Monthly Archives: May 2014

This Week’s Hype

Posted on May 25, 2014 by woit

About every three years KEK issues a hype-filled press release announcing that Jun Nishimura and collaborators have used a supercomputer to get evidence for string theory. Back in 2008, the announcement was of a numerical simulation on a supercomputer of … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 18 Comments

Quick Links

Posted on May 25, 2014 by woit

Just returned from a few days in Boston, will try and catch up here on various topics: This past week I was able to attend some of the talks at the conference in honor of David Vogan’s 60th birthday. I’m … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands, Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics

Posted on May 14, 2014 by woit

Caltech has just announced the establishment of the Walter Burke Institute for Theoretical Physics, with Hirosi Ooguri as director. It will have a permanent endowment of around \$74 million, with \$30 million of that new funds from the Sherman Fairchild … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

BICEP2 News

Posted on May 13, 2014 by woit

Recall that this past March results from BICEP2 were announced, claiming a greater than 5 sigma detection of a primordial B-mode signal in the CMB polarization. This result received a huge amount of world-wide attention (and see some commentary here). … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 26 Comments

Quillen Notebooks

Posted on May 6, 2014 by woit

Daniel Quillen, one of the greatest mathematicians of the latter part of the twentieth century, passed away in 2011 after suffering from Alzheimer’s. For an appreciation of his work and an explanation of its significance, a good place to start … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments