Author Archives: woit

Deterioration of the World’s Thinking About the Deepest Stringy Ideas

Posted on July 12, 2021 by woit

For quite a few years now, I’ve been mystified about what is going on in string theory, as the subject has become dominated by AdS/CFT inspired work which has nothing to do with either strings or any visible idea about … Continue reading →

Posted in Strings 2XXX | 9 Comments

Even More Langlands

Posted on July 6, 2021 by woit

Various news at least tangentially related to the Langlands program: Cambridge University Press this month is publishing a volume edited by Julia Mueller, entitled The Genesis of the Langlands Program. The chapters by various authors concentrate on Langlands himself and … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands | 3 Comments

Strings 2021

Posted on June 21, 2021 by woit

Strings 2021 started today, program is available here. Since it’s online only, talks are much more accessible than usual (and since it’s free, over 2000 people have registered to in principle participate via Zoom). Talks are available for watching every … Continue reading →

Posted in Strings 2XXX | 34 Comments

Various Math Items

Posted on June 6, 2021 by woit

Some math-research items: Mura Yakerson has been doing a really wonderful series of interviews with mathematicians, available at her math-life balance web-page or Youtube channel. I’ve just started listening to some of them, including ones with Peter Scholze and Dustin … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments

Non-empirical Physics

Posted on June 2, 2021 by woit

I haven’t been paying much attention in recent years to the philosophers of science studying “Non-empirical” or “Post-empirical” physics or theory confirmation. At various times I did write fairly extensively about this, see for instance here, here and here. By … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 27 Comments

The Evolution of the Physicist’s Picture of Nature

Posted on May 24, 2021 by woit

Reading this Nautilus article about Julian Barbour led me recently to something I don’t think I’ve ever read before, Dirac’s 1963 Scientific American article The Evolution of the Physicist’s Picture of Nature. There is a very famous quote from this … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 20 Comments

Some History

Posted on April 29, 2021 by woit

I’m heading out soon for a 10 day vacation in the Rocky Mountains, blogging likely to change from sparse to non-existent for the next couple weeks. I’ve come across the following things that people with an interest in the recent … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Finished Some Things

Posted on April 13, 2021 by woit

I’ve now finished with two things that I’ve been working on over the last year or so: The paper explaining my proposal for “Twistor Unification” is now done and uploaded to the arXiv, see here. I’ve finished lecturing for the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 22 Comments

Hawking Hawking

Posted on April 8, 2021 by woit

There’s a very good new book about Stephen Hawking that just came out, Charles Seife’s Hawking Hawking. Some detailed reviews can be found at Prospect Magazine (Philip Ball) and the New York Review of Books (James Gleick). Seife has chosen … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 19 Comments

Muon g-2 Result

Posted on April 7, 2021 by woit

The long awaited FNAL muon g-2 result was announced today, you can watch a video of the seminar here, look at the paper and a discussion of it at Physical Review Letters, or read stories from Natalie Wolchover at Quanta … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 41 Comments