Yearly Archives: 2009

The Landscape for Undergraduates

Posted on February 14, 2009 by woit

I was in a local Barnes and Noble today, and noticed that there’s a new, second edition out of Barton Zwiebach’s A First Course in String Theory, which is the textbook for MIT’s course 8.251 String Theory for Undergraduates. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 13 Comments

Money For Everything

Posted on February 12, 2009 by woit

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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments

Chamonix For You

Posted on February 6, 2009 by woit

The 2009 Chamonix workshop on the commissioning of the LHC has just finished, ending with a message from the Director General, and the opening to the public of the web-site with slides from the meeting (bearing the warning “The Chamonix … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 7 Comments

What is String Theory?

Posted on February 3, 2009 by woit

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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | 49 Comments

No Chamonix For You

Posted on January 30, 2009 by woit

In the last posting I linked to the web-site for next week’s LHC Performance workshop at Chamonix, where the state of efforts to recover from last September’s accident and plans for this year will be discussed. As in many previous … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 21 Comments

CERN: The View From Inside

Posted on January 27, 2009 by woit

Tommaso Dorigo has a new post up on Information control from CERN, where he discusses a Physics World interview by Matthew Chalmers of the head of communications at CERN, James Gillies. Gillies addresses what CERN sees as a problem: information … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 8 Comments

Lots of Unrelated Topics

Posted on January 27, 2009 by woit

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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

The Worst Jobs in Science: Theoretical Physicist

Posted on January 19, 2009 by woit

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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | 54 Comments

Quick Posting, European Edition

Posted on January 15, 2009 by woit

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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Science Channel Inks Deal With Physicist Michio Kaku

Posted on January 8, 2009 by woit

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 →

Posted in Uncategorized | 28 Comments