Author Archives: woit

Back

Posted on November 26, 2021 by woit

I haven’t been posting here for a while, partly due to a lot of traveling, partly due to some personal time-consuming commitments, and largely due to a lack of much in the way of news that seemed worth much attention. … Continue reading →

Posted in abc Conjecture, Uncategorized | 11 Comments

News and Travels

Posted on October 15, 2021 by woit

First some personally relevant items: I finally have a finished version 2.0 of my euclidean twistor unification paper (discussed here), it’s uploaded to the arXiv, should appear there Monday. I’ll be giving a talk October 30th at the Foundations 2021 … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on October 8, 2021 by woit

The latest from the BBC: String theory – a simple way to understand the universe Not worth more comment than it’s another reminder that this nonsense continues to be heavily promoted in our most prominent and respected mass media. I’m … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | Comments Off on This Week’s Hype

String Theory and the Real World

Posted on October 6, 2021 by woit

I just noticed that Gordon Kane has recently published a second edition of his 2017 String Theory and the Real World. Columbia doesn’t seem to yet have full online access to the second edition, but one can already compare the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

Various Math and Physics News

Posted on October 4, 2021 by woit

First some items on the mathematics side: The latest AMS Notices has some memorial pieces about Vaughan Jones and Robert Hermann. I contributed a piece to the Hermann memorial, for more about him, see here. If you read French you … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

Visit to Brown

Posted on September 24, 2021 by woit

I spent yesterday up in Providence, visiting the Theoretical Physics Center at Brown, and giving a talk there (slides are available here, newer version of a paper here), At some point a recording of the talk should appear online. In … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Euclidean Twistor Unification | 7 Comments

Euclidean Twistor Unification, version 2.0

Posted on September 10, 2021 by woit

I’ve completely re-organized and largely rewritten my paper from earlier this year on Euclidean Spinors and Twistor Unification. Soon I’ll upload this as a revision to the arXiv, for now it’s available here. This new version starts from a very … Continue reading →

Posted in Euclidean Twistor Unification | 28 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on September 8, 2021 by woit

Today Quanta has One Lab’s Quest to Build Space-Time Out of Quantum Particles. No, this kind of experiment is not going to “Build Space-Time”, now or ever. This kind of obfuscation about quantum gravity advances neither fundamental physics nor the … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 17 Comments

Conversations on Quantum Gravity

Posted on August 26, 2021 by woit

Things for many years now have been going badly for string theory on the public relations front. Today the Economist has Physics seeks the future: Bye, bye, little Susy, where one finds out that: But, no Susy, no string theory. … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 42 Comments

Some Math Items

Posted on July 30, 2021 by woit

Some math items that may be of interest: Zentralblatt Math has a review of Mochizuki’s IUT papers, by Peter Scholze. Scholze explains the problem with the proof claimed in these papers. For more details, see his manuscript with Stix, or … Continue reading →

Posted in abc Conjecture, Uncategorized | 8 Comments