Author Archives: woit

Notes on BRST I: Representation Theory and Quantum Mechanics

Posted on November 5, 2008 by woit

This is the first posting of a planned series that will discuss the BRST method for handling gauge symmetries and related mathematical topics. I’ve been writing a more formal paper about this, but given the substantial amount of not-well-known background … Continue reading →

Posted in BRST | 63 Comments

The Circus Begins

Posted on November 2, 2008 by woit

Friday’s arXiv posting of the paper by CDF about the multi-muon anomaly they are seeing has already generated three different conjectural explanations of what physics might be responsible for this. Undoubtedly many, many more are on the way. Some members … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 24 Comments

Discovery of a New Particle?

Posted on October 30, 2008 by woit

Except for the excitement surrounding first beams in the LHC, particle physics has been an all-too-quiet subject recently. It looks like that may be about to change, with a dramatic new result announced by the CDF experiment this evening, in … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 42 Comments

Job Posting

Posted on October 25, 2008 by woit

This is the time of year during which a large number of physicists and mathematicians must turn their attention to the problem of finding employment for next fall. Physics Today has a jobs site here, which has a new posting … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments

Quantum Physicist Offers Solution To Global Market Meltdown

Posted on October 16, 2008 by woit

I briefly met John Hagelin when I was an undergraduate. At the time he was a Harvard particle theory graduate student, soon to get his degree and start a quite respectable career in the subject. His biography on his web-site … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 87 Comments

Princeton Companion to Mathematics

Posted on October 15, 2008 by woit

I just recently got my hands on a copy of the new Princeton Companion to Mathematics, and I fear that this is likely to seriously impact my ability to get things done for a while, as I devote too much … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 23 Comments

The Landscape at Princeton and Harvard

Posted on October 15, 2008 by woit

String theory in general seems to have gone very quiet recently, but attempts to intensively promote the string theory landscape view of fundamental physics show no signs of slowing down at all. The Princeton Center for Theoretical Science is running … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

News From Various Fields

Posted on October 8, 2008 by woit

The hypothetical field with one element (known as Fun) now has its own blog, ceci n’est pas un corps. Among the many things of interest, there’s a link to a video of Alain Connes explaining his recent paper with Consani … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

2008 Physics Nobel Prize

Posted on October 7, 2008 by woit

Half of this year’s Nobel Prize in physics has been awarded to Yoichiro Nambu for his work on spontaneous symmetry breaking, the other half to Kobayashi and Maskawa for the CKM matrix as an explanation of CP breaking. A detailed … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 32 Comments

Deal Breaker

Posted on September 30, 2008 by woit

Discussion of quantum gravity at a level similar to that of parts of the professional physics community makes it to prime-time TV: Update: I should have credited where I first saw reference to this (no, I don’t normally watch this … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 27 Comments