Author Archives: woit

Approaching 50 Years of String Theory

Posted on December 19, 2025 by woit

Brian Greene has a new video out today, of himself talking to Edward Witten, mainly about string theory. Pretty much the usual decades-old hype, with nothing even slightly different than what a similar conversation would have consisted of 20 years … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 10 Comments

Future Collider Update

Posted on December 18, 2025 by woit

Various news about a possible future collider, all pointing to the CERN FCC-ee as the leading proposal. For up to date background technical information on proposed colliders, including cost estimates, see here. The Chinese CEPC plan is now on hold, … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 15 Comments

The Situation at Columbia XXXV

Posted on December 13, 2025 by woit

A quick update on what has been going on here at Columbia in recent months: The campus has been rather quiet this semester, about to get much more so as the semester ends and we go into winter break. The … Continue reading →

Posted in The Situation at Columbia | 16 Comments

Theoretical Physics Slop

Posted on December 9, 2025 by woit

In recent years I’ve been struggling with depressive thoughts whenever I think about what’s been going on in the field of fundamental theoretical physics research. As an example of what I find depressing, today I learned that the Harvard Physics … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments

Whatever Happened to String Theory?

Posted on November 15, 2025 by woit

Gayoung Lee at Gizmodo today has responses to the question Whatever Happened to String Theory?. Carlo Rovelli and I give the obvious and accurate answer that it’s a failed idea, explaining why. The other answers exhibit the sad state of … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 53 Comments

Some Math/Physics Items

Posted on October 25, 2025 by woit

A few quick math/physics items (OK, mostly math…): Contributions to next year’s ICM have already been written up by many speakers, and posted on the arXiv. Try this link to find them. There’s a wonderful new result from Kevin Costello … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands, Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Chen-Ning (Frank) Yang 1922-2025

Posted on October 19, 2025 by woit

Chen-Ning Yang (often known in the US as “Frank”) passed away in Beijing yesterday at the age of 103. He was the last of the great figures of 1950s high-energy particle physics still with us. His name is associated with … Continue reading →

Posted in Obituaries | 19 Comments

The Situation at Columbia XXXIV

Posted on October 17, 2025 by woit

I’m trying to not get distracted from finishing writing up notes on some new ideas about Wick rotation, but here’s some news from Vichy-on-Hudson. Jonathan Cole, who was provost from 1989 to 2003, has written an excellent letter to the … Continue reading →

Posted in The Situation at Columbia | 12 Comments

The Situation at Columbia XXXIII

Posted on September 21, 2025 by woit

The fall semester is now under way at Columbia, and in many ways things are normal: enrollments are as usual or higher, foreign students have mostly gotten visas and are on campus. There are some new things though which are … Continue reading →

Posted in The Situation at Columbia | 6 Comments

Two Number Theory Items (and Woody Allen)

Posted on September 20, 2025 by woit

James Douglas Boyd has recently spent a lot of time interacting with Mochizuki and others at RIMS working in anabelian geometry. Material from interviews he conducted are available here (Mochizuki on IUT) and here (on anabelian geometry at RIMS). He … Continue reading →

Posted in abc Conjecture, Uncategorized | 19 Comments