Author Archives: woit

A Brief History of String Theory

Posted on March 26, 2014 by woit

On the long plane flight to Italy I had the chance to read the recently published A Brief History of String Theory: From Dual Models to M-theory by philosopher of science Dean Rickles. The book deals with the history of … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 11 Comments

B-mode News

Posted on March 25, 2014 by woit

While I was away on vacation, the big news in physics was the BICEP2 result on B-modes in the CMB. Maybe it’s just as well I wasn’t available to blog about this, since inflation and cosmology aren’t at all my … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 48 Comments

Rainy Day Posting

Posted on March 23, 2014 by woit

My spring break vacation is not quite over but, after 10 days of spectacularly beautiful weather, it’s now raining hard here today and I’ve got some time indoors to write something. First some quick links to things I’ve seen in … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

Spring Break

Posted on March 11, 2014 by woit

I’m leaving for a spring break vacation in Northern Italy tomorrow afternoon, and will shut down comments while I’m away. Back in two weeks. Some events that will occur while I’m away that might be of interest: The 2014 Templeton … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Spring Break

Multiverse Mania at Wikipedia

Posted on March 9, 2014 by woit

The quality of Wikipedia entries about mathematics is often quite good, but unfortunately the same cannot be said for their entries about physics. I happened to take a look today at the Wikipedia entry for Multiverse, which is an outrageously … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 43 Comments

Various and Sundry

Posted on March 5, 2014 by woit

It seems to be too early for April Fool’s day, and yet the arXiv has Dark Matter as a Trigger for Periodic Comet Impacts by Lisa Randall and Matt Reece, a preprint described as “Accepted by Physical Review Letters, 4 … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 25 Comments

All Hail Resonaances

Posted on February 26, 2014 by woit

I’m delighted to see Jester back in action, providing great material on the current state of HEP physics, with, over the past week and a half: A sober look at the sparse prospects for near-term (i.e. 2014) input from experiment, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

Quantum Mechanics, The Theoretical Minimum

Posted on February 25, 2014 by woit

In recent years Leonard Susskind has been giving an excellent series of lectures on basic ideas of theoretical physics, under the title The Theoretical Minimum. The general idea seems to be to provide something in between the usual sort of … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 20 Comments

More Quick Links

Posted on February 24, 2014 by woit

First, a couple of examples of recent progress in mathematics Terry Tao has some new ideas about the Navier-Stokes equation. See his blog here, a paper here, and a story by Erica Klarreich at Quanta here. I’ve been hoping to … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

US HEP Theory Funding News

Posted on February 20, 2014 by woit

Laurence Yaffe has gathered some information about DOE funding of US HEP theory groups, showing sharp drops (average 23%) in such funding for groups reviewed in FY2013 and FY2014. These drops imply serious reductions in the numbers of theory graduate … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments