Author Archives: woit

Yang-Mills and Wikipedia

Posted on February 26, 2009 by woit

I was recently looking up references about the history of Yang-Mills theory in order to write about it here, and one thing I ran into was the Wikipedia entry for Yang-Mills theory. It has three sections, the first two of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 32 Comments

HEP Budget News

Posted on February 24, 2009 by woit

These are dramatic times for news about the US HEP budget, with the FY2009, FY 2010 budgets and stimulus package all coming together at the same time. The final stimulus package was very favorable for DOE and NSF, providing an … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

On History

Posted on February 24, 2009 by woit

When learning about various ideas in mathematics and physics, I’m always fascinated by the history of these ideas and eagerly read whatever I can find on the subject. Partly this is because my understanding of ideas is often enlightened by … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 42 Comments

Mission Accomplished

Posted on February 18, 2009 by woit

A few years ago the asset value of string theory in the market-place of ideas started to take a tumble due to the increasingly obvious failure of the idea of unifying physics with a 10/11 dimensional string/M-theory. Since then a … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 82 Comments

Too Many Topics

Posted on February 15, 2009 by woit

Last Friday at the KITP there was a celebration of Stanley Mandelstam’s 80th birthday, with talks available here, and some messages from other physicists here. Geoffrey Chew recalls how Berkeley hired Mandelstam away from Columbia, where no one was very … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

The Landscape for Undergraduates

Posted on February 14, 2009 by woit

I was in a local Barnes and Noble today, and noticed that there’s a new, second edition out of Barton Zwiebach’s A First Course in String Theory, which is the textbook for MIT’s course 8.251 String Theory for Undergraduates. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 13 Comments

Money For Everything

Posted on February 12, 2009 by woit

It now appears that the final US stimulus bill will include very large amounts of spending on scientific research. See here for a copy of the conference agreement. It has \$3 billion for the NSF, \$1.6 billion for the DOE … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments

Chamonix For You

Posted on February 6, 2009 by woit

The 2009 Chamonix workshop on the commissioning of the LHC has just finished, ending with a message from the Director General, and the opening to the public of the web-site with slides from the meeting (bearing the warning “The Chamonix … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 7 Comments

What is String Theory?

Posted on February 3, 2009 by woit

Yesterday Joe Polchinski gave a lunch-time talk at the KITP on the topic of What is String Theory? No answer to the question, but he provided an outline of three topics being discussed at the current KITP workshop program that … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 49 Comments

No Chamonix For You

Posted on January 30, 2009 by woit

In the last posting I linked to the web-site for next week’s LHC Performance workshop at Chamonix, where the state of efforts to recover from last September’s accident and plans for this year will be discussed. As in many previous … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 21 Comments