Author Archives: woit

Galois Conference Videos

Posted on January 9, 2012 by woit

Last October there was a conference held in Paris to celebrate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Galois. Some of the talks were quite interesting, giving an overview of the current state of areas of mathematics in which Galois … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Emerging Trends

Posted on January 9, 2012 by woit

Most of the lectures from this year’s Jerusalem Winter School in Theoretical Physics are now available online. David Gross was the main organizer, and the choice of topics reflects his point of view on what is interesting these days in … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

New For 2012

Posted on January 2, 2012 by woit

To celebrate the new year, I’ve finally gotten around to updating my home page, and have updated the blog theme to the latest wordpress default.  I’ve added an “FAQ” feature, which is still under construction and should get additions as … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands | 43 Comments

2011: A Banner Year for Hype

Posted on December 30, 2011 by woit

Since every blogger seems to feel it necessary to have a year-in-review posting, I thought it appropriate to point out that 2011 has been a banner year for string theory and related hype, with about twice as many editions of … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 59 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on December 22, 2011 by woit

The Japanese are getting in on the string theory hype business, with KEK issuing a press release today with the title: The mechanism that explains why our universe was born with 3 dimensions: a 40-year-old puzzle of superstring theory solved … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 21 Comments

Short Items

Posted on December 21, 2011 by woit

A few short items: The Multiverse propaganda campaign continues this month, with a piece by Alan Lightman in Harpers entitled The Accidental Universe: Science’s Crisis of Faith. The content is pretty much the usual: string theory implies an untestable multiverse, … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Experimental HEP News, Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 37 Comments

Physics on the Fringe: Smoke Rings, Circlons and Alternative Theories of Everything

Posted on December 16, 2011 by woit

There’s a new very thought-provoking book out from Margaret Wertheim, entitled Physics on the Fringe: Smoke Rings, Circlons and Alternative Theories of Everything. Much of the book is the beautifully told story of “outsider” physicist Jim Carter, who has spent … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 56 Comments

Today’s Higgs Results

Posted on December 13, 2011 by woit

The discussion after the talks is going on at CERN now, and the results that were presented agree well with what was posted here over the past week or so. This looks a lot like a Higgs near 125 GeV. … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 71 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on December 12, 2011 by woit

The announcement at CERN tomorrow of a likely-looking signal for a 125 GeV mass Standard Model Higgs will probably unleash a flood of hype from theorists claiming this as evidence for their favorite Beyond the Standard Model scenario. One obvious … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 37 Comments

Higgs Predictions and Results

Posted on December 12, 2011 by woit

Tomorrow at 14:00 CET CERN will start to unveil the results of this year’s LHC Higgs search, see here. Jester has just posted details consistent with what I’ve been hearing for the past couple weeks, although his numbers are slightly … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 8 Comments