Author Archives: woit

’t Hooft on Cellular Automata and String Theory

Posted on August 13, 2012 by woit

Gerard ’t Hooft in recent years has been pursuing some idiosyncratic ideas about quantum mechanics; for various versions of these, see papers like this, this, this and this. His latest version is last month’s Discreteness and Determinism in Superstrings, which … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 30 Comments

Short Items

Posted on August 12, 2012 by woit

There’s an interview with the CERN director here. John Preskill and others at the Caltech Institute for Quantum Information and Mattter now have a blog here. The usual summer workshop on math and physics at Stony Brook is now running … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 26 Comments

LEP3

Posted on August 9, 2012 by woit

For many years now discussion in the HEP community of what might be the appropriate next machine to try and finance and build after the LHC has centered around the idea of a linear electron-positron collider. The logic has been … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 30 Comments

Article for Il Manifesto

Posted on August 8, 2012 by woit

Around the time of the Higgs discovery announcement last month I was contacted by someone from the Italian left-wing newspaper Il Manifesto, who asked if I’d write something for them about the Higgs. I told them that it would be … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 29 Comments

Grigori Perelman, the Movie

Posted on August 5, 2012 by woit

I’ve checked the date on this, and it’s not April 1, so maybe this is actually true. According to the website of the Russian television news network RT, James Cameron to produce story of reclusive Russian genius: Celebrated Russian mathematician … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 24 Comments

Interview(s) with Vladimir Voevodsky

Posted on August 3, 2012 by woit

Vladimir Voevodsky is a mathematics professor at the IAS in Princeton, most famous for his proof of the Bloch-Kato conjecture, work which won him a Fields Medal in 2002. This conjecture relates the K-theory of fields and their étale cohomology … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Fundamental Physics Prize

Posted on July 31, 2012 by woit

String theory may not be doing so well in the popular press or among physicists, but at least a fabulously wealthy Russian investor is a fan. Yuri Milner recently deposited \$3 million each in the bank accounts of 5 string … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Uncategorized | 149 Comments

Strings 2012

Posted on July 28, 2012 by woit

The big yearly string theory conference was held this year in Munich over the past week. Strings 2012 was the latest in a series of conferences that started more than 20 years ago. I’ve now written something about so many … Continue reading →

Posted in Strings 2XXX | 54 Comments

Short Items

Posted on July 26, 2012 by woit

A few short items: To compare and contrast to the activities of the Simons Foundation, there’s the Templeton Foundation, which has a $1.7 billion or so endowment to spend: They have a new Big Questions Online site, which asks Does … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 12 Comments

Simons Investigators

Posted on July 26, 2012 by woit

The Simons Foundation has announced the surprise selection of 7 mathematicians and 9 theoretical physicists as Simons Investigators. Those selected will get \$100,000/year for 5 years, renewable for another 5, their departments \$10,000/year, their institutions \$22,000/year. According to a Washington … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments