Author Archives: woit

Still Waiting for Supersymmetry

Posted on November 21, 2011 by woit

The headline story at the APS Physics site is Still Waiting for Supersymmetry, by Sven Heinemeyer, which reports on a PRL article from CMS reporting no evidence for supersymmetry. According to Heinemeyer: It’s important to realize that CMS’s results do … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 41 Comments

Higgs Non-News

Posted on November 18, 2011 by woit

The combination of summer ATLAS and CMS Higgs results has finally appeared today (see here and here). This was originally supposed to be ready back in August, and has been circulating in various versions for quite a while. The bottom … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 31 Comments

Knots and Quantum Theory

Posted on November 15, 2011 by woit

A commenter on the last posting pointed to the new video available at the IAS site of Witten’s recent public talk there on Knots and Quantum Theory. The talk is aimed at a general audience, including supporters of the IAS, … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands | 26 Comments

Dijkgraaf Next Director of the Institute for Advanced Study

Posted on November 14, 2011 by woit

The IAS in Princeton announced today that Robbert Dijkgraaf will take over from Peter Goddard as director starting next summer. Like Goddard, Dijkgraaf has devoted much of his career to string theory, more specifically the formal side of the subject, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Models.Behaving.Badly

Posted on November 14, 2011 by woit

Emanuel Derman has a fascinating new book out, Models.Behaving.Badly, which I’ve been intending to write about here for a while now. One of the problems that has kept delaying this is that every time I start to write something I … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 12 Comments

Higgs Rumor Roundup

Posted on November 10, 2011 by woit

As far as I’ve been able to tell, there’s still nothing definitive one way or the other about the SM Higgs, as the experiments continue to analyze data from the now-finished 2011 pp run. Starting Monday is the HCP 2011 … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 22 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on November 7, 2011 by woit

A couple people have pointed me to an article at New Scientist that requires another edition of This Week’s Hype. According to Nuclear clock could steal atomic clock’s crown: Such clocks could shed light on string theory. The frequency of … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 4 Comments

Extortion

Posted on November 6, 2011 by woit

An explanation of something that readers of this and other related blogs may have run into recently: An ex-boyfriend of a close personal friend of mine has been posting here and elsewhere repulsive and delusional material about the two of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Extortion

Interview With Sidney Coleman

Posted on November 4, 2011 by woit

Via Steve Hsu, at the AIP Center for History of Physics, there’s a transcript of an interview with Sidney Coleman from 1977. It’s provocative and amusing, like the man himself, as well as informative history. Go and read the whole … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 27 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on November 3, 2011 by woit

Now that the LHC has turned out to be dud, producing no black holes or extra dimensions, the latest news is that physicists are planning a new machine, “to follow in the footsteps of the Large Hadron Collider”. This one … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 56 Comments