Category Archives: Uncategorized

For a long time I’ve been having difficulty making sense for myself of a lot of what is going on in the world around me. Recently I’ve found that a useful way of understanding some otherwise baffling things is as … Continue reading →

There are some unusual things going on here today. The central university computer system has been having outages since Monday night. No news on the source of these, but this just came in: CUIT has been working around the clock … Continue reading →

First of all, three new books of interest: Jesper Grimstrup has written a book titled The Ant Mill: how theoretical high-energy physics descended into groupthink, tribalism, and mass production of research. There’s a lot more about the book at his … Continue reading →

News from here is that as of July 1 I’ll be on a one-semester sabbatical, then will officially retire at the end of the year. This won’t affect that much what I’m actually doing with my time. I’m not moving … Continue reading →

I don’t know how cuts for DOE and NSF funding will affect theoretical physics, but there’s news today of a very large gift that will may help make up for such cuts. The Leinweber Foundation announced \$90 million in gifts … Continue reading →

You can now watch the “Oscars of Science’ here. The US tech billionaires and various Hollywood starlets gathered for this ceremony on April 5, in the middle of a massive illegal defunding of US scientific research by our new Fascist … Continue reading →

A few math and physics items: Masaki Kashiwara is the winner of the 2025 Abel Prize, see an announcement here, a New York Times article here and a Nature article here. Kashiwara has worked an a wide range of topics … Continue reading →

The prospect of massive cuts in US federal government science funding has caused an increase in the usual heated internet debates over science funding. These typically involve people arguing either: “Funding for science research is an unalloyed good that leads … Continue reading →

Back in 2022 at the time of the rescheduled 2022 ICM I wrote here: One decision already made there was that the 2026 ICM will be hosted by the US in Philadelphia. With the 2022 experience in mind, hopefully the … Continue reading →