Author Archives: woit

String and M-theory: answering the critics

Posted on December 7, 2011 by woit

Mike Duff has a new preprint out, a contribution to the forthcoming Foundations of Physics special issue on “Forty Years of String Theory” entitled String and M-theory: answering the critics. Much of it is the usual case string theorists are … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 67 Comments

A 125-126 GeV Higgs?

Posted on December 2, 2011 by woit

Some more detail on Higgs rumors I’ve been hearing recently. Evidently the latest ATLAS data shows an excess in the gamma-gamma channel around 126 GeV, of the size expected if the Higgs is there, and CMS is also seeing an … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News, Favorite Old Posts | 77 Comments

More Higgs Non-News

Posted on November 30, 2011 by woit

The latest Higgs non-news is that there is news about when there will be news. The Scientific Policy Committee at CERN will meet on December 12 and 13, with the agenda for December 13 featuring a 15 min presentation by … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 30 Comments

The Ultimate Guide to the Multiverse

Posted on November 28, 2011 by woit

Yet another cover story about the Multiverse can be found this week at New Scientist, which calls it The Ultimate Guide to the Multiverse. As just one more in a long line of such stories over the last decade, a … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 52 Comments

The Infinity Puzzle

Posted on November 22, 2011 by woit

There’s a fascinating new book by Frank Close out this week about the history of the Standard Model, called The Infinity Puzzle. Until now I’ve always recommended The Second Creation, by Crease and Mann, as the best popular book for … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 22 Comments

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