Monthly Archives: September 2010

Grading String Theory

Posted on September 30, 2010 by woit

Commenter Shantanu points to this video of a recent colloquium by Andy Strominger at Harvard, which includes some extensive comments on the current state of string theory. Strominger is one of the most prominent string theorists in the business, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 42 Comments

NRC Rankings

Posted on September 27, 2010 by woit

One thing I’ve learned in life is that human beings are creatures very much obsessed with social hierarchy, and academics are even more obsessed with this than most people. So, any public rankings that involve oneself and the institutions one … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

The End of Time

Posted on September 26, 2010 by woit

I’ve been critical of multiverse pseudo-science because it doesn’t make any testable predictions, but it seems that tonight there really is one. According to this new preprint, multiverse arguments guarantee that time will end, with the expected amount of time … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 49 Comments

LHC Update

Posted on September 24, 2010 by woit

There’s been great progress made recently at the LHC, with successful commissioning of “trains” of bunches, allowing significantly higher collision rates. Last night’s fill produced an integrated luminosity of .684 inverse picobarns (or 684 inverse nanobarns), which can be compared … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 8 Comments

Tevatron Funding

Posted on September 21, 2010 by woit

The Fermilab web-site today has a message from Director Oddone about prospects for funding an extension of the Tevatron run after FY2011, as recommended by the Physics Advisory Committee. He has asked the DOE for additional funding of $35 million/year … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 9 Comments

The Shape of Inner Space

Posted on September 19, 2010 by woit

Besides the Hawking book, which was a disappointment in many ways, I recently also finished reading a much better and more interesting book which deals with some of the same topics, but in a dramatically more substantive and intelligent manner. … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 16 Comments

Short Items

Posted on September 17, 2010 by woit

The Fermilab Physics Advisory Committee recently recommended that the Tevatron be kept running for an additional three years (until 2014). By the end of that time it should be able to accumulate a total of 20 fb-1 of data, which … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News, Langlands, Multiverse Mania, Not Even Wrong: The Book | 16 Comments

Hawking Gives Up

Posted on September 7, 2010 by woit

David Gross has in the past invoked the phrase “never, never, never give up”, attributed to Churchill, to describe his view about claims that one should give up on the traditional goals of fundamental physics in favor of anthropic arguments … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Multiverse Mania | 83 Comments

Researchers Discover How to Conduct First Test of “Untestable” String Theory

Posted on September 1, 2010 by woit

A couple people this morning pointed me to today’s press release from Imperial College, headlined Researchers Discover How to Conduct First Test of “Untestable” String Theory and subtitled “New study suggests researchers can now test the ‘theory of everything’”. In … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 14 Comments