Category Archives: Uncategorized

Every year John Brockman’s Edge Foundation asks a large number of people in science and technology to write a short piece answering a chosen question, and this year the question is What Are You Optimistic About? Among particle physicists, the … Continue reading →

A random collection of links, on the whole not having anything to do with the holidays: A Stanford Physics Student in Berkeley is now An American Physics Student in England, and reports from the DAMTP Christmas party, where people were … Continue reading →

Scott Aaronson has adopted a sensible attitude towards the controversy over string theory, announcing in a new posting entitled Mercenary in the String Wars that his allegiances in this “War” are for sale to the highest bidder. I encourage all … Continue reading →

There’s a new magazine aimed at Harvard alums, named 02138 (after the local zip-code), and its second issue has just appeared. Personally I’ve never quite understood the phenomenon of people who retain a lifelong fascination with the fact that they … Continue reading →

The January Notices of the AMS is out. Two quite interesting articles, one of which is an interview with my colleague Joan Birman. She just recently officially retired, but, at the age of 79 is still very active in research … Continue reading →

Various things that I’ve run across recently that seem worth mentioning: The proceedings of the big yearly lattice gauge theory conference that was mentioned here, Lattice 2006, are now available here. The New York Times today in its Science Times … Continue reading →

There’s filming going on outside my office window today, right at the entrance to the Columbia Mathematics building. The film is Brief Interviews With Hideous Men, with a screenplay based on the David Foster Wallace book of the same name. … Continue reading →

You know things are getting strange when Esquire magazine starts running an article on the current state of particle theory. As you might expect, their take on this is rather odd. It centers around Nima Arkani-Hamed and begins with: For … Continue reading →

For some insight into the difficulties associated with being an untenured professor and trying to get an NSF grant in astronomy, see this post (and comments) by Rob Knop. For those innocent of the ways of academia, there’s a post … Continue reading →

Starting tomorrow there’s a workshop in London entitled M-theory in the City, in some sense celebrating the 11th birthday of M-theory. There will be a reception on Thursday evening, and the organizers of the workshop are noting that: Recently there … Continue reading →