Author Archives: woit

Dispute Chez Les Physiciens

Posted on June 7, 2007 by woit

Yesterday evening there was a public debate about string theory held in Paris, between Lee Smolin and Thibault Damour. So far, accounts of the debate have appeared in Le Monde and at Fabien Besnard’s blog Mathephysique. The Le Monde article … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 60 Comments

Imposter String Theorist at Stanford

Posted on June 6, 2007 by woit

In recent years many people in the particle theory community have been wondering what’s going on with the Stanford theory group, as it has become dominated by work on things like the anthropic landscape. It turns out that, for a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 41 Comments

All Landscape, All the Time

Posted on June 5, 2007 by woit

There seems to be a peculiar trend going on in the particle theory community. Just about all theorists I talk to, correspond with, argue with on blogs, etc. claim to be quite unhappy with the Landscape, and insist that most … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 87 Comments

Endless Universe

Posted on June 2, 2007 by woit

There’s a new popular book about cosmology now out on bookstore shelves, Endless Universe by Paul Steinhardt and Neil Turok. The authors are the inventors of a competing model to inflationary cosmology, variously called “ekpyrotic” or “cyclic” cosmology. They describe … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 29 Comments

Even More Stuff Than Usual

Posted on May 31, 2007 by woit

Here are various things of interest that accumulated while I was away: Last week there was a conference in Florence on the early history of string theory, some of the talks are available here. Lots of blogging activity among Fields … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 33 Comments

Proof of the abc Conjecture?

Posted on May 26, 2007 by woit

While I was traveling this past week, there was a conference held here entitled L-functions and Automorphic Forms, which was a celebration of the 60th birthday of my math department colleague Dorian Goldfeld. From all I’ve heard the conference was … Continue reading →

Posted in abc Conjecture | 19 Comments

The Empire Strikes Back

Posted on May 25, 2007 by woit

After last month’s posting at Cosmic Variance about how String Theory is Losing the Public Debate, Sean Carroll seems to have decided to go on the offensive (or defensive…), with a piece in New Scientist entitled String theory: it’s not … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 129 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on May 24, 2007 by woit

Still traveling, but will be back soon. This week’s bogus “test of string theory” is described in a NASA press release about three satellite-based experiments that would look for violations of the equivalence principle. From the press release: …it [a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 33 Comments

All LHC, all the Time

Posted on May 15, 2007 by woit

The LHC media blitz is in full swing, with last week’s long New Yorker article now followed by an unusually long and detailed New York Times piece titled A Giant Takes On Physics’ Biggest Questions. Dennis Overbye does an excellent … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 71 Comments

New Blogs and Other Stuff

Posted on May 12, 2007 by woit

Here’s a few new blogs I’ve run across recently: The FQXi organization now has a blog called FQXi Community. Rantings of an Angry Physicist is not another Not Even Wrong, but an interesting blog so far devoted to explaining what … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments