Monthly Archives: March 2006

Hiatus

Posted on March 22, 2006 by woit

I’m leaving tomorrow night on a trip that will take me away from internet access for a week or more. During this time I won’t be posting anything, or able to manage the comment section, so I’ll be shutting off … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 21 Comments

Letter From Schroer

Posted on March 21, 2006 by woit

Bert Schroer has sent me a very long and interesting comment for posting here. I’ve put it into a separate web-page. It includes both a lot of history and many different ideas. Unfortunately I don’t have the time right now … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

New Top Quark Mass

Posted on March 20, 2006 by woit

Via Tommaso Dorigo of the CDF collaboration, the news that the Tevatron Electroweak Working Group has released a new analysis of combined CDF and D0 data with the most accurate result so far for the top quark mass: 172.5 +/- … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 28 Comments

2005 Topcites

Posted on March 20, 2006 by woit

The SLAC SPIRES yearly list of most frequently cited papers in 2005 is now available. I commented recently on what this was likely to show, quantifying the intellectual collapse of string theory since 1999. There are exactly three post-1999 particle … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments

2006 Templeton Prize

Posted on March 16, 2006 by woit

The 2006 Templeton Prize of $1.4 million was awarded yesterday to cosmologist John Barrow. Barrow is the author of about 400 scientific articles and nearly 20 popular books. In recent years, one of his interests has been the possibility of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 21 Comments

Three-year WMAP Data Now Out

Posted on March 16, 2006 by woit

Data from the second and third year of the WMAP satellite experiment has just been released a few minutes ago. There a press release and other general information page. The scientific paper explaining what this new data tells us about … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

George Mackey 1916-2006

Posted on March 16, 2006 by woit

It was sad to see an announcement today on the Harvard math department web-site of the death earlier this week of emeritus Harvard professor George Mackey. Mackey’s mathematical work is dear to my heart, since its central concern is the … Continue reading →

Posted in Obituaries | 9 Comments

Baez and Schroer

Posted on March 15, 2006 by woit

John Baez’s latest This Week’s Finds is out. As in other recent issues, he starts with some of the most fantastic astronomical pictures around. He also links to his recent non-technical talk Fundamental Physics: Where We Stand Today, which also … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 30 Comments

Two Years Later

Posted on March 13, 2006 by woit

This week is the second anniversary of this weblog, so perhaps a good moment for some reflections on what has been happening over the past two years. In many ways, the weblog has been successful far beyond my wildest dreams. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 47 Comments

News of the Multiverse

Posted on March 13, 2006 by woit

When I was reading Susskind’s book The Cosmic Landscape, I was paying close attention to the main problem with the whole multiverse/anthropic string landscape idea: is there any sort of experimental prediction that emerges from this that would justify calling … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 42 Comments