Monthly Archives: February 2012

Various and Sundry

Posted on February 27, 2012 by woit

Lots of people seem to be unhappy with my characterization of Lawrence Krauss’s question “why is there something rather than nothing?” as meaningless. I’m well aware that one can give this question a non-trivial meaning, I just don’t think Krauss … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 28 Comments

String Theory Skeptics and Multiverse Mania

Posted on February 21, 2012 by woit

My endless rants here about the hot field of multiverse studies are mainly motivated by concern about the effect this is having on particle theory. Multiverse scenarios all too often function as an excuse for not admitting that string theory/extra-dimensional … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 41 Comments

SUSY Still in Hiding

Posted on February 14, 2012 by woit

Recent rumors supposedly coming from theorists at Harvard indicating that today would be the day that an announcement would be made of first evidence for a superpartner of a top quark have just been shot down. The talk at CERN … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 57 Comments

Latest from the LHC

Posted on February 7, 2012 by woit

CMS and ATLAS have just released final versions of their Higgs analyses for the 2011 data (the new CMS gamma-gamma analysis was previously discussed here). The preliminary versions of these were what was released last December, and the final versions … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 6 Comments

The Langlands Program and Quantum Field Theory

Posted on February 1, 2012 by woit

Edward Frenkel is here this semester in the math department at Columbia, and he’s giving a series of lectures on a topic dear to my heart. Video of his lectures on The Langlands Program and Quantum Field Theory is starting … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands | 7 Comments