Author Archives: woit

Latest Sci-Fi/Fantasy News

Posted on December 11, 2007 by woit

Various particle physics-related science fiction and fantasy news: Discover has an interview with Kip Thorne, who is working with Steven Spielberg on a science fiction film tentatively entitled Interstellar for release in 2009. The plot evidently involves the novel idea … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 28 Comments

News From All Over

Posted on December 4, 2007 by woit

There’s a long and interesting profile of Jim Simons on the Bloomberg web-site. It begins with him being told he has a call from Harvard string theorist Cumrun Vafa. Unclear whether Vafa was calling to talk about something related to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Jumping the Shark

Posted on December 1, 2007 by woit

Over at bloggingheads.tv today, John Horgan and George Johnson discuss the various excesses of recent physics news reporting covered here over the last week or so (Lisi-mania, evidence of other universes, observation of the CC causing ours to end, etc.), … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 37 Comments

Geometric Langlands and QFT

Posted on November 30, 2007 by woit

Wednesday’s session at the IAS Conference on Gauge Theory and Representation Theory was mostly devoted to talks by Witten and his collaborators about their latest work on the approach to relating geometric Langlands and QFT that he has pioneered over … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Langlands | 15 Comments

Not Yet About Geometric Langlands…

Posted on November 26, 2007 by woit

Tomorrow morning I’ll head down to Princeton to attend the conference on Gauge Theory and Representation Theory at the IAS. Unfortunately I had to miss the first day of the conference (today), since I would have liked to have heard … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 20 Comments

Letter to the Editor

Posted on November 24, 2007 by woit

To the Editor: Paul Davies, in his Op-Ed piece Taking Science on Faith, uses recent untestable speculation about multiple universes motivated by string theory to claim that “the mood has now shifted considerably” among physicists. He characterizes physics as being, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 36 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on November 23, 2007 by woit

This past week has seen a veritable bumper crop of media hype, involving claims coming from both string theorists and critics of string theory. Besides the overhyped claims and Lisi-mania that has made it into all sorts of media outlets, … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 32 Comments

Sidney Coleman 1937-2007

Posted on November 19, 2007 by woit

I just learned today the sad news of the death of Sidney Coleman, yesterday at the age of seventy. Coleman had been in quite poor health in recent years. I wrote about him here back in 2005, after attending a … Continue reading →

Posted in Obituaries | 25 Comments

Project X and Flavor Physics

Posted on November 18, 2007 by woit

Last week Fermilab hosted two workshops on the so-called Project X proposal for building a linac designed to produce a high-intensity proton beam. The first workshop dealt with issues surrounding the proposed accelerator itself, the second with the physics that … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 35 Comments

Popularizing Science

Posted on November 12, 2007 by woit

While it’s not one of my main goals in life, I’m all in favor of the idea of popularizing science and making it as accessible as possible to as many people as possible. But sometimes I do wonder about the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 70 Comments