Author Archives: woit

Freaky Physics Proves Parallel Universes Exist

Posted on April 6, 2010 by woit

Fox News has decided that some recent experimental atomic physics work showing that quantum mechanics works as expected (for a sane discussion of the science, see here) proves that parallel universes exist and that time travel may be feasible. In … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 5 Comments

Solar

Posted on April 5, 2010 by woit

Ian McEwan’s new novel Solar is now out, with a plot featuring Michael Beard, an aging theoretical physicist. Beard won a Nobel prize early in his career for the “Beard-Einstein Conflation”, which supposedly involves some unexpected coherent behavior in QED, … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 9 Comments

Short Items

Posted on April 2, 2010 by woit

Planning on getting back to writing some longer postings, but for today, here’s a collection of quick news and links: I hear from number theorists that Princeton’s Manjul Bhargava has some breakthrough results on the ranks of elliptic curves. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments

First High Energy Collisions at the LHC

Posted on March 29, 2010 by woit

Current schedule is for first 7 TeV center of mass collisions tomorrow (Tuesday) at 9:17 am Geneva time. Injection of the beams will take place after 2 am, ramp up to 3.5 TeV/beam from 3-4 am. For more details of … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 14 Comments

More Prizes

Posted on March 26, 2010 by woit

As far as I can tell, it’s still unclear if Perelman will accept the $1 million Millennium prize awarded to him last week. This week brings news of two more million dollar prizes: John Tate is this year’s winner of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

High Energy Beams at the LHC

Posted on March 19, 2010 by woit

At 5:23 am in Geneva this morning, for the first time the two LHC beams were ramped up to high energy, the 3.5 TeV/beam that they plan to run at for the next two years. These are the highest energy … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 10 Comments

Millennium Prize to Perelman

Posted on March 18, 2010 by woit

The Clay Mathematics Institute announced today the award of the Millennium Prize to Perelman for the proof of the Poincare Conjecture. The award was made based on the rules set up when the prize was created: a Special Advisory Board … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 38 Comments

HEPAP Meeting

Posted on March 12, 2010 by woit

HEPAP is now meeting in Washington, presentations available here. Like the rest of science, HEP has been doing very well in the federal budget, including a temporary increase due to the stimulus program. Excluding stimulus money, the president’s FY2011 request … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 15 Comments

LHC Update

Posted on March 12, 2010 by woit

There’s now a tentative date set for first high energy (3.5 TeV/beam) collisions at the LHC: it’s March 30th.

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 3 Comments

Strings 2010

Posted on March 11, 2010 by woit

Strings 2010, this year’s version of the big annual string theory conference, will be held next week in College Station, Texas. There’s a university press release about this here. Normally the conference is held in the summer at places like … Continue reading →

Posted in Strings 2XXX | 5 Comments