Author Archives: woit

A Modest Proposal

Posted on September 9, 2026 by woit

The announcement yesterday by OpenAI of a solution to the Millennium Prize Navier-Stokes problem has been causing a great deal of discussion among mathematicians. There’s a lot to be said about this story and its implications, most of which I’ll … Continue reading →

Posted in AI | 21 Comments

The Situation at Columbia XXXVII

Posted on September 7, 2026 by woit

Ever since a new Columbia president (Jennifer Mnookin) was appointed by the trustees back in January, many have been wondering if she would do anything to try and change Columbia’s reputation as “Vichy on the Hudson”. The reason for this … Continue reading →

Posted in The Situation at Columbia | 12 Comments

The 92-Year-Old Mathematician and the Teenage Apprentice

Posted on September 7, 2026 by woit

As an antidote to the overwhelmingly depressing news of the world, I highly recommend reading the new article in the New York Times about this mathematical result. There have been some articles about this earlier in places like Scientific American … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on August 25, 2026 by woit

The Economist today reports that New theories and experiments should shine light on string theory. This is more of the promotional campaign for Cumrun Vafa’s “dark dimension”. We’re told that a torsion balance experiment in Austria will “according to Dr. … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 8 Comments

HEP-TH and AI

Posted on August 16, 2026 by woit

I’ve been talking to people and seeing a lot of discussion about the effects of AI agents on math research, but haven’t found much serious discussion of what is happening in hep-th research. I’m curious to hear from those involved … Continue reading →

Posted in AI, This Week's Hype | 26 Comments

Requiem for a Field?

Posted on July 26, 2026 by woit

Kevin Hartnett posted the following Friday: My profile of @Jacob_Tsimerman, published the morning he won the Fields Medal, and hours before he announced he’s going to @OpenAI, reads like a requiem for a field. While I’m trying to not spend … Continue reading →

Posted in AI | 26 Comments

Various and Sundry

Posted on July 15, 2026 by woit

Some things that might be of interest: The ICM is starting next week in Philadelphia. One traditional aspect of the ICM is the announcement of the Fields Medal winners. This year there won’t be much surprise, since evidently someone found … Continue reading →

Posted in abc Conjecture, Quantum Mechanics, Strings 2XXX, Uncategorized | 13 Comments

Notes on Wick Rotation and Chiral Field Theories

Posted on July 9, 2026 by woit

A few months ago I decided to try and sort out the two dimensional spacetime case of the Wick rotation issues that have been bothering me for years now. It took me a while to understand what goes on in … Continue reading →

Posted in Euclidean Twistor Unification | 3 Comments

Complexifying the Complex

Posted on June 11, 2026 by woit

I’ve been working recently on trying to understand exactly how Wick rotation works in two-dimensional conformal field theory. There is an analog there of some of the issues with Wick rotation of spinors and twistors in four dimensions that I’ve … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

The First AI QFT Textbook

Posted on June 7, 2026 by woit

The first surprise of this afternoon was finally finding an informed and sensible discussion of the implications of AI agents for hep-th research, in the form of a twitter thread by stringking42069. The second was learning from the twitter thread … Continue reading →

Posted in AI | 16 Comments