Category Archives: Uncategorized

Back at Work

Posted on January 21, 2016 by woit

It’s been a while since the last posting here, mostly because I’ve been away on vacation, but also because I haven’t seen anything that newsworthy. But, since I’m back in the office and there have been complaints, here are a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Various and Sundry

Posted on January 6, 2016 by woit

Some short items on a wide variety of topics: The Hawking/Perry/Strominger paper on a new idea about the black hole information paradox (see here for an early discussion) based on BMS supertranslation symmetries has now appeared on the arXiv. I’m … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 27 Comments

End of Year Links

Posted on December 30, 2015 by woit

A collection of links to round out the year: The Seminaire Bourbaki talks this January look unusually interesting. Luckily I’ll be in Paris at that time. For an end of year present, Jacob Lurie has posted a version of his … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

Run 2 and SUSY

Posted on December 15, 2015 by woit

What surprised me most about today’s Run 2 results (see here) was that CMS and ATLAS were able to already significantly push up limits on superpartner masses, especially the gluino mass. Limits on the gluino mass went from 1.3-1.4 TeV … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype, Uncategorized | 16 Comments

Next Week’s Hype

Posted on December 2, 2015 by woit

Next week there will be a workshop in Munich with the title Why Trust a Theory? Reconsidering Scientific Methodology in Light of Modern Physics. It’s organized by Richard Dawid, to discuss his ideas about “non-empirical theory confirmation”, developed to defend … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, This Week's Hype, Uncategorized | 54 Comments

Quick Items

Posted on November 25, 2015 by woit

A few quick items before the holiday: I hear that Luis Alvarez-Gaumé will be the next Director of the Simons Center, starting next Fall, taking over from John Morgan, the founding Director. My understanding is that the hope was to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 45 Comments

This Week’s Non-Hype

Posted on November 23, 2015 by woit

Since I often post here complaints about articles produced by the press offices of various institutions that hype in a misleading way physicist’s theoretical work, I thought it a good idea to make up for this by noting a positive … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 37 Comments

2016 Breakthrough Prizes

Posted on November 9, 2015 by woit

The 2016 Breakthrough Prizes were announced last night, discussed a bit in the last posting. Today there are programs going on at Berkeley, livestreams available here. One thing that strikes me about these things is that the situation with the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 52 Comments

Various News

Posted on November 8, 2015 by woit

Later tonight will be the 2016 Breakthrough Prize ceremony, broadcast live on the National Geographic channel. While mathematicians and physicists are getting their popcorn ready, waiting to find out which of their colleagues will be $3 million richer, they might … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 29 Comments

The Elephants in the Room – What every physicist should know about string theory

Posted on November 3, 2015 by woit

The string wars seem to still be going on, with the latest salvos coming from Ashtekar and Witten. In a very interesting recent interview, at the end Ashtekar has some comments about string theory and how it is being pursued. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 41 Comments