Category Archives: Uncategorized

Differential Cohomology at the Simons Center

Posted on January 11, 2011 by woit

This week the Simons Center is hosting a workshop on Differential Cohomology and its applications in physics. I won’t try and give an explanation of what differential cohomology is here, with a little luck the videos of the talks will … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

What the M Stands For

Posted on January 3, 2011 by woit

There’s an explanation at the latest Abstruse Goose. To recycle some of my own writing, from page 107 of NEW, the book: When I was a graduate student at Princeton, one day I was leaving the library perhaps thirty feet … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

Short Items

Posted on December 21, 2010 by woit

The Tevatron last week passed the milestone of 10 inverse femtobarns of luminosity delivered to the experiments. That’s about 1.5 quadrillion collisions. Presentations from the Simons Center Inaugural Conference, discussed here, are now on-line. Luis Alvarez-Gaume and John Ellis discuss … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments

Math Research Institute, Art, Politics, Transgressive Sex and Geometric Langlands

Posted on December 4, 2010 by woit

I learned from a colleague last night about recent events bringing together the topics of the title of this posting, something that one wouldn’t have thought was possible. Last Wednesday there was a showing in Berkeley of Edward Frenkel’s short … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments

The BMO Financial Group Isaac Newton Chair in Theoretical Physics

Posted on November 29, 2010 by woit

I learned this morning from Matin Durrani’s blog that the Perimeter Institute has announced today the first of what they expect to be five very well-funded Perimeter Research Chairs in theoretical physics. The next four will be named after Maxwell, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

Assorted News

Posted on November 18, 2010 by woit

HEPAP is meeting in Washington today, presentations available here. The idea of this regular meeting is for the US HEP community and the funding agencies to meet and plan for the future, something that’s not easily done in an environment … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News, Uncategorized | 28 Comments

A Geometric Theory of Everything

Posted on November 17, 2010 by woit

The December issue of Scientific American is out, and it has an article by Garrett Lisi and Jim Weatherall about geometry and unification entitled A Geometric Theory of Everything. Much of the article is about the geometry of Lie groups, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 110 Comments

The Anderson-Higgs Mechanism

Posted on November 13, 2010 by woit

One reason for this posting is that exchanges in the comment section of the previous one led me to look into some history, and I found some odd and possibly interesting facts I hadn’t previously known. So, part of this … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Uncategorized | 31 Comments

This and That

Posted on November 9, 2010 by woit

There’s a new preprint here explaining the scientific case for running the Tevatron past 2011. A couple weeks ago the P5 subpanel came out with its report on the subject, generating news stories “Momentum builds for Tevatron extension” and “Panel … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News, Langlands, Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Simons Center Inaugural Conference

Posted on November 5, 2010 by woit

I was out in Stony Brook for the past couple days, to attend festivities surrounding the inauguration of the new building there which will house the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics. The Center is funded by Jim Simons, whose … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments