Author Archives: woit

Philosophy of Science on Bloggingheads.tv

Posted on June 21, 2008 by woit

Today’s Bloggingheads.tv diavlog features Sean Carroll and philosopher of science David Albert, discussing a variety of issues. Albert tells about his unfortunate experience with the What the Bleep? film, a good example of why it’s not always a good idea … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 30 Comments

Is the Universe Actually Made of Math?

Posted on June 17, 2008 by woit

The relationship between mathematics and physics is a topic that has always fascinated me, and today I noticed two interesting blog postings related to the topic. The first was Ben Webster’s posting inspired by a recent XKCD comic. The discussion … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 42 Comments

Atiyah on Atiyah-Bott

Posted on June 11, 2008 by woit

This week I’m in Montreal attending a conference in honor of Raoul Bott (who I wrote about in some detail here a couple years ago). On the first day of the conference, a documentary film about Bott made by his … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Hints of ‘time before Big Bang’

Posted on June 8, 2008 by woit

The BBC is running a story entitled Hints of ‘time before Big Bang’ based on Sean Carroll’s latest efforts to promote the multiverse. The writer attended Sean’s talk at the recent AAS meeting and presumably also read Sean’s new Scientific … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 57 Comments

Two Unrelated Topics

Posted on June 3, 2008 by woit

I was planning on writing something about the field with one element, but Lieven Le Bruyn has done a better job of it than I would have, linking to all of the recent news on this subject I was aware … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 46 Comments

Experimental Predictions From F-Theory

Posted on June 2, 2008 by woit

I’ve been known to claim that string theory makes no experimental predictions, so this evening thought I better take a look at a preprint that just appeared entitled GUTs and Exceptional Branes in F-theory – II: Experimental Predictions. The abstract … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 29 Comments

World Science Festival

Posted on May 30, 2008 by woit

Most of the time the attention paid here to efforts to popularize physics is restricted to grumpy complaints about the hype surrounding string theory as well as the more general dubious phenomenon of scientists promoting things that are more science … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 27 Comments

P5 Report

Posted on May 29, 2008 by woit

A new P5 report is out, and being discussed at the HEPAP meeting in Washington today. The charge to P5 was to develop tentative 10 year plans for US HEP, under 3 scenarios: Scenario A: funding at the current post-budget … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 5 Comments

INSPIRE

Posted on May 28, 2008 by woit

Since 1968 SLAC has been maintaining a database of HEP documents called SPIRES, and this has become one of the main tools used by anybody searching the HEP literature. In recent years CERN has developed a much more modern document … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

Train of Thought

Posted on May 23, 2008 by woit

For the last 15 years the New York City subway has featured “Poetry in Motion”, which places extracts of poetry in subway cars. Starting next month this program will be expanded, joined by Train of Thought, which will add “short … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments