Category Archives: Uncategorized

Quick Links

Posted on July 24, 2019 by woit

A few quick links: Philip Ball at Quanta has a nice article on “Quantum Darwinism” and experiments designed to exhibit actual toy examples of the idea in action (I don’t think “testing” the idea is quite the right language in … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

Against Symmetry

Posted on July 10, 2019 by woit

One of the great lessons of twentieth century science is that our most fundamental physical laws are built on symmetry principles. Poincaré space-time symmetry, gauge symmetries, and the symmetries of canonical quantization largely determine the structure of the Standard Model, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments

What happens when we can’t test scientific theories?

Posted on July 8, 2019 by woit

Just got back from a wonderful trip to Chile, where the weather was perfect for watching the solar eclipse from the beach at La Serena. While I was away, the Guardian Science Weekly podcast I participated in before leaving for … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 12 Comments

Various

Posted on June 18, 2019 by woit

First something really important: chalk. If you care about chalk, you should watch this video and read this story. Next, something slightly less important: money. The Simons Foundation in recent years has been having a huge (positive, if you ask … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments

Various News Items

Posted on June 4, 2019 by woit

For physicists: For the latest news on US HEP funding, see presentations at this recent HEPAP meeting. It is rarely publicly acknowledged by scientists, but during the Trump years funding for a lot of scientific research research has increased, often … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments

Various

Posted on May 13, 2019 by woit

Possibly of interest: Goro Shimura, one of the major figures in twentieth century number theory and arithmetic geometry passed away on May 3 in Princeton at the age of 89. Princeton has an article about his life and work here. … Continue reading →

Posted in Obituaries, Uncategorized | 26 Comments

Witten Interview

Posted on May 2, 2019 by woit

Graham Farmelo has posted a very interesting interview he did with Witten last year, as part of his promotion of his forthcoming book The Universe Speaks in Numbers. One surprising thing I learned from the interview is that Witten learned … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 38 Comments

Falsifiability and Physics

Posted on April 23, 2019 by woit

Symmetry magazine today published an article on Falsifiability and physics, yet another in the genre of defense of current HEP theory against its critics. As usual, only defenders of the status quo are quoted, the critics remain unnamed and their … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 33 Comments

This and That

Posted on April 16, 2019 by woit

Since you’ve read about the black hole image elsewhere, here are a few other items that might be of interest: I was sorry to hear today of the death on April 11 of Geoffrey Chew. Throughout the 1960s, Chew’s S-matrix/bootstrap … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 23 Comments

Not Even Wrong 2.0

Posted on March 31, 2019 by woit

This blog has just passed its 15th anniversary, and there hasn’t been a lot of change in format since the first postings in March 2004 (there hasn’t been a lot of change in string theory either, but that’s a different … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 116 Comments