond on a pedagogical study to measure the impact of this intervention.I have founded and led many organizations supporting women and gender minority students and served on a variety of committees advancing EDI policies. I am proud to be helping to strengthen our community and make physics more welcoming and inclusive.If you would like to discuss any of these topics, please do not hesitate to email me.

Anonymous

The BRCP is the international network of academics and students that I always belonged to in some way, even if I didn't know it personally. The common denominator of this diverse and dynamic group of people is an interest in foundational topics in the fields of physics, mathematics and philosophy of science; precisely what I am most passionate about.

Carlos Zapata Carratala

For me BRCP is a refreshing oasis of ideas and collaboration. It is a community of scientists with shared beliefs in the importance of: investigating foundational questions in physics, philosophy and interplays between the two; having open channels of communication between different fields for exchange of knowledge, perspectives and criticisms; being open-minded to discuss and debate new, possibly unconventional ideas and lines of research; and overall encouraging inclusivity, honesty and integrity in research.

Isha Kotecha

For me, the BRCP is the realisation of the idea that research has to be an independent, creative and cooperative human adventure. It gives a setting to meet people with the same believes, and a structure to organise conferences and workshops in this spirit.

Alexander Thomas

BRCP wants to encourage a healthy critical attitude towards modern academia and to advocate the importance of fundamental research. It shall foster communication on these topics to help clarify opinions and to give birth to new ideas. BRCP can be a label whose ideas people can identify with and with this gain self-confidence for this specific part of their thinking.

Bernadette Lessel

For me the three directive principles of BRCP are as much a theoretical as a personnal necessity. I've arrived at these same conclusions quite early listening to my parents' discussions at meal time. My father the bio-informatician blamed productivity and oriented funding for the mediocrity of publications in biology, and my mother the philosopher cruelly lacked a community of research. At least they could talk to each other to avoid being enclosed in their own field, so they were lucky. Then I thought that being aware of all that I was prepared for the hostile environment of research. But it's yet a different experience to live the disappointment first-hand.Theoretically, I know that pragmatism and utilitarism in research come from the capitalist environment in society. Personnally, I felt like my individuality is being ignored and my feelings repressed as non valid.Theoretically, I know that the surplus of administration and the constant asking for justification from the funding organisms are made to reduce budgets by discouraging the start of new projects and slow down their rhythm of generation. Personnally, it makes me feel stressed out, bored when I spend time to it and hypocrit when I write about my work.Theoretically, I know that hyper-specialization orients the way physics is taught towards blind calculation and away from ontology. Personnally I felt that my lack of motivation for this questioned my own intelligence.Theoretically, I know that this same specialization in our society artificially opposes "artistic people" and "scientific people". Personnally I felt that I was less a scientist because of my artistic activities.Theoretically, I know that competition prevents the emergence of affinitary communities of research. Personnally, I just felt lonely all the time.For a long time I thought that I would change this world from the inside, never making compromises in publication and being a good human teacher for the students. Then I started a depression and I realized that I didn't have the strength to be fighting alone all my life. So before attending the Sejny Summer Institute, I had decided to stop research after the end of my PhD (if I managed to finish it), thinking that this boat was sinking and that maybe in a 100 years it would be rebuilt again without me. But I think that the decision of attending the summer school (for which I seriously hesitated due to my fragile state of mind) was the best of these last few years and I feel a renewing of motivation and hope about the future of research.I really need to be a part of BRCP. I don't know if I have enough to offer but I at least have plenty of motivation.

Alice van Helden

The BRCP is here to recall that the daily job of a physicist is nothing else but to advance our understanding of Nature. This is done most efficiently if the scientific community creates an honest, collaborative, but also critical environment.

Vaclav Zatloukal

To me the BRCP is a place, where the word research community refers to an actual community rather than a set of otherwise unrelated individuals. It is platform where things can be tried out.

Leonhard Horstmeyer

Creativity and the quest of deep understanding suffocate under the pressure of productivity. The BRCP allows me to find an environment of freedom and independence, where knowledge can grow in uncontrolled directions.

Federico Zalamea

I'm mainly interested in understanding what quantum mechanics is about: what kind of world does the formalism describe? I'm particularly pleased when a partial answer can be phrased in the form of a theorem. The pursuit of this question involves (perhaps paradoxically) operational ideas, the quantum theory of measurement, and various pieces of mathematics. I believe that work in the theory of quantum reference frames goes some way to proving an answer. In the future I'd like to understand approaches to quantum gravity better, and how to properly describe quantum systems in spacetime.

Leon Loveridge

Belonging to the BRCP reminds me that science is about the pursuit of knowledge; that it needs to be an open, honest and collective enterprise; and that it needs to permanently criticize its foundations.

Joan Vazquez Molina

TAGS:Research Basic Community Physics

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