Author Archives: woit

Hard Evidence for the Multiverse Found, but String Theory Limits the Space Brain Threat

Posted on May 22, 2013 by woit

In recent years there have been many claims made for “evidence” of a multiverse, supposedly found in the CMB data (see for example here). Such claims often came with the remark that the Planck CMB data would convincingly decide the … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 34 Comments

One Ring to Rule Them All

Posted on May 16, 2013 by woit

This week in Sweden the Nobel Foundation is running a symposium on LHC results. It’s invitation only, but the slides of the talks are available here. One of the scheduled talks today was about string theory, and I was wondering … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 24 Comments

String Theory and the Scientific Method

Posted on May 14, 2013 by woit

There’s a new philosophy of science book out, Richard Dawid’s String Theory and the Scientific Method (available online here if your institution is paying Cambridge University Press appropriately or if you have a credit card). It comes with endorsements from … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 47 Comments

Number Theory News

Posted on May 12, 2013 by woit

A special seminar has been scheduled for tomorrow (Monday) at 3pm at Harvard, where Yitang Zhang will present new results on “Bounded gaps between primes”. Evidently he has a proof that there exist infinitely many different pairs of primes p,q … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 57 Comments

Miscellaneous Links

Posted on May 6, 2013 by woit

There’s an interesting discussion amongst philosophers at Brian Leiter’s blog about the effects of Templeton money (and I contributed my two cents…). In other Templeton news, they’re funding a new “literary science magazine” called Nautilus. Also via Leiter, they have … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 37 Comments

Supersymmetry and Beyond

Posted on May 1, 2013 by woit

Back in the year 2000, Gordon Kane published Supersymmetry: Unveiling the Ultimate Laws of Nature, a popular book promoting supersymmetry and string theory. The thrust of the book was that there was already indirect evidence for SUSY, with confirmation by … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 51 Comments

Arkani-Hamed Colloquium

Posted on April 30, 2013 by woit

Nima Arkani-Hamed was here at Columbia yesterday to give the physics colloquium, which clocked in at a bit over 1 hour and 45 minutes. He did reveal the secret of why his talks are this long: when invited to give … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Uncategorized | 45 Comments

Time Reborn

Posted on April 23, 2013 by woit

Lee Smolin’s new book, Time Reborn, is out today. For more about the ideas in the book, see video of a talk here, and an interview here. While I mostly vehemently agreed with what Smolin had to say in his … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 83 Comments

Anderson on Anderson-Higgs

Posted on April 16, 2013 by woit

Philip Anderson was here at Columbia yesterday, and gave a very interesting talk, mostly discussing what was going on in the late 50s and early 60s at the intersection of condensed matter and particle physics. This has attracted a lot … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 54 Comments

To Mars and Beyond

Posted on April 14, 2013 by woit

I’m not sure either of these stories from the past week is particularly important in and of itself, but since I try and keep up on trends in theoretical physics, and two is a trend, here’s some news from two … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 45 Comments