Author Archives: woit

A Passion for Discovery

Posted on December 16, 2007 by woit

I’ve just finished reading a wonderful new book by theoretical physicist Peter Freund, entitled A Passion for Discovery. Freund grew up in Romania, and began his career as a physicist in Europe during the 1950s, emigrating to the US during … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 12 Comments

Latest on ILC/CLIC/LHC

Posted on December 14, 2007 by woit

Barry Barish, the director of the ILC project, has a statement here about the recent UK decision to stop funding R and D work on the ILC. He writes that “losing the UK’s contributions to the ILC will have a … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 4 Comments

UK Pulls Out Of ILC

Posted on December 11, 2007 by woit

The UK is planning on cutting the budget of its Science and Technologies Facilities Council over the next few years, ending British involvement in several large scale scientific projects, including the ILC. The STFC document laying out its plans through … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 31 Comments

Latest Sci-Fi/Fantasy News

Posted on December 11, 2007 by woit

Various particle physics-related science fiction and fantasy news: Discover has an interview with Kip Thorne, who is working with Steven Spielberg on a science fiction film tentatively entitled Interstellar for release in 2009. The plot evidently involves the novel idea … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 28 Comments

News From All Over

Posted on December 4, 2007 by woit

There’s a long and interesting profile of Jim Simons on the Bloomberg web-site. It begins with him being told he has a call from Harvard string theorist Cumrun Vafa. Unclear whether Vafa was calling to talk about something related to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Jumping the Shark

Posted on December 1, 2007 by woit

Over at bloggingheads.tv today, John Horgan and George Johnson discuss the various excesses of recent physics news reporting covered here over the last week or so (Lisi-mania, evidence of other universes, observation of the CC causing ours to end, etc.), … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 37 Comments

Geometric Langlands and QFT

Posted on November 30, 2007 by woit

Wednesday’s session at the IAS Conference on Gauge Theory and Representation Theory was mostly devoted to talks by Witten and his collaborators about their latest work on the approach to relating geometric Langlands and QFT that he has pioneered over … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Langlands | 15 Comments

Not Yet About Geometric Langlands…

Posted on November 26, 2007 by woit

Tomorrow morning I’ll head down to Princeton to attend the conference on Gauge Theory and Representation Theory at the IAS. Unfortunately I had to miss the first day of the conference (today), since I would have liked to have heard … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 20 Comments

Letter to the Editor

Posted on November 24, 2007 by woit

To the Editor: Paul Davies, in his Op-Ed piece Taking Science on Faith, uses recent untestable speculation about multiple universes motivated by string theory to claim that “the mood has now shifted considerably” among physicists. He characterizes physics as being, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 36 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on November 23, 2007 by woit

This past week has seen a veritable bumper crop of media hype, involving claims coming from both string theorists and critics of string theory. Besides the overhyped claims and Lisi-mania that has made it into all sorts of media outlets, … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 32 Comments