Monthly Archives: June 2015

Summer Break

Posted on June 29, 2015 by woit

Heading out soon for summer vacation travels, this time to Ireland and France, back in about two weeks. While away comments will be shut off. My vacation will spare readers commentary on the rest of the Strings 2015 talks, which … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Anomalies Revisited

Posted on June 22, 2015 by woit

Some of the talks at Strings 2015 have now appeared online, and one of them I found quite fascinating, Witten’s Anomalies Revisited. Some of his motivation comes from string perturbation theory and M-theory, but the questions he addresses are fundamental, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Convergence

Posted on June 22, 2015 by woit

Another conference that starts today is the Convergence conference at the Perimeter Institute. The concept is explained by Neil Turok here. His point of view is one I’m very much in sympathy with: Turok explains that the “large bandwagon” of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 34 Comments

Strings 2015

Posted on June 21, 2015 by woit

Strings 2015 gets underway in Bangalore tomorrow, and so far the press coverage I’ve seen consists just of two articles that aren’t what I’d guess string theorists would like to see: In The theory that may have been stringing scientists … Continue reading →

Posted in Strings 2XXX | 16 Comments

Multiversal Journeys

Posted on June 17, 2015 by woit

One of the many efforts to promote the Multiverse to the public way back when (2005-2007, some of their advertisements are here) was an organization called Multiversal Journeys. Back in 2006 they got $77,000 in funding from the Templeton Foundation … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 23 Comments

Various Links

Posted on June 16, 2015 by woit

Ordered from the more to less serious… On the geometric Langlands front, there’s video posted today of this talk by Dennis Gaitsgory. Michael Harris has already commented here about the local geometric Langlands conjecture in terms of 2-categories that Gaitsgory … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

CMB@50

Posted on June 14, 2015 by woit

Last week Princeton hosted what seems to have been a fascinating conference, celebrating the 50th anniversary of studies of the CMB. Hopefully videos and slides will be posted, but one can get some idea of the highlights of the talks … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 15 Comments

A View from an Ex-String Theorist

Posted on June 9, 2015 by woit

Every so often I’ve taken a look at something about theoretical physics on Reddit, generally ending up not spending much time there. One reason was that I realize I’m already spending more of my life than is healthy arguing with … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 38 Comments

A Crisis at the (Western) Edge of Physics

Posted on June 9, 2015 by woit

The New York Times had an op-ed piece this weekend by Adam Frank and Marcelo Gleiser, entitled A Crisis at the Edge of Physics. They make some of the usual criticisms of string theory and the multiverse, ending with Are … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 23 Comments

The West Coast Metric is the Wrong One

Posted on June 5, 2015 by woit

I’m trying to get back to blogging about quantum mechanics slogans, this one is about relativistic quantum mechanics. I’m hoping it will stir up more trouble than my last East vs. West one. If you’re doing calculations in relativistic quantum … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts | 61 Comments