Author Archives: woit

First International Spring School on Particle Physics and Philosophy

Posted on July 19, 2011 by woit

From an article in the CERN Courier I recently learned about a program that brought together physicists and philosophers of science earlier this year around the topic of philosophy and particle physics. This was the First International Spring School on … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Questions About the Multiverse

Posted on July 19, 2011 by woit

The August issue of Scientific American has the multiverse on the cover, with a skeptical feature article on the topic by George F. R. Ellis, Does the Multiverse Really Exist?, which argues that heavily promoted multiverse research isn’t really testable … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 29 Comments

This Week’s Leak

Posted on July 12, 2011 by woit

Everyone in the HEP community is breathlessly awaiting the release of results from the 2011 LHC run, expected to come at the EPS-HEP 2011 conference in Grenoble starting July 21. A public press conference has been announced for July 25. … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 11 Comments

Higher Speculations

Posted on July 8, 2011 by woit

Some commenters here a while ago made the excellent suggestion that I should take a look at a book published this spring, Helge Kragh’s Higher Speculations: Grand Theories and Failed Revolutions in Physics and Cosmology. I’ve always wondered what historians … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 29 Comments

Local Blogs

Posted on July 1, 2011 by woit

There are now several excellent blogs somehow related to mathematics being run by local people, including a couple new ones, so I thought it would be a good idea to mention these here: Andrew Gelman of the Columbia Statistics department … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Strings 2011

Posted on June 27, 2011 by woit

Strings 2011 started today in Uppsala, with attendance quite a bit lower than in the past (259 registered participants, versus 500 or so at some of the past such conferences). One reason for this may be the high conference cost … Continue reading →

Posted in Strings 2XXX | 33 Comments

Bad Boys of Physics

Posted on June 22, 2011 by woit

Scientific American is running a Bad Boy of Physics story (also see here) in the July issue, about Lenny Susskind. Here’s the “nut graph”: Physicists seeking to understand the deepest levels of reality now work within a framework largely of … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 44 Comments

Quick Links

Posted on June 17, 2011 by woit

The House committee responsible for the DOE budget has passed a FY2012 appropriations bill, details here. Total funding for DOE Science is down .9% from FY2011 at $4.8 billion. HEP gets a .2 percent increase, Biological and Environmental Research is … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on June 15, 2011 by woit

Last month’s Quark Matter 2011 conference was a venue for discussion of new results from the first heavy-ion run at LHC energies last fall. I’ve looked a bit at the slides of the talks, but this is an area far … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 41 Comments

How the Hippies Saved Physics

Posted on June 13, 2011 by woit

A review that I wrote of David Kaiser’s How the Hippies Saved Physics is now available at American Scientist. A quick summary is that I think it’s a marvelous book, telling in well-researched and entertaining fashion a story I’ve always … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 37 Comments