Author Archives: woit

This Week’s Hype

Posted on June 18, 2013 by woit

In recent years universities have taken to issuing press releases when one of their particle theorists gets a paper on some speculative topic published in a journal like Physical Review Letters. Many examples of such things, often involving bogus claims … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 5 Comments

Farewell to Reality

Posted on June 16, 2013 by woit

Jim Baggott has written a very good new book called Farewell to Reality that will soon come out here in the US. It is already out in the UK, where it is stirring up some debate, and perhaps the US … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 84 Comments

Nature on the new Nobels

Posted on June 12, 2013 by woit

This week’s Nature has an article by Zeeya Merali about various new science mega-prizes, including Yuri Milner’s Fundamental Physics Prize. There’s also a podcast here, and a Nature editorial here. I’m quoted in the article, saying about what you’d expect, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Nature at the energy frontier

Posted on June 12, 2013 by woit

Last week a symposium on Nature at the energy frontier was held at the ETH in Zurich, funded by the Latsis foundation. Videos of many of the talks have appeared here. As part of the symposium, David Gross gave a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 33 Comments

Simons 75th Birthday Conference

Posted on June 3, 2013 by woit

Last week the CUNY Graduate Center hosted a conference in honor of the 75th birthday of Jim Simons. It was organized by Dennis Sullivan as a set of expository “mini-courses” on various topics related to Simons’ mathematical work. I was … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Snowmass on the Pacific

Posted on June 1, 2013 by woit

Due to popular demand from the comment section, I spent some time this afternoon taking a look at the talks now posted from the KITP Snowmass on the Pacific conference held the past few days. This is part of an … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 26 Comments

A Tale of Two Oxford Talks

Posted on May 28, 2013 by woit

Last week (for more, see here) Eric Weinstein gave a talk at Oxford about his ideas about “Geometric Unity”, with positive coverage from the Guardian, leading to various critical commentary. I agree completely with the main point of most of … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 72 Comments

The “Unnatural” Standard Model

Posted on May 25, 2013 by woit

The Standard Model is a physical theory of a spectacularly successful sort. It is built on beautiful and deep mathematics, covers almost all known physical phenomena, and agrees precisely with the result of every single experiment ever done to test … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 58 Comments

Various Links

Posted on May 25, 2013 by woit

The Smithsonian has a long article about Lisa Randall here. The Wall Street Journal has a shorter article about Randall’s high school classmate Brian Greene here. Brian’s World Science Festival will start here in New York on Wednesday. I’ll probably … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Eric Weinstein on Geometric Unity

Posted on May 23, 2013 by woit

Eric Weinstein is a Harvard math Ph. D. who has been working as an economist here in New York for many years, and someone I’ve often enjoyed talking to over the years. Going back to his days as a graduate … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 76 Comments