Overview & Introduction
Hi there! Welcome to my online portfolio. My name is Benjamin Jurke and here you can find some basic information about my interests & work as well as how to contact me.
Currently I’m working on my PhD in theoretical high energy physics at the Max-Planck-Institut für Physik in Munich (Germany).
My academic interests and work focus on the topic of quantum gravity and high energy particle physics—particularly in the context of string theory—and the general interplay between geometry, topology and physics. String theory is a branch of mathematical physics still under development and is in its original form based upon the idea of one-dimensional extended objects, which are called strings. In fact, nowadays string theory should be rather called “brane theory” as it contains all kinds of higher dimensional membranes. This approach of using extended objects takes care of many problems encountered in the point particle based description via quantum field theories, e.g. the well-established Standard Model of particle physics. While mathematical self-consistency specifies certain parts of the theory almost uniquely, the dimensional compactification, which is necessary to make contact with our four-dimensional world, yields an entire landscape of possible vacua with no obvious method to point out the right one. Another issue is the fact that our current theoretical understanding of string theory itself is somewhat limited, as we only have an perturbative (i.e. “approximative”) understanding whereas the non-perturbative “full” theory still remains unknown. However, lacking any experimental verification it remains yet to determine how far string theory will alter our perception of reality in the long run...
Aside from my academic work I’ve great interest in most other technical subjects, in particular areas related to computer science & programming, astronomy and space exploration. As you may guess, I also try my hand at web design and programming from time to time.
Current and interesting Other content via left menu. |
 |
 |
During my undergraduate studies of Physics and Mathematics at the University of Bielefeld , Germany, I was interested in the interplay of physical concepts, geometry and topology as well. In the physics diploma (the German equivalent to a M.Sc.) 
I investigated the classical methods of space-time compactification in heterotic string theory with a focus on orbifold models and delved deeper into related mathematical aspects. The second diploma in pure mathematics dealt with the dimensional reduction of higher-dimensional instantons on spaces with exceptional holonomy.
On the IT side, I consider myself to be "fluent" in C/C++, PHP, CSS, LaTeX, (X)HTML and Mathematica (those are different kinds of programming languages used for system programming, web development, typography of scientific material and mathematical computing) and familiar with x86 assembler, (My)SQL, Maple and Basic. Some knowledge in Python 3, Java and Pascal/Delphi round up the package and those skills have been quite helpful during the doctoral studies.
More information can be found in the respective subsections.
