Monthly Archives: November 2015

Super and Great Colliders

Posted on November 30, 2015 by woit

I’ve recently finished reading two new books on huge collider projects, which make an interesting contrast. The first is From the Great Wall to the Great Collider, by Steve Nadis and Shing-Tung Yau. It’s a very well-informed and topical book, … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Experimental HEP News | 13 Comments

Quick Items

Posted on November 25, 2015 by woit

A few quick items before the holiday: I hear that Luis Alvarez-Gaumé will be the next Director of the Simons Center, starting next Fall, taking over from John Morgan, the founding Director. My understanding is that the hope was to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 45 Comments

This Week’s Non-Hype

Posted on November 23, 2015 by woit

Since I often post here complaints about articles produced by the press offices of various institutions that hype in a misleading way physicist’s theoretical work, I thought it a good idea to make up for this by noting a positive … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 37 Comments

Langlands Items

Posted on November 20, 2015 by woit

There’s an interesting development in the math-physics overlap, with a significant number of physicists getting interested in the theory of automorphic forms, often motivated by the problem of computing string scattering amplitudes. This has led to a group of them … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands | 8 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on November 17, 2015 by woit

This week’s string theory hype comes to us from USC physicists Clifford Johnson and Nick Warner, courtesy of the USC press office (see here and here). It’s garden variety hype of this kind, exactly the same claims about strings and … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 22 Comments

2016 Breakthrough Prizes

Posted on November 9, 2015 by woit

The 2016 Breakthrough Prizes were announced last night, discussed a bit in the last posting. Today there are programs going on at Berkeley, livestreams available here. One thing that strikes me about these things is that the situation with the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 52 Comments

Various News

Posted on November 8, 2015 by woit

Later tonight will be the 2016 Breakthrough Prize ceremony, broadcast live on the National Geographic channel. While mathematicians and physicists are getting their popcorn ready, waiting to find out which of their colleagues will be $3 million richer, they might … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 29 Comments

The Elephants in the Room – What every physicist should know about string theory

Posted on November 3, 2015 by woit

The string wars seem to still be going on, with the latest salvos coming from Ashtekar and Witten. In a very interesting recent interview, at the end Ashtekar has some comments about string theory and how it is being pursued. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 41 Comments