Monthly Archives: April 2008

Creutz On Rooting

Posted on April 28, 2008 by woit

Michael Creutz has a remarkable new preprint out this evening, entitled The Saga of Rooted Staggered Quarks. It explains what has been going on in a rather bitter controversy within the lattice gauge theory community over the last few years. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 21 Comments

This and That

Posted on April 27, 2008 by woit

The interactions.org web-site has a new useful feature, Interactions Blog Watch, which aggregates links to recent physics-related blog entries. One of the older such aggregators I know of is Mixed States, but it seems to have stopped on March 15. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 59 Comments

Experimentalists 1, Theorists 0

Posted on April 18, 2008 by woit

At Fermilab the Tevatron is producing record amounts of luminosity, see here for a story about a celebration of this. Things also appear to be going well at the LHC, as the cooldown remains on schedule, and only a tolerable … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 140 Comments

Multimedia and the Journal of Number Theory

Posted on April 16, 2008 by woit

I recently heard from David Goss, editor-in-chief of the Journal of Number Theory, that the journal is planning on introducing video abstracts for papers that they publish. Here’s his e-mail explaining this: Dear Colleagues: By now I believe that all … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

John Wheeler 1911-2008

Posted on April 14, 2008 by woit

News of the death of John Wheeler came yesterday, and many people have already written detailed, touching and informative pieces about the man, his life and scientific achievements. See for example here, here, and here. With Wheeler gone, physics loses … Continue reading →

Posted in Obituaries | 21 Comments

Dark Matter

Posted on April 13, 2008 by woit

Yesterday evening I went to see the new film Dark Matter, which opened here in New York this weekend. In many ways, it’s very good, much better than I was expecting. The plot is loosely based upon the story behind … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews | 9 Comments

Physicists On Tape

Posted on April 12, 2008 by woit

Over at the Center for Science Writings, John Horgan has started an interesting project of posting copies of taped interviews with scientists that he has accumulated over the years, starting with an interview with Chandrashekar. In a blog entry about … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

The New Math

Posted on April 7, 2008 by woit

Via Steve Hsu, I ran across the cover article from Alpha magazine, a magazine for the hedge fund industry, entitled The New Math. It describes the role physicists are playing in several hedge funds, developing sophisticated trading strategies. One of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments

Stony Brook Dialogues in Mathematics and Physics

Posted on April 5, 2008 by woit

Last week I spent a day out at Stony Brook, attending the second day of a two-day symposium devoted to mathematics and physics, held in honor of C. N. Yang and Jim Simons. Peter Steinberg was there for the first … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Short Items

Posted on April 4, 2008 by woit

The Tevatron has been performing well, producing record-high weekly luminosities. Fermilab director Oddone has announced that plans to shut-down the accelerator complex for yearly maintenance work are being canceled this year, instead the plan is to run the Tevatron straight … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments