Category Archives: Uncategorized

Weinberg on Symmetry

Posted on October 10, 2011 by woit

The latest New York Review of Books has an article by Steven Weinberg entitled Symmetry: A ‘Key to Nature’s Secrets’. It’s a bit unusual for the NYRB, since it is both scientifically more technical than usual for them (coming from … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 22 Comments

News From Europe

Posted on October 7, 2011 by woit

A few items with a European flavor: The news from Dublin is that Witten will be in town soon to give the Hamilton Lecture, with the Irish Times reporting that Witten’s Hamilton Lecture will abandon string theory, however, in favour … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News, Uncategorized | 22 Comments

What’s That at the Top of This Page?

Posted on October 5, 2011 by woit

The graphic chosen years ago as the header for this blog is an event display from the UA1 detector in 1982, of historical importance since it was the first event found with a W candidate. To be honest, the reason … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Two for Two

Posted on October 4, 2011 by woit

Back in 2004 I made my first venture into Nobel Prize predictions, then decided to retire from that business. This year I came out of retirement with another prediction. After the posting, I consulted with experts who assured me that … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

New Pursuit of Schrodinger’s Cat

Posted on October 3, 2011 by woit

Prospect magazine has an excellent new article by Philip Ball on recent developments in the fundamental problem of the interpretation of quantum mechanics: why don’t we see superpositions? Most popular discussions of this seem to me to be stuck back … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

This and That

Posted on September 27, 2011 by woit

Since everyone wants to hear about the faster-than-light neutrinos, here’s some additional information about why I don’t believe it. Jon Butterworth explains here the problem with timing the neutrinos at the CERN end. In a postscript, a senior member of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 35 Comments

TEDxFlanders

Posted on September 25, 2011 by woit

Tommaso Dorigo and I put on a bit of a show yesterday here in Antwerp at TEDxFlanders, and the results are already available on YouTube (and Tommaso has blog postings here and here). Doing this sort of thing for 1000 … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

How to Win the Nobel Prize

Posted on September 12, 2011 by woit

I’m too busy to write much on the blog just this moment, and besides, there’s nothing of great interest I can think of that need’s writing about. So, I’ll take up commenter Shantanu’s suggestion and try and stir up a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 57 Comments

Imagine There’s No God Particle

Posted on September 5, 2011 by woit

It’s easy if you try (as John Lennon would say). The LHC is back in business after a technical stop, getting ready to collide protons for the next couple months, perhaps reaching an integrated luminosity of about 5 inverse femtobarns. … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Uncategorized | 89 Comments

LHC results put supersymmetry theory ‘on the spot’

Posted on August 28, 2011 by woit

The HEP theory community is atwitter over a BBC News story LHC results put supersymmetry theory ‘on the spot’ that reports from the Lepton-Photon 2011 conference in Mumbai, where more null results relevant to supersymmetry were reported. According to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 70 Comments