Author Archives: woit

This Week’s Hype

Posted on July 4, 2025 by woit

Absurd press releases from major universities hyping the idea that “string theorists have finally found a way to test string theory” have been a feature of theoretical physics for decades now. This nonsense is never going to stop. Latest example … Continue reading →

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The Situation at Columbia XXVII

Posted on July 2, 2025 by woit

I’ll be heading out on vacation tomorrow morning, on a road trip first to Montreal, then Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, back at work on the 21st. While away I’ll try to detox from reading or thinking about the topics of … Continue reading →

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Notes on Epistemic Collapse

Posted on June 27, 2025 by woit

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 →

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The Situation at Columbia XXVI

Posted on June 25, 2025 by woit

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 →

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Various and Sundry

Posted on June 23, 2025 by woit

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 →

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Professional Update

Posted on June 22, 2025 by woit

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 →

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The Situation at Columbia XXV

Posted on June 18, 2025 by woit

There are a couple reports out very recently that NIH is lifting its block on paying grant funds to Columbia, see here and here. According to one of these reports, this applies only to Columbia, not to Brown/Northwestern/Cornell/Harvard. Presumably Columbia … Continue reading →

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The Situation at Columbia XXIV

Posted on June 12, 2025 by woit

Now back on the Columbia campus after nearly two weeks away traveling. It is extremely quiet here, just some summer classes going on. Security remains intense: you have to go through one of a small number of checkpoints to get … Continue reading →

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The Situation at Columbia XXIII

Posted on June 4, 2025 by woit

This week I’m very happy to not be at Columbia, and not in the US, enjoying spending the week at the Perimeter Institute at a conference in honor of Lee Smolin. Since there’s a little bit of Columbia news and … Continue reading →

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The Situation at Columbia XXII

Posted on May 31, 2025 by woit

Nothing much new happening today, a short summary of what is going on follows. I will be traveling the next ten days or so, likely much less posting. On the visa front, a court stopped Trump from his plan to … Continue reading →

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