Monthly Archives: August 2005

Warped Passages

Posted on August 30, 2005 by woit

A couple days ago I got ahold of a copy of Lisa Randall’s new book Warped Passages: Unraveling the Mysteries of the Universe’s Hidden Dimensions, and finished reading it last night. It’s a book intended for a popular audience, containing … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 25 Comments

A First Course in Modular Forms

Posted on August 29, 2005 by woit

I recently got a copy of a very interesting new textbook entitled A First Course in Modular Forms by Fred Diamond and Jerry Shurman. Fred was a student of Andrew Wiles at Princeton, and came here to Columbia as a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

arXiv Trackbacks

Posted on August 24, 2005 by woit

As discussed here, here, here, and here, the arXiv is now putting on each abstract page a link to trackbacks from weblogs which contain a link to the paper in question. This is an interesting mechanism for integrating the discussion … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Oberwolfach Workshops

Posted on August 24, 2005 by woit

There have been two quite interesting Oberwolfach workshops this summer with some relation to my favorite ideas about K-theory and quantum field theory. The most recent was a workshop on Gerbes, Twisted K-theory and Conformal Field Theory, with blogging from … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

More on WMAP

Posted on August 23, 2005 by woit

In reference to my recent posting about the status of the WMAP experiment, an anonymous (but as far as I can tell, well-informed) source writes: Hi Peter, I am *not* a WMAP person, and would appreciate you not mentioning my … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

Not Even Wrong: The Book

Posted on August 23, 2005 by woit

There’s a project I’ve been working on for the last couple years that I haven’t wanted to write about here until it was further along, but now seems to be a good time. I’ve written a book, also entitled “Not … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Not Even Wrong: The Book | 81 Comments

WMAP Status

Posted on August 22, 2005 by woit

The WMAP mission has now been in place and taking data near the L2 Lagrange point for four years, with two more years still to go. Spectacular results from the analysis of the first year’s worth of data were reported … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

Snowmass Workshops

Posted on August 18, 2005 by woit

This week and next there are workshops at Snowmass on the particle and accelerator physics aspects of the proposed International Linear Collider (ILC). There’s a new weekly newsletter and a new website devoted to the ILC project which has twice-daily … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

Electric Dipole Moments

Posted on August 16, 2005 by woit

Chad Orzel has interesting posts here and here about electric dipole moment experiments and their implications for particle physics. He claims that these experiments will ultimately be capable of getting down to three to four orders of magnitude below the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Edgy Attacks on Horgan

Posted on August 16, 2005 by woit

A commenter points out that the Edge web-site has put up John Horgan’s recent New York Times Op-Ed piece about science and common sense, together with some quite hostile responses to it. I’ve already explained what I think about Horgan’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments