most recent 30 from http://mathoverflow.net 2013-05-19T06:44:18Z http://mathoverflow.net/feeds/question/58990 http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.5/rdf http://mathoverflow.net/questions/58990/the-monster-group-uses-in-mathematical-physics Amin Saied 2011-03-20T18:56:34Z 2011-06-09T22:49:29Z

<p>I am doing a project on the inverse Galois problem, and am seeking to show that the monster group is realisable over the rationals. I have heard that the monster group has found uses in theoretical physics, and was wondering what those uses might be. Also, is there any practical significance to theoretical physics in the result I am aiming to prove?</p>

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/58990/the-monster-group-uses-in-mathematical-physics/59034#59034 Richard Borcherds 2011-03-21T04:26:25Z 2011-03-21T04:26:25Z

<p>There are presently no applications of the monster group in physics, though there is a lot of misleading speculation about this. However in the other direction there are some applications of ideas from physics to the monster group. In particular the no-ghost theorem in string theory is used to construct the monster Lie algebra acted on by the monster group. </p> <p>The ideas from physics seem to have no direct connection with the problem of realizing the monster as a Galois group over the rationals. This was solved by Thompson, who showed by character-table calculations that the monster satisfies a sufficient condition ("rigidity") for it to be a Galois group.</p>

http://mathoverflow.net/questions/58990/the-monster-group-uses-in-mathematical-physics/67391#67391 Mohamed Alaa El Behairy 2011-06-09T22:49:29Z 2011-06-09T22:49:29Z

<p>I know very little about the subject; But you can check this lecture : cosmolearning.com/courses/… by Ed Witten where he links the Monster group to quantizing gravity in 2+1 dimensions. In particular, the lecture contains a very interesting derivation of black hole entropy in 2+1 as log(196883)=12.19.. , where the classical entropy is 4∗π=12.57 which is off by a few percent. What do you think of that professor Borcherds?</p>