{"id":11387,"date":"2019-10-07T14:42:32","date_gmt":"2019-10-07T18:42:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=11387"},"modified":"2019-10-08T10:03:18","modified_gmt":"2019-10-08T14:03:18","slug":"various-and-sundry-31","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=11387","title":{"rendered":"Various and Sundry"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Various HEP-related links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>The <a href=\"http:\/\/cds.cern.ch\/record\/2691414\/files\/Briefing_Book_Final.pdf?version=1\">physics briefing book<\/a> for the ongoing update to the European Strategy for Particle Physics is now available, for more see <a href=\"https:\/\/cerncourier.com\/a\/european-strategy-enters-next-phase\/\">here<\/a>.  This describes the physics that one might hope to do with various proposed new machines.  The hard part comes in the next few months: coming up with a proposal that has some chance of getting funded.<\/li>\n<li>Jim Baggott has a new article in Aeon, <a href=\"https:\/\/aeon.co\/essays\/post-empirical-science-is-an-oxymoron-and-it-is-dangerous\">But is it Science?<\/a>, arguing that the heavy advertising to the public by physicists of untestable speculation about multiple universes endangers the credibility of the field. I of course am very much in agreement with this, and have often pointed out the problem, see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?cat=10\">here<\/a>.  Baggott specifically refers to the massive recent publicity campaign from Sean Carroll.  Carroll in this case is promoting a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/somethingdeeplyhidden\/\">multiple universe untestable interpretation of quantum mechanics<\/a>, but in the past has been equally determined to promote the <a href=\"https:\/\/arxiv.org\/abs\/1801.05016\">untestable multiple universe versions of unification<\/a>, as well as an <a href=\"https:\/\/www.preposterousuniverse.com\/eternitytohere\/\">untestable multiple universe explanation of the arrow of time<\/a>. Carroll will be <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/seanmcarroll\/status\/1180644846182100992\">touring Australia and New Zealand in February<\/a>, presumably to further promote this sort of thing.<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s an ongoing <a href=\"https:\/\/voices.uchicago.edu\/cosmiccontroversies\/program\/\">Cosmic Controversies conference in Chicago<\/a> this week, which tonight will feature a panel discussion on \u201cDo we need the Multiverse and can it made turned into a scientific theory?\u201d.  Tomorrow the panel topics will be more promising: \u201cWhat more can we learn from particle physics about cosmology?\u201c and  \u201cConvergence or Disruption\u201d.  You can find video posted from the conference <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCejbBNzH6AfWNwg5V_AQGlg\">here<\/a> including a live stream.<\/li>\n<li>Slava Rychkov is giving a series of lectures on <a href=\"https:\/\/courses.ipht.cnrs.fr\/?q=en\/node\/226\">Lorentzian methods in conformal field theory<\/a>.  Lecture notes are appearing <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.google.com\/view\/lorentz-cft\">here<\/a>, videos <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UColBVZ_EOk-GzGQm-d4icWw\">here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Update<\/strong>:  Wired describes <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wired.com\/story\/the-style-maven-astrophysicists-of-silicon-valley\/\">job opportunities for physicists and astrophysicists in the fashion industry<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Various HEP-related links: The physics briefing book for the ongoing update to the European Strategy for Particle Physics is now available, for more see here. This describes the physics that one might hope to do with various proposed new machines. &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=11387\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-11387","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11387"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11387\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11396,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11387\/revisions\/11396"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}