Author Archives: woit

What’s Going Right in Particle Physics

Posted on February 14, 2023 by woit

Since I had a little free time today, I was thinking of writing something motivated by two things I saw today, Sabine Hossenfelder’s What’s Going Wrong in Particle Physics, and this summer’s upcoming SUSY 2023 conference and pre-SUSY 2023 school. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

Various and Sundry

Posted on February 7, 2023 by woit

A few things that may be of interest: Fermilab is continuing to push the wormhole publicity stunt, with Joe Lykken, the lab’s Deputy director for research on the 17th giving a public lecture on Wormholes in the Laboratory. The promotional … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 9 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on January 24, 2023 by woit

The New York Times today has Where is Physics Headed (and How Soon Do We Get There?). It’s an interview by Dennis Overbye of Maria Spiropulu and Michael Turner, the chairs of the NAS Committee on Elementary Particle Physics – … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 12 Comments

What is the AdS/CFT Conjecture?

Posted on January 22, 2023 by woit

In recent years I’ve found there’s no point to trying to have an intelligible argument about “string theory”, simply because the term no longer has any well-defined meaning. At the KITP next spring, there will be a program devoted to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 31 Comments

Spring Course

Posted on January 10, 2023 by woit

This semester I’m teaching the second half of our graduate course on Lie groups and representations, and have started making plans for the course, which will begin next week. There’s a web-page here which I’ll be adding to as time … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Pierre Schapira on Récoltes et Semailles

Posted on December 30, 2022 by woit

Earlier this year I bought a copy of the recently published version of Grothendieck’s Récoltes et Semailles, and spent quite a lot of time reading it. I wrote a bit about it here, intended to write something much longer when … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

The New Yorker and the Publicity Stunt

Posted on December 12, 2022 by woit

The wormhole publicity stunt story just keeps going. Today an article about the Google Santa Barbara lab and quantum computer used in the publicity stunt appeared in the New Yorker. One of the main people profiled is Hartmut Neven, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 29 Comments

Wormhole Publicity Stunts: Past, Present and Future

Posted on December 9, 2022 by woit

Most of the news I’m hearing today about the current wormhole publicity stunt is that physicists who could do something about it are instead blaming any problem on journalists and defending the stunt as some sort of progress forward. I’ve … Continue reading →

Posted in Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 13 Comments

Various and Sundry

Posted on December 8, 2022 by woit

If you’re sick of hearing about bogus wormholes, here are some other random topics: There’s a SCOAP3 for books initiative, lots of textbooks in the field of particle physics now made open access and available here. It’s completely mysterious to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

Publicity Stunt Fallout

Posted on December 6, 2022 by woit

Latest news this evening from Scott Aaronson at the IAS in Princeton: Tonight, David Nirenberg, Director of the IAS and a medieval historian, gave an after-dinner speech to our workshop, centered around how auspicious it was that the workshop was … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype, Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 29 Comments