Author Archives: woit

Love and Math

Posted on September 19, 2013 by woit

Edward Frenkel’s new book Love and Math is now out. It’s a must-read for those who share the interests of this blogger, so go get a copy now. The “Love” of the title is much more about love of mathematics … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Langlands | 21 Comments

Physicists Discover Geometry Underlying Particle Physics

Posted on September 18, 2013 by woit

Today’s Slashdot tells us that Physicists Discover Geometry Underlying Particle Physics, a story that is based on an excellent article, A Jewel at the Heart of Quantum Physics, by Natalie Wolchover at the new Quanta Magazine sponsored by the Simons … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 35 Comments

Susskind: String theory not a complete picture of how quantum gravity works

Posted on September 16, 2013 by woit

For the latest on quantum gravity, readers might want to look at talks from some events of the last couple weeks. At the new ICTP-SAIFR theoretical physics institute in Sao Paulo, a school on quantum gravity has talks available here, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

Trust the math?

Posted on September 11, 2013 by woit

The last few days have seen some new revelations about the NSA’s role in compromising NIST standard elliptic curve cryptography algorithms. Evidently this is an old story, going back to 2007, for details see Did NSA Put a Secret Backdoor … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 30 Comments

Perimeter Institute and the crisis in modern physics

Posted on September 9, 2013 by woit

Maclean’s has been publishing a very nice series of articles about Perimeter Institute by Paul Wells. These include one about Jacob Barnett, a 15 year-old who is now studying in a master’s level graduate program (Perimeter Scholars International) there. Another … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 50 Comments

Assorted News

Posted on September 4, 2013 by woit

This past weekend I was up in Boston and attended quite a few talks at the Gelfand Centennial conference at MIT, in honor of the 100th anniversary of I. M. Gelfand’s birth. Abstracts of the talks are available, but most … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 42 Comments

SUSY 2013

Posted on August 31, 2013 by woit

The big yearly SUSY conference, SUSY 2013 has been going on in Trieste this past week. From the experimentalists, the news is just stronger limits: no hint of SUSY anywhere in the LHC data. From the theorists, the reaction to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 20 Comments

Two Cultures

Posted on August 22, 2013 by woit

There are two workshops going on this week that you can follow on video, getting a good idea of the latest discussions going on at two different ends of the spectrum of particle theory in the US today. At the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 70 Comments

Belief in multiverse requires exceptional vision

Posted on August 14, 2013 by woit

Tom Siegfried at Science News has a new piece about how Belief in multiverse requires exceptional vision that starts off by accusing critics of multiverse mania of basically being ignoramuses who won’t accept the reality of anything they can’t see … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 73 Comments

Quick Links

Posted on August 13, 2013 by woit

At HEP blogs you should be reading already, there’s Tommaso Dorigo on 5 sigma (with more promised to come), and Jester on the lack of a definite BSM energy scale. Jester puts his finger on the big problem facing HEP … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments