Category Archives: Uncategorized

$100 Million From Simons and Simonyi for the IAS

Posted on August 18, 2011 by woit

The Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton announced today that Jim Simons and Charles Simonyi will donate \$100 million to the Institute, in the form of matching funds for a \$200 million campaign mainly aimed at increasing the endowment. For … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Does String Theory Predict Low Energy Supersymmetry?

Posted on August 16, 2011 by woit

It used to be that string theorists would respond to arguments that string theory predicted nothing with the claim that it predicted supersymmetry. For example, in an interview with Witten done for the PBS Elegant Universe series, one sees: NOVA: … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

The Fabric of the Cosmos on PBS

Posted on August 15, 2011 by woit

A four-part NOVA series based upon Brian Greene’s The Fabric of the Cosmos is coming to PBS this fall, starting November 2. In some sense this is a follow-on to his wildly successful The Elegant Universe NOVA series from 2003, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 32 Comments

Talks at the KITP

Posted on August 12, 2011 by woit

Back now from vacation, and found that there have been quite a few interesting talks at the KITP in Santa Barbara this week which are now available on-line: Since the EPS-HEP conference last month, the “First Year of the LHC” … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands, Uncategorized | 13 Comments

News From Simons Center

Posted on July 28, 2011 by woit

The Simons Center for Geometry and Physics at Stony Brook has a new web-site, and this week their annual summer workshop got underway, talks available in very high quality video here. Luca Mazzucato, a postdoc there, has started putting together … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

String Theorists Throw SUSY Under the Bus

Posted on July 25, 2011 by woit

Over the past few days the results of the 2011 LHC run have been revealed at the EPS-HEP 2011 conference in Grenoble, where a press conference today marked the beginning of the next part of the conference, featuring summary talks. … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Uncategorized | 75 Comments

First International Spring School on Particle Physics and Philosophy

Posted on July 19, 2011 by woit

From an article in the CERN Courier I recently learned about a program that brought together physicists and philosophers of science earlier this year around the topic of philosophy and particle physics. This was the First International Spring School on … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment

Local Blogs

Posted on July 1, 2011 by woit

There are now several excellent blogs somehow related to mathematics being run by local people, including a couple new ones, so I thought it would be a good idea to mention these here: Andrew Gelman of the Columbia Statistics department … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Quick Links

Posted on June 17, 2011 by woit

The House committee responsible for the DOE budget has passed a FY2012 appropriations bill, details here. Total funding for DOE Science is down .9% from FY2011 at $4.8 billion. HEP gets a .2 percent increase, Biological and Environmental Research is … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

$6.5 Million for Entropic Gravity

Posted on June 12, 2011 by woit

One of this year’s Spinoza Prizes goes to Erik Verlinde. It comes with 2.5 million euros to fund the prize-winner’s research. Last fall Verlinde received a 2 million euro ERC Advanced Grant to fund his research program, so that’s a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments