Category Archives: Uncategorized

These are dramatic times for news about the US HEP budget, with the FY2009, FY 2010 budgets and stimulus package all coming together at the same time. The final stimulus package was very favorable for DOE and NSF, providing an … Continue reading →

When learning about various ideas in mathematics and physics, I’m always fascinated by the history of these ideas and eagerly read whatever I can find on the subject. Partly this is because my understanding of ideas is often enlightened by … Continue reading →

Last Friday at the KITP there was a celebration of Stanley Mandelstam’s 80th birthday, with talks available here, and some messages from other physicists here. Geoffrey Chew recalls how Berkeley hired Mandelstam away from Columbia, where no one was very … Continue reading →

It now appears that the final US stimulus bill will include very large amounts of spending on scientific research. See here for a copy of the conference agreement. It has \$3 billion for the NSF, \$1.6 billion for the DOE … Continue reading →

Yesterday Joe Polchinski gave a lunch-time talk at the KITP on the topic of What is String Theory? No answer to the question, but he provided an outline of three topics being discussed at the current KITP workshop program that … Continue reading →

I’m trying to finish writing up something about equivariant cohomology for the BRST project, slowed down by realizing there was something interesting about this that I didn’t understand. Soon that should be sorted out…. In the meantime, here are various … Continue reading →

After the recent news that being a mathematician is the best job in the US, next month’s Popular Science magazine has come out with a list of the worst jobs, not overall, but in the sciences. “Theoretical Physicist” makes the … Continue reading →

It’s semester break and I’m in Paris this week, but I have a few moments to post on some topics that may be of interest: People here in Europe seem quite normal, but Lubos has just won an award for … Continue reading →

Fresh from his leading role in the History Channel’s Parallel Universes (if you missed it on TV, the DVD is available here), according to a press release today, Michio Kaku will now be appearing regularly on Discovery’s Science Channel: The … Continue reading →

Next month’s Notices of the AMS has an essay by Freeman Dyson entitled Frogs and Birds, which was written for his planned Einstein Public Lecture. In it, he divides mathematicians up into two species: birds, who “fly high in the … Continue reading →