Author Archives: woit

Accumulated Links

Posted on October 15, 2007 by woit

Various things that I’ve been wanting to mention: Steven Hawking has a paper out, on his version of the Landscape story, using amplitudes that don’t rely upon string theory or eternal inflation. But just like the string theory Landscape I … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

The Great Cosmic Roller-Coaster Ride

Posted on October 15, 2007 by woit

More than three years ago Scientific American ran a feature article by Bousso and Polchinski promoting the then new idea of The String Theory Landscape. Now that this pseudo-science has become well-entrenched in the physics community, this month’s issue of … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 9 Comments

Latest From The LHC

Posted on October 8, 2007 by woit

The LHC web-site contains a wealth of up-to-date information about how things are going there as they are commissioning the machine. In particular, one can follow the latest news about how things are going in each sector here, which may … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 24 Comments

Lubos on Lenny

Posted on October 8, 2007 by woit

Last night a new paper by Lenny Susskind appeared on the arXiv, carrying the title The Census Taker’s Hat. It seems that Lubos Motl stayed up much of the night reading it, with a long posting on the subject appearing … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments

Deep Beauty

Posted on October 6, 2007 by woit

I spent Thursday down in Princeton attending talks at the second day of a symposium on mathematics, quantum mechanics and the legacy of John von Neumann, organized by Hans Halvorson of the Department of Philosophy. A blurb about the symposium … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 33 Comments

A New Subfield of Physics…

Posted on October 3, 2007 by woit

Things are not going well for string theory on the public relations front. Someone just pointed me to the poll at Wired magazine they call String Theory Smackdown, where the side arguing for string theory is losing the voting by … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 79 Comments

Scientists Ask Congress To Fund $50 Billion Science Thing

Posted on September 28, 2007 by woit

The latest issue of the Onion has some HEP-related coverage. It includes a nifty graphic, and has this inspirational message from one of our congress-people “Now, I’m no science major, but if I’m being told by a group of people … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 26 Comments

From Fermilab to Equivariant Cohomology

Posted on September 28, 2007 by woit

Various things of interest, ordered in terms of increasing mathematical content: This week Fermilab has hosted a P5 meeting and an annual program review. At the P5 meeting, Fermilab director Pier Oddone made the case for planning to keep running … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

The Wall Street Journal on the Tate Conjecture

Posted on September 25, 2007 by woit

This is not a very timely posting, since my readers let me down by not telling me about this when it came out. Last month the Wall Street Journal ran a piece by Lee Gomes about a workshop on the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Steinhardt on the String Theory Crash

Posted on September 18, 2007 by woit

The Edge web-site has something new up they call Einstein: An Edge Symposium (thanks to commenter Hendrik for pointing this out). It’s an exchange between Walter Isaacson, Paul Steinhardt and Brian Greene, nominally about Einstein, but ending up turning into … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 86 Comments