{"id":7394,"date":"2014-12-09T13:24:52","date_gmt":"2014-12-09T18:24:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=7394"},"modified":"2014-12-25T16:38:21","modified_gmt":"2014-12-25T21:38:21","slug":"very-short-items","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=7394","title":{"rendered":"Very Short Items"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Long-awaited results from the Planck experiment were unveiled last week, with a new model for how to do this: hold a conference with no videos, no slides released, no wifi in the lecture hall, and put out a <a href=\"http:\/\/smsc.cnes.fr\/PLANCK\/Fr\/CP2014_12_01_Planck.pdf\">press release in French<\/a>.  They did release an <a href=\"http:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2014\/12\/02\/world\/BIGBANG\/BIGBANG-superJumbo.jpg\">amazing image<\/a> that looks like a Van Gogh, but if you want numbers, you have to <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/search?q=%23planck2014\">search Twitter<\/a>. Stories at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nature.com\/news\/european-probe-shoots-down-dark-matter-claims-1.16462\">Nature<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2014\/12\/02\/world\/new-images-refine-view-of-infant-universe.html\">New York Times<\/a> indicate not much new, data relevant to primordial gravitational waves still to come (Dec. 22?, next year?).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/tech.mit.edu\/V134\/N60\/walterlewin.html\">News from MIT<\/a> is that, after an investigation of charges of sexual harassment of one or more students online, the university has revoked physics professor Walter Lewin&#8217;s emeritus status and is removing his lecture videos and course material from their online course sites.<\/li>\n<li>Today&#8217;s Wall Street Journal has a sensible piece by Ira Rothstein on <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wsj.com\/articles\/ira-rothstein-the-perils-of-romanticizing-physics-1418083419\">The Perils of Romanticizing Physics<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>I took a look at Kip Thorne&#8217;s <em>The Science of Interstellar<\/em> in a local bookstore. It gives a detailed explanation of the &#8220;science&#8221; behind the film, explaining what a lot of the highly confusing later plot of the film was supposedly about. It seems it&#8217;s all based on the &#8220;large extra dimension&#8221; business of 15 years ago, the dimensions that were supposed to show up at the LHC.  If you want to see all the equations, go <a href=\"https:\/\/interstellar.withgoogle.com\/transmissions#\/kipthorne\/detail\">here<\/a> and look for the pictures of the blackboards.<\/li>\n<li>The LHC magnets are now getting <a href=\"http:\/\/home.web.cern.ch\/about\/updates\/2014\/12\/one-lhc-sector-full-energy\">trained for 6.5 TeV operation<\/a>, as well as <a href=\"http:\/\/thecreatorsproject.vice.com\/blog\/iris-van-herpen-created-these-cern-inspired-outfits-using-3d-printing-and-magnets\">inspiring fashion designers<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>I mentioned last year&#8217;s Gelfand Centennial conference at MIT <a href=\"http:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=6230\">here<\/a>, thought that there were no videos. Luckily I was wrong, quite a few talks well worth watching are now available <a href=\"http:\/\/www.math.rutgers.edu\/events\/GelfandConference\/\">here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>Videos from the Breakthrough Prize symposia recently held at Stanford are now available.  For the physics talks, see <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OjH5B8FpqWU&#038;list=PLyF3OMOiy3nEO1yE2Gw-h4U0GQD06HlsZ\">here<\/a>.  For the math talks, see <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/eNgUQlpc1m0\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/rUuECLebqtU\">here,<\/a> <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/zpp_LGR5cWM\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/0M-jXPi_t1I\">here<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/elWIDVI6b18\">here<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/youtu.be\/gGg-bmBm6oY\">here<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>If you need a change of pace, and can&#8217;t get enough of the string theory\/LQG debate, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=jEr038WOKFI\">this is for you<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>For talks about the implications of not seeing new physics at the LHC, there&#8217;s <a href=\"https:\/\/indico.cern.ch\/event\/290373\/timetable\/#20141114\">Naturalness 2014<\/a>.  Nima Arkani-Hamed <a href=\"https:\/\/indico.cern.ch\/event\/290373\/session\/0\/contribution\/1\/material\/slides\/0.pdf\">kicked it off<\/a> with &#8220;Hopefully My Last Ever Talk On This!&#8221; (seems unlikely&#8230;).  He argues for the idea that it&#8217;s the Multiverse that did it, and we should keep looking for Split SUSY, disses &#8220;conformality&#8221; approaches.  <a href=\"https:\/\/indico.cern.ch\/event\/290373\/session\/9\/contribution\/19\/material\/slides\/0.pdf\">Matt Strassler<\/a> on the other hand points out that Arkani-Hamed&#8217;s use of the multiverse explanation doesn&#8217;t make sense (there&#8217;s no anthropic reason for the highly non-generic SM).<\/li>\n<li>There&#8217;s a <a href=\"https:\/\/sites.google.com\/site\/grassmannian2014\/\">workshop this week<\/a> at Caltech on scattering amplitudes and the Grassmanian.<\/li>\n<li>Finally, a <a href=\"http:\/\/science.energy.gov\/hep\/hepap\/meetings\/20141208\/\">HEPAP meeting this week<\/a>. Budget news for HEP theory doesn&#8217;t look good, but on the other hand the US now seems to be functioning without a budget, so it&#8217;s kind of hard to be sure&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p><strong>Update<\/strong>:  Slides from the Planck conference are now <a href=\"http:\/\/www.cosmos.esa.int\/web\/planck\/ferrara2014\">available<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It seems the US does have a budget now, some info <a href=\"http:\/\/aas.org\/posts\/blog\/2014\/12\/cromnibus-here-strong-funding-nasa-nsf\">here<\/a>.  DOE HEP and Cosmic Frontier $766 Million, down very slightly from last year&#8217;s $775 million, higher than the White House requeset of $744 million.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Update<\/strong>: Scott Aaronson on Walter Lewin <a href=\"http:\/\/www.scottaaronson.com\/blog\/?p=2091\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Long-awaited results from the Planck experiment were unveiled last week, with a new model for how to do this: hold a conference with no videos, no slides released, no wifi in the lecture hall, and put out a press release &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=7394\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","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-7394","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\/7394","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=7394"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7394\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7409,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7394\/revisions\/7409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7394"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7394"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7394"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}