Monthly Archives: October 2017

This Week’s Hype

Posted on October 26, 2017 by woit

Yet another entry in the long line of nonsensical hype about fundamental physics driven by misleading university press releases is today’s news that CERN Scientists Conclude that the Universe Should Not Exist. Tracking this back through various press stories (see … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 24 Comments

Short Items

Posted on October 24, 2017 by woit

A few short items: My graduate school roommate Nathan Myhrvold has a new book coming out this month, a five-volume series about the science of bread, based on several years of research into the subject at his laboratory near Seattle. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Shut Up and Calculate!?

Posted on October 17, 2017 by woit

I noticed recently that Nima Arkani-Hamed was giving a talk at Cornell, with the title Three Cheers For “Shut Up And Calculate!” In Fundamental Physics. No idea whether or not video is now or will become available. From the abstract … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 61 Comments

50 Years of Electroweak Unification

Posted on October 14, 2017 by woit

The 50th anniversary of electroweak unification is coming up in a couple days, since Weinberg’s A Model of Leptons paper was submitted to PRL on October 17, 1967. For many years this was the most heavily cited HEP paper of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

Various Topics in Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Posted on October 11, 2017 by woit

A couple of recent discussions about quantum mechanics that may be of interest: There’s a recent paper out by Don Weingarten that looks looks like it might have a different take on the fundamental “many-worlds” problem of, as he writes: … Continue reading →

Posted in Quantum Mechanics | 19 Comments

The Big Bang Theory and the Death of SUSY

Posted on October 5, 2017 by woit

If you’re a fan of The Big Bang Theory, perhaps you’ve seen the latest episode, The Retraction Reaction. If not, you might be interested in the following transcript (taken from here). The show has always done a good job of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 35 Comments

2017 Nobel Prize in Physics

Posted on October 2, 2017 by woit

At this point, Kip Thorne and Rainer Weiss of LIGO have (deservedly) won just about every scientific prize out there, for the first observation of gravitational waves. I don’t know of anyone who doesn’t believe they’ll be getting the Physics … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 53 Comments

Vladimir Voevodsky 1966-2017

Posted on October 1, 2017 by woit

I was very sorry to hear yesterday of the announcement from the IAS of the untimely death of Vladimir Voevodsky, at the age of 51. Last year I had the chance to meet Voevodsky and talk with him for a … Continue reading →

Posted in Obituaries | 6 Comments