Author Archives: woit

Open Access Publishing

Posted on September 9, 2006 by woit

There’s a big debate within the scientific community in general about how and whether to move away from the conventional model of scientific publishing (journals supported by subscriptions paid by libraries, only available to subscribers) to a model where access … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 53 Comments

Noncommutative Geometry and Physics

Posted on September 5, 2006 by woit

This week the Newton Institute in Cambridge is running (with funding from the Templeton Foundation) a workshop on the topic of Noncommutative Geometry and Physics: Fundamental Structure of Space and Time. The program is here, some of the talks are … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 41 Comments

Hold Fire! This Epic Vessel Has Only Just Set Sail…

Posted on September 3, 2006 by woit

The August 25th issue of the Times Higher Education Supplement has a feature article by Leonard Susskind about my book and Lee Smolin’s entitled “Hold Fire! This Epic Vessel Has Only Just Set Sail…” (unfortunately only available to subscribers). The … Continue reading →

Posted in Not Even Wrong: The Book | 73 Comments

Amazon Reviews

Posted on September 2, 2006 by woit

I’d really much rather ignore the activities of Lubos Motl, but his unethical behavior recently has sunk to new lows, and it seems necessary to point this out and encourage others to take appropriate action. When Lee Smolin’s new book … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 86 Comments

Links, Links, Links…

Posted on August 30, 2006 by woit

Wired has an interview with Lee Smolin. The French internet site Arte has interviews with various physicists, including one with Carlo Rovelli. If you don’t want to watch the videos, there’s a text summary (in French). Mel Schwartz died earlier … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 22 Comments

The Trouble With Physics

Posted on August 28, 2006 by woit

I’ve just finished reading Lee Smolin’s new book The Trouble With Physics, which should be released and available for sale very soon. It’s a great book, covering some of the same ground as mine, but with significant differences. This won’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Not Even Wrong: The Book | 92 Comments

A Castle For Mathematicians

Posted on August 24, 2006 by woit

The American Institute of Mathematics was founded in 1994, with financing from John Fry, the Silicon Valley businessman responsible for Fry’s Electronics. The Fry’s store in Palo Alto is quite remarkable, containing everything a Silicon Valley geek might need, with … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 22 Comments

U.S. Publication of Not Even Wrong

Posted on August 22, 2006 by woit

Today a heavy box with copies of the U.S. version of Not Even Wrong arrived at my office, and I’m quite pleased the thing is finally being published in this country. It appears that Amazon has it in stock (see … Continue reading →

Posted in Not Even Wrong: The Book | 63 Comments

2006 Fields Medal Winners

Posted on August 22, 2006 by woit

The winners of the 2006 Fields Medals are Terence Tao and Grigori Perelman (as widely predicted), also Andrei Okounkov, and Wendelin Werner. For some more information, see the press releases at the ICM site. Okounkov’s mathematical work has been in … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 107 Comments

Some Links

Posted on August 20, 2006 by woit

Lee Smolin’s forthcoming book “The Trouble With Physics” has a web-site. There’s a new group blog focusing on n-categories, The n-Category Cafe, which will be run by John Baez, David Corfield and Urs Schreiber. It looks like Urs will basically … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 47 Comments