Author Archives: woit

This Week’s Hype

Posted on June 15, 2011 by woit

Last month’s Quark Matter 2011 conference was a venue for discussion of new results from the first heavy-ion run at LHC energies last fall. I’ve looked a bit at the slides of the talks, but this is an area far … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 41 Comments

How the Hippies Saved Physics

Posted on June 13, 2011 by woit

A review that I wrote of David Kaiser’s How the Hippies Saved Physics is now available at American Scientist. A quick summary is that I think it’s a marvelous book, telling in well-researched and entertaining fashion a story I’ve always … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 37 Comments

$6.5 Million for Entropic Gravity

Posted on June 12, 2011 by woit

One of this year’s Spinoza Prizes goes to Erik Verlinde. It comes with 2.5 million euros to fund the prize-winner’s research. Last fall Verlinde received a 2 million euro ERC Advanced Grant to fund his research program, so that’s a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

Math and Physics, Summer 2011

Posted on June 9, 2011 by woit

This week in Philadelphia the String-Math 2011 conference is going on, planned as the first of a series, with String-Math 2012 next summer in Bonn. Slides of the talks are appearing here. There’s also supposed to be video, but the … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands | 10 Comments

New Look

Posted on June 9, 2011 by woit

I’ve updated the blog a bit, to a newer, widgetized theme. Functionality should be the same as before. The only issue I’m aware of now is that the “Archives” widget adds an annoying character below its header which I can’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

This Week’s Rumor

Posted on June 8, 2011 by woit

A couple months ago CDF made the New York Times by releasing results claiming to see a resonance in the invariant mass spectrum of two jets produced together with a W. Last week they released a new analysis with twice … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 34 Comments

The Quantum Story

Posted on June 8, 2011 by woit

Jim Baggott’s The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments is now out here and I’ve been starting to see it in bookstores. I read most of it a year or two ago when he sent me a draft of … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 3 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on June 1, 2011 by woit

The latest New Scientist has a much larger dose of M-theory/multiverse hype than I’ve seen in one place in quite a while. There’s a four-part series on M-theory (here, here, here and here) by Mike Duff. It tells the story … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 47 Comments

Quick Links

Posted on June 1, 2011 by woit

The big news of the past couple days has been the release of more data by CDF which continues to show a bump in the invariant mass of two jets produced with a W. Resonaances gives an excellent description of … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Cycles of Time

Posted on May 27, 2011 by woit

Today’s Wall Street Journal has a review I wrote of Sir Roger Penrose’s new book Cycles of Time. The review is aimed at a much wider audience than this blog, and is the product of substantial editing to get its … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 44 Comments