Yearly Archives: 2009

Whatever Works

Posted on May 7, 2009 by woit

The latest Woody Allen film, Whatever Works, was shown recently at the Tribeca Film Festival. I missed it there, but it looks like I’ll have to see it when it comes out in theaters later this year. It features the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

Witten Away From the Energy Frontier

Posted on May 7, 2009 by woit

Edward Witten has been visiting CERN this past academic year, and it seems that besides continuing to work on things related to geometric Langlands (see his recent talk at Atiyah80), he also has been returning to his roots as a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

LHC On Schedule

Posted on May 7, 2009 by woit

A couple weeks ago I linked here to a draft LHC schedule that had about 3 weeks slippage from the previous schedule, which has beam commissioning starting again on September 21 (week 39). This was due to delays in getting … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 4 Comments

Brane Science

Posted on May 2, 2009 by woit

There’s a nice article in Nature News about the solution to the Kervaire invariant problem mentioned here. It’s an excellent and accurate description of the result and its significance, except for the last paragraph, on “Brane science”, where the author … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 9 Comments

The Only Game in Town

Posted on May 1, 2009 by woit

This week’s New Scientist has an article promoting the string theory multiverse, starting off with positive comments from Brian Greene, and continuing with a claim that the majority of physicists now embrace the idea: Greene’s transformation is emblematic of a … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 42 Comments

The Strangest Man

Posted on April 29, 2009 by woit

When I was in Edinburgh I picked up a copy of Graham Farmelo’s new biography of Dirac. It’s entitled The Strangest Man: The Hidden Life of Paul Dirac, Quantum Genius, and is not yet available in the US. I read … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 27 Comments

Atiyah80

Posted on April 27, 2009 by woit

Last week I was in Edinburgh for a few days and managed to attend the last two days of the conference in honor of Sir Michael Atiyah’s 80th birthday. Atiyah is now retired, but he was one of the dominant … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

Atiyah-Singer String Index Theorem

Posted on April 21, 2009 by woit

Just made it to Edinburgh for the Atiyah conference. It seems that someone at a local newspaper really wants to get my goat. See the story headlined World’s Great Minds Gather to Celebrate Atiyah’s Birthday. Update: Will try and write … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 23 Comments

Quantum tunnelling of a new, third kind could finally put string theory to the test

Posted on April 20, 2009 by woit

The whole “finally, a way is found to test string theory” business is starting to become a complete joke. See the latest such nonsense: Quantum tunnelling of a new, third kind could finally put string theory to the test which … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 7 Comments

Strings Strike Back

Posted on April 14, 2009 by woit

The February AAAS press event (discussed here) designed to get out the word that the critics are wrong and string theory is making predictions about physics that are getting tested has finally made it to Slashdot, via an article in … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 27 Comments