Author Archives: woit

Way Too Much Stuff

Posted on June 5, 2006 by woit

I ordinarily keep a short list on my desk of things I’ve seen recently that I’d like to write about here. The last few days this list has gotten way too long, so I’ll try and deal with it by … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 67 Comments

Not Even Wrong in the Financial Times

Posted on June 5, 2006 by woit

As a start on the project of reorganizing this weblog a bit to take into account the existence of the book, I’ve started using the “Categories” feature of WordPress. Postings about the book will be in a special category, all … Continue reading →

Posted in Not Even Wrong: The Book | 29 Comments

Lusztig Birthday Conference

Posted on June 4, 2006 by woit

I was up in Boston for a few days, and managed to attend a few of the talks at the conference in honor of George Lusztig’s 60th birthday. Lusztig started out his career in geometry and topology; his thesis was … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 31 Comments

First Public Reaction From String Theorist to “Not Even Wrong”

Posted on June 2, 2006 by woit

Last month I made the following prediction: String theory doesn’t make any predictions, but I can make one: Lubos will be among the first reviewers of my book on Amazon, and I’ll get two stars. This prediction was confirmed today, … Continue reading →

Posted in Not Even Wrong: The Book | 142 Comments

Not Even Wrong Available in the UK

Posted on May 31, 2006 by woit

Not Even Wrong, the book, is now available from Amazon in the UK. It’s being published in the British Commonwealth by Jonathan Cape, so should also at some point be available from them in Canada. Last I’d heard official publication … Continue reading →

Posted in Not Even Wrong: The Book | 48 Comments

Accelerator News

Posted on May 27, 2006 by woit

News about various colliders of various vintages: The Tevatron has been shut down for the past two months for maintenance and various improvements. It should start up again this coming week, for latest news on its status, see here. Seed … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 50 Comments

String Theory Makes Prediction – Pig Grows Wings

Posted on May 27, 2006 by woit

Several people have pointed out to me the latest press release hyping the supposed testability of an extremely speculative theoretical idea, which then gets promoted to a “scientists finally find way to test string theory” story, and spread throughout the … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 13 Comments

WordPress Upgrade

Posted on May 23, 2006 by woit

Just upgraded to a new version (2.0.2) of WordPress, and as far as I can tell everything is working normally again. If not, let me know. The one change I plan to make here soon is to try out some … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Wilczek on the Anthropic Principle

Posted on May 21, 2006 by woit

Frank Wilczek has a new Reference Frame piece in this month’s Physics Today. It’s about the question of whether the parameters of our fundamental physical theory are uniquely determined by abstract principles, or “environmental”. He gives two reasons for suspicion … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 199 Comments

Various Links

Posted on May 21, 2006 by woit

Someone wrote in to inform me that Alain Connes has made available at his web-site the full text of his long 1994 book Noncommutative Geometry. This is a rather amazing book, in many ways more of a research document than … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments