Monthly Archives: July 2025

Various and Sundry

Posted on July 31, 2025 by woit

Some random things that may be of interest: Ethan Siegel has a discussion of “vibe physics“, people convincing themselves that they can solve fundamental scientific problems by chatting with an LLM. For a story about one billionaire doing this, see … Continue reading →

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The Situation at Columbia XXX

Posted on July 26, 2025 by woit

The trustees on Friday changed the Charters and Statutes of the university, something it seems they can just do when they feel like it, without consulting with anyone or telling the community what they’ve done. Stand Columbia (Tao Tan) is … Continue reading →

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The Situation at Columbia XXIX

Posted on July 24, 2025 by woit

The long-awaited second cave-in by the Columbia trustees to Trump demands was announced yesterday, details here. A few initial comments: Columbia law professor David Pozen explains that this is part of a new form of autocratic government in the US: … Continue reading →

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The Situation at Columbia XXVIII

Posted on July 22, 2025 by woit

When I first started writing here about what was going on at Columbia, part of the motivation was that I didn’t understand myself a lot of what was happening, especially the actions of the trustees. Things are different now, I … Continue reading →

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Mathematicians interact with AI, July 2025 update

Posted on July 4, 2025 by Aravind Asok

This is a guest post from Aravind Asok1. If you have comments about this, you can contact him at asok@usc.edu. We’ll see if there’s some way to later post moderated comments here. Recently, several symposia have been organized in which … Continue reading →

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This Week’s Hype

Posted on July 4, 2025 by woit

Absurd press releases from major universities hyping the idea that “string theorists have finally found a way to test string theory” have been a feature of theoretical physics for decades now. This nonsense is never going to stop. Latest example … Continue reading →

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The Situation at Columbia XXVII

Posted on July 2, 2025 by woit

I’ll be heading out on vacation tomorrow morning, on a road trip first to Montreal, then Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, back at work on the 21st. While away I’ll try to detox from reading or thinking about the topics of … Continue reading →

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