Monthly Archives: January 2011

The 4% Universe

Posted on January 31, 2011 by woit

I’ve written a review of Richard Panek’s quite good new book The 4% Universe, which has appeared at the Wall Street Journal. The main topic of the book is the supernova searches that led to what seems to be a … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 12 Comments

Is the Multiverse Immoral?

Posted on January 29, 2011 by woit

[Warning, somewhat of a rant follows, and it’s not very original. You might want to skip this one…] In the last week or so, I’ve run into two critiques of the currently fashionable multiverse mania that take an unusual angle … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 107 Comments

News From Chamonix

Posted on January 28, 2011 by woit

The people responsible for the LHC are meeting in Chamonix this week to make plans for the upcoming run, slides of many talks are available here. The results of discussions there are: The recommendation will be to run at 3.5 … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 6 Comments

Number 999 or 1000

Posted on January 25, 2011 by woit

According to the WordPress software, this is either post 999 or 1000 on this blog, depending on whether you count one I haven’t gotten around to finishing. I’m not sure that number is reliable anyway, since there are various anomalies … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 23 Comments

News from Templeton and FQXi

Posted on January 18, 2011 by woit

The Templeton Foundation has just released their “2010 Capabilities Report“, a sort of bi-annual report. It shows that in 2009 they had assets of $1.5 billion, and spent $31.8 million on “Science and the Big Questions”. For 2010 two of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

More Short Items

Posted on January 16, 2011 by woit

There’s an excellent article by Michel Berube about the Sokal hoax, fifteen years later, entitled The Science Wars Redux. The latest Notices of the AMS has a review of the recent Yau-Nadis book by Nigel Hitchin (for my take, see … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 14 Comments

HEP News

Posted on January 11, 2011 by woit

While I was away at Stony Brook yesterday, every other blog and news source out there had a story you’ve surely seen about the DOE’s decision to turn down a proposal to seek funding to keep the Tevatron running past … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 6 Comments

Differential Cohomology at the Simons Center

Posted on January 11, 2011 by woit

This week the Simons Center is hosting a workshop on Differential Cohomology and its applications in physics. I won’t try and give an explanation of what differential cohomology is here, with a little luck the videos of the talks will … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

What the M Stands For

Posted on January 3, 2011 by woit

There’s an explanation at the latest Abstruse Goose. To recycle some of my own writing, from page 107 of NEW, the book: When I was a graduate student at Princeton, one day I was leaving the library perhaps thirty feet … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments