Category Archives: Uncategorized

Mathematician Jim Simons is retiring from the job of running the hedge fund Renaissance Technologies. Construction of the building for the Simons Center for Geometry and Physics is proceeding, with opening scheduled for next fall. An Algerian physicist associated with … Continue reading →

From a recent blog posting by economist Brad DeLong, entitled The State of Economics in the 2000s Analogized…: But I think there also has to be an explanation in terms of the sociology of academic disciplines. And in that light, … Continue reading →

I’d recently been wondering whether the archives of the Bourbaki group would be put on-line, and today noticed that there’s a project to do so, with results available here. One can read copies of “La Tribu”, internal reports on the … Continue reading →

Unlike physics, mathematics has managed to remain immune from efforts to promote pseudo-scientific agendas, financed with the goal of mixing up science and religion. I don’t see any reason to believe this is going to change, but I just noticed … Continue reading →

On Thursday on Capitol Hill, the House Subcommittee on Energy and Environment of the Committee on Science and Technology will hold a hearing with the title Investigating the Nature of Matter, Energy, Space and Time. Witnesses will be Hugh Montgomery … Continue reading →

Nature this week has two stories about the Perimeter Institute. There’s a long one entitled The edge of physics, which emphasizes Perimeter’s wealth and success, starting off: Working at the Perimeter Institute for Theoretical Physics comes with certain perquisites. Whenever … Continue reading →

Tonight will be the premiere of a new TV series called Flashforward, based on a novel with a plot that involves the Alice detector at CERN. CERN has put up a web-site about this, to reassure people that CERN isn’t … Continue reading →

General Relativity and Gravitation has a special issue on quantum gravity, available here. Some out-takes from photographs taken for the recent Forbes article are here. You can see what part of my office looks like… I haven’t regularly been following … Continue reading →

Science News is running a long interview with Murray Gell-Mann, who will be celebrating his 80th birthday tomorrow. Gell-Mann was arguably (Feynman is one who would argue..) the most influential figure in theoretical particle physics throughout the 1950s and 1960s. … Continue reading →

There’s a new Bloggingheads Diavlog up today, where philosopher of science Craig Callender and I discuss the topic of Philosophy and the String Wars. Regular readers of the blog will just get to see me make the same points as … Continue reading →