Author Archives: woit

The West Coast Metric is the Wrong One

Posted on June 5, 2015 by woit

I’m trying to get back to blogging about quantum mechanics slogans, this one is about relativistic quantum mechanics. I’m hoping it will stir up more trouble than my last East vs. West one. If you’re doing calculations in relativistic quantum … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts | 61 Comments

LHC Run 2

Posted on June 2, 2015 by woit

Run 2 of the LHC is about to start with first stable beams scheduled for Wednesday morning, Geneva time). If you’re up (I’ll be asleep) you can watch a live webcast, or watch what is going on here. The current … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 43 Comments

The Nash Musings

Posted on May 28, 2015 by woit

Since the news of the tragic death recently of John Nash and his wife in an automobile accident last weekend, some of those who were at Princeton during the same time I was (late 70s, early 80s) have been exchanging … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 22 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on May 27, 2015 by woit

I’m busy with other things, so no possible way I can keep up with the claims about string theory flooding the media for some reason these days. It’s hard enough to find the time to read all of this, much … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 22 Comments

John Nash 1928-2015

Posted on May 24, 2015 by woit

I was sorry to hear this morning that John Nash and his wife Alicia died yesterday in a car crash (news story here). They were in a taxi on the New Jersey Turnpike, heading home from the airport after a … Continue reading →

Posted in Obituaries | 20 Comments

Various News

Posted on May 19, 2015 by woit

First test collisions at 6.5 TeV/beam at the LHC are tentatively scheduled for Thursday morning. At CERN today there’s a workshop about the Higgs Machine Learning Challenge. Also on the topic of LHC data analysis news, Tommaso Dorigo announces the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 12 Comments

Lurie and Categorifying the Fourier Transform

Posted on May 18, 2015 by woit

Before I turn to the main topic of this posting, a lecture by Jacob Lurie, I’d like to point to something else involving him, a comment and posting at Mathematics Without Apologies, a blog you should be following anyway. On … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands | 12 Comments

Next Week’s Hype

Posted on May 14, 2015 by woit

I know I should be coming up with material on different topics here, but the multiverse stuff sometimes is just too hard to ignore. Next week’s Comicpalooza in Houston will feature string theorist Gerald Cleaver. His blurb tells us that: … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 28 Comments

Contested Boundaries

Posted on May 13, 2015 by woit

Apologies for too much recent posting here about the tired topic of the string wars. I hope to soon make amends by writing about something new I learned about geometric Langlands. The summer 2015 issue of Perspectives in Science has … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

About That Smoking Gun…

Posted on May 13, 2015 by woit

Aeon magazine has just published a long piece on the current state of cosmology by Ross Andersen. One focus is on Paul Steinhardt and his claims that the popular multiverse/eternal inflation scenario doesn’t explain what it is supposed to, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 33 Comments