Author Archives: woit

The Landscape at CERN

Posted on August 14, 2008 by woit

The current plan at CERN is to celebrate my birthday by trying to circulate the first beam around the LHC on September 10 (actually my birthday is September 11, but in recent years my family, like CERN, has tended to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Grothendieck’s Later Years

Posted on August 8, 2008 by woit

Alexander Grothendieck’s 80th birthday was this past March, and the September Notices of the AMS has several articles about his later years. There’s a long piece entitled Who is Grothendieck?, by Winfried Scharlau, who is writing a three-volume biography. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 24 Comments

Furby, Tamagachis, string theory…

Posted on August 8, 2008 by woit

Things don’t seem to be going well these days for string theory in the “marketplace of ideas”. From an article about gasoline-saving pedals: The 1990’s were the host of many great fads. Furby, Tamagachis, string theory, the examples are as … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 43 Comments

FQXI and Templeton News

Posted on August 5, 2008 by woit

The FQXI organization has just announced the details of $2.7 million dollars in grants that it will be handing out. The winners and their projects are described here. As usual, one of the main topics funded by FQXI is multiverse … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 45 Comments

ICHEP 2008

Posted on August 4, 2008 by woit

A major HEP conference, ICHEP 2008, is taking place in Philadelphia at the moment, and many of the talks are already available online here. This is mostly a conference devoted to experimental HEP, and the big news is the joint … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 11 Comments

Blogging Heads Science Saturday

Posted on July 26, 2008 by woit

Today’s “Science Saturday” on Bloggingheads features me and Sabine Hossenfelder, supposedly talking about What’s wrong with string theory. Actually, we both agreed that we were pretty tired of that topic, so tried to discuss some more interesting related issues we … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 60 Comments

Gauge Theory and Langlands Duality

Posted on July 21, 2008 by woit

At the KITP in Santa Barbara there’s a wonderful program on Gauge Theory and Langlands Duality starting up this week, with some of the talks beginning to become available. The main topic will be the relations between S-duality in quantum … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands | 11 Comments

The Emperor’s Last Clothes?

Posted on July 21, 2008 by woit

Bert Schellekens has posted on the arXiv an extended 87 page argument for the anthropic string theory landscape, entitled The Emperor’s Last Clothes? While most string theorists find the existence of the landscape and the corresponding inability to get any … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 25 Comments

Awaiting a Messenger From the Multiverse

Posted on July 17, 2008 by woit

As particle physicists eagerly await results from the LHC, many theorists are already promoting interpretations of what they hope it will find. This week’s Chronicle of Higher Education has a cover story on the LHC entitled The Machine at the … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 28 Comments

Hawking to Perimeter?

Posted on July 16, 2008 by woit

The Canadian press today is putting out the story that Stephen Hawking may be abandoning Cambridge to move permanently to the Perimeter Institute, where he would join recently appointed director Neil Turok, as well as Lenny Susskind. From the stories … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments