Category Archives: Uncategorized

A Milestone

I recently realized that this would be the 2000th posting on this blog and was hoping to have something interesting to post for the occasion. Things though have been very quiet and I’m about to go off on vacation, so … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

String Theory Debate

Recently Curt Jaimungal offered to host a debate over string theory between me and a willing string theorist. Joe Conlon took him up on the offer and our discussion is now available. I think it turned out quite well, and … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 37 Comments

(Blinkered) Visions in Quantum Gravity

This past summer Nordita ran a program on quantum gravity, featuring lectures and panel discussions on various approaches to the subject. Lecture notes from the six mini-courses are now available here. There’s also a long, 39 author document called Visions … Continue reading

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Living in a Post-truth World

I grew up in the 1960s and 70s, at a time when fundamental physics was making huge dramatic progress and Western democracies were changing in equally dramatic ways, mostly for the better. It truly did seem that the Age of … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 58 Comments

The Crisis in String Theory is Worse Than You Think…

Curt Jaimungal has a piece out, an interview with Lenny Susskind, with the title The Crisis in String Theory is Worse Than You Think…. Some of what Susskind has to say is the same as in his recent podcast with … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 44 Comments

Various Items

A few items that may be of interest: Edward Frenkel has a new Youtube show/podcast, entitled AfterMath. I gather that part of the concept here is a follow-on to his book Love and Math, but in this different format. He’s … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

Is Spacetime Unraveling?

Quanta magazine has just put out an impressive package of material under the title The Unraveling of Space-Time. Much of it is promoting the “Spacetime is doomed” point of view that influential theorists have been pushing for decades now. A … Continue reading

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Podcast About String Theory, Other Items

A few weeks ago I recorded a podcast with Robinson Erhardt, which has now appeared as String Theory and the Crisis in Physics. We mainly talk about the current situation of string theory in physics and the history of how … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 23 Comments

The Terrifying Power of Mathematics

Ted Jacobson has put on the arXiv a transcription of a 1947 Feynman letter about his efforts to better understand the Dirac equation, in order to find a path integral formulation of it. The letter also contains some fascinating comments … Continue reading

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Two More

Two more items: I can’t recommend strongly enough that you watch the new Curt Jaimungal podcast with Edward Frenkel. The nominal topic is the recent proof of the geometric Langlands conjecture, but this is introductory material, with geometric Langlands and … Continue reading

Posted in Langlands, Uncategorized | 13 Comments