Yearly Archives: 2010

This Week’s Hype

Posted on August 25, 2010 by woit

I’m rather busy these days with a move to a new apartment, but maybe there’s time for a quick edition of “This Week’s Hype”. A commenter on the previous posting points to Amanda Peet’s recent talk entitled String Theory for … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 17 Comments

Geometric Langlands at the KITP

Posted on August 17, 2010 by woit

There’s a very interesting program going on at the KITP discussing recent work of mathematical interest on 4d supersymmetric gauge theories (N=2 and N=4). These include various connections of 4d gauge theory to geometric Langlands uncovered by Witten and collaborators … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands | 6 Comments

Gossip

Posted on August 17, 2010 by woit

As the date for announcement of the 2010 Fields Medals approaches, gossip about who the winners might be has been circulating. Math Overflow is by far the best internet site for authoritative discussion between knowledgeable mathematicians, but, unlike this site, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

Hype or Not Hype?

Posted on August 6, 2010 by woit

The high point of my expertise in condensed matter physics was about thirty years ago, when I studied the subject in order to pass one of the general exams at Princeton. At the party after the test was graded, Phil … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 65 Comments

Short Items

Posted on August 4, 2010 by woit

There has been some recent progress on increasing the LHC luminosity. Recent physics fills have peak luminosities around 2.5 x 1030cm-2s-1, total integrated luminosity is above 500 nb-1, with a goal of getting to 1000 nb-1=1 pb-1 this week. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 26 Comments

Witten Talk and Interview

Posted on July 27, 2010 by woit

In conjunction with his receipt of the Newton Medal, Edward Witten gave a public talk in London (now available on-line here), and an interview (available as part of a pod-cast here). Witten’s talk was a rather polemical argument for string … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments

New Higgs Results From the Tevatron

Posted on July 26, 2010 by woit

Just got back from vacation this morning. Luckily I managed to be away for the blogosphere-fueled Higgs rumors, returned just in time to catch the released results which appeared in a Fermilab press release minutes ago. The ICHEP talk in … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 8 Comments

Various and Sundry

Posted on July 7, 2010 by woit

It seems that Jean-Pierre Serre now spends his time commenting on blogs. For those interested in particle physics history, there’s an interesting article by George Zweig here about his role in the discovery of quarks (which he called “aces”). There’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 30 Comments

Perelman Turns Down Millennium Prize

Posted on July 1, 2010 by woit

The Clay Mathematics Institute today announced that Perelman has turned down the one million dollar Millennium prize: On June 8-9 CMI held a conference in Paris to celebrate the resolution of the Poincaré conjecture by Grigoriy Perelman. Dr. Perelman has … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 27 Comments

LHC vs. Tevatron Update

Posted on June 28, 2010 by woit

Over the weekend the LHC had a first successful physics run with nominal intensity beams, in 3 bunches. A peak luminosity of about 5 x 1029cm-2s-1 was achieved, and the total integrated luminosity per experiment is now around 30 nb-1. … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 10 Comments