Author Archives: woit

Is Quantum Mechanics a Probabilistic Theory?

Posted on September 7, 2018 by woit

There is a simple question about quantum theory that has been increasingly bothering me. I keep hoping that my reading about interpretational issues will turn up a discussion of this point, but that hasn’t happened. I’m hoping someone expert in … Continue reading →

Posted in Quantum Mechanics | 74 Comments

Beyond Weird

Posted on September 5, 2018 by woit

Philip Ball’s Beyond Weird is the best popular survey I’ve seen of the contemporary state of discussions about the “interpretation” of quantum mechanics. It appeared earlier this year in a British edition (which I just read a copy of), with … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 14 Comments

Quick Links

Posted on August 31, 2018 by woit

A collection of links that may be of interest: Talks from the SM at 50 conference held earlier this summer are available here. A detailed expose of the “Fake Science Factory” is here, a related Nature story is here. For … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Quantum Supremacy

Posted on August 26, 2018 by woit

Hasn’t been much that I’ve heard about worth discussing here recently. Presumably everyone is on vacation. I’ll try and gather some things that may be of interest, starting first with the hot topic of “quantum computation”. It looks like this … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

On Status of KKLT

Posted on August 16, 2018 by woit

(Warning, this is just more about the topic of the last posting, which for most people will be a good reason to stop reading now. On the other hand, if you’re obsessed with the controversy over string theory, you might … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Swampland | 15 Comments

Theorists with a Swamp, not a Theory

Posted on August 13, 2018 by woit

In recent weeks string theory has been again getting a lot of press attention, because of claims that new progress is being made in the study of the relation of string theory and the real world, via the study of … Continue reading →

Posted in Swampland | 15 Comments

Back

Posted on August 6, 2018 by woit

Back now from vacation. On the global warming front, I can report that Northern Norway has gotten rather warm, Svalbard is still pretty cold. While I was away the big mathematics news was from the ICM. As everyone expected, one … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 32 Comments

Leaving Town

Posted on July 19, 2018 by woit

About to head out on vacation tonight, back in a couple weeks. On the hot topics in fundamental physics, two items are: Concerning the “no dS string vacua” conjecture, a new preprint begins by explaining why the existence or non-existence … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Leaving Town

abc News

Posted on July 17, 2018 by woit

[For those not up to speed on this story, see blog posts here and here from last December, as well as comments to those posts.] The last couple months I’ve heard reports from several people claiming that arithmetic geometers Peter … Continue reading →

Posted in abc Conjecture | 24 Comments

Various Links

Posted on July 5, 2018 by woit

A random assortment of possibly interesting links: New videos from the IHES include new interviews, and talks from the recent Ofer Gabber conference. If you want to know more about prisms than what you can get from the video here, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 30 Comments