Author Archives: woit

Simons Investigators

Posted on July 26, 2012 by woit

The Simons Foundation has announced the surprise selection of 7 mathematicians and 9 theoretical physicists as Simons Investigators. Those selected will get \$100,000/year for 5 years, renewable for another 5, their departments \$10,000/year, their institutions \$22,000/year. According to a Washington … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

How the Higgs can lead us to the dark universe

Posted on July 22, 2012 by woit

The media frenzy surrounding the Higgs discovery announcement has on the whole consisted of stories that reasonably accurately deal with the scientific implications. Journalists have for instance by now learned that “string theory predictions” are a good thing to ignore. … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 18 Comments

Two New Experimental Results

Posted on July 18, 2012 by woit

Today brings news of two new experimental results, both consistent with the Standard Model: At the Higgs Hunting 2012 conference starting today, ATLAS reports results from the WW decay channel for the Higgs. At the July 4 joint announcement, CMS … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 11 Comments

Implications of LHC Results

Posted on July 16, 2012 by woit

The past few days at CERN there has been a workshop on Implications of LHC results for TeV-scale physics. This is the third in a series of these workshops, which have a goal of evaluating the implications of LHC results … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 33 Comments

Short Items, Higgs-free

Posted on July 7, 2012 by woit

The Simons Foundation has some more wonderful interviews with mathematicians. There’s one with Pierre Deligne, and another with Robert MacPherson. The MacPherson piece describes not just mathematics, but also the unusual personal and professional collaboration of MacPherson and his student … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 38 Comments

Court Judgement in Nature/El Naschie Case

Posted on July 7, 2012 by woit

Nature has finally won its court case against Mohamed El Naschie, see here. This was based on a 2008 Nature story by Quirin Schiermeier, which during the case was removed from the Net, but now is back up. The court … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

Higgs, Higgs, Higgs

Posted on July 5, 2012 by woit

I’m trying to get over my Higgs obsession, and move on to other topics, but one last posting about this for now… The first thing to say is that this is the biggest thing to happen in fundamental physics in … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 55 Comments

Happy Higgs Day

Posted on July 3, 2012 by woit

I hear reports that mobs of possibly violent physics live-bloggers have massed outside the CERN auditorium where the Higgs results will be discussed tomorrow morning. I’m going to sleep through this, then wake up late tomorrow (it’s a vacation day … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 24 Comments

CERN: We Have Observed a New Particle

Posted on July 3, 2012 by woit

A commenter here reports that a CERN video announcing that “We have observed a new particle” was released early, and is available here. Note that the language used refers to “observation” NOT “discovery”, indicating that CERN has decided on a … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 9 Comments

Proof Evidence of “God Particle” Found

Posted on July 2, 2012 by woit

Besides the Daily Mail, the AP is now reporting Proof of “God Particle” Found. They include the caveat: But after decades of work and billions of dollars spent, researchers at the European Organization for Nuclear Research, or CERN, aren’t quite … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 31 Comments