Scientific Mission Statement

The Amplitudes and Insights group pursues broad interests in fundamental physics. We build and leverage theoretical data towards discovering new frameworks for:

  • scattering amplitudes as invariant relativistic quantum prediction;
  • formal quantum field theory and string theory;
  • effective field theory;
  • precision cosmology;
  • gravitational astrophysics.

Our passion is to understand the rules of the universe relevant to whatever scales we are considering.

A Role for Computation in Analytic Understanding

As we confront ever more subtle questions, the future of physical discovery will progress all the more rapidly through profound engagement with computation and data analysis. This is just as true, if not more so, for us analytic theorists as our experimental and simulation-building colleagues. We see it as part of our mission to celebrate the creative use of code for exploration, construction, verification, and analysis.

Developmental Mission Statement

We believe that ultimately the best way to reach our personal career goals, no matter what stage, is to ardently pursue our scientific passions. The specifics will of course depend on where we are career-wise and where we’re trying to get to. The developmental mission of the group is to provide our members with the opportunity and support to optimize their reach for what come next. This means offering to share our scientific domain experience in support of individual goals. It means creating space for people to build and excel at the type of skills they will need for their next positions, and ensuring that members engage meaningfully with the greater community they aspire to be a part of.

Open science

We are fortunate enough to live in a time where the noise of relentless self-aggrandizement is absolutely drowned out by the signal of a huge community of scientists, programmers, and hobbyists actively engaged in pursuing fascinating problems. We highly value collaboration and believe the scientific enterprise is best served by all of us sharing our ideas, approaches and results as usefully as possible:

  • All papers are submitted to preprint servers.
  • All analytic data, when sufficiently complicated, should be presented in a readily machine parsable form linked to from relevant publications.
  • All code when released, should be released with source under an open license.
  • Share grant/workshop/training proposals (funded or not) when possible.