Author Archives: woit

Yet More on the Wormholes

Posted on February 27, 2023 by woit

The paper explaining that this Nature cover story, besides being a publicity stunt, was also completely wrong, has so far attracted very little media attention. The first thing I’ve seen came out today at New Scientist, a publication often accused … Continue reading →

Posted in Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 13 Comments

Physics With Witten

Posted on February 26, 2023 by woit

I just noticed that last semester Edward Witten was teaching Physics 539 at Princeton, a graduate topics course. Since he’s now past the age of 70, at the IAS he is officially retired and an emeritus professor (the IAS is … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Some Interviews

Posted on February 23, 2023 by woit

Some interviews that readers of this blog may find of interest: David Zierler at the AIP interviews Lee Smolin (April 1, 2021). David Zierler at the AIP interviews Stephon Alexander (June 7, 2021). Alexis Papazoglou at IAI News interviews me … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Latest on the Wormholes

Posted on February 17, 2023 by woit

I had thought that the wormhole story had reached peak absurdity back in December, but last night some commenters pointed to a new development: the technical calculation used in the publicity stunt was nonsense, not giving what was claimed. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 10 Comments

The Trouble With Path Integrals, Part II

Posted on February 16, 2023 by woit

This posting is about the problems with the idea that you can simply formulate quantum mechanical systems by picking a configuration space, an action functional S on paths in this space, and evaluating path integrals of the form $$\int_{\text{paths}}e^{iS[\text{path}]}$$ Necessity … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 30 Comments

The Trouble With Path Integrals, Part I

Posted on February 16, 2023 by woit

Two things recently made me think I should write something about path integrals: Quanta magazine has a new article out entitled How Our Reality May Be a Sum of All Possible Realities and Tony Zee has a new book out, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

What’s Going Right in Particle Physics

Posted on February 14, 2023 by woit

Since I had a little free time today, I was thinking of writing something motivated by two things I saw today, Sabine Hossenfelder’s What’s Going Wrong in Particle Physics, and this summer’s upcoming SUSY 2023 conference and pre-SUSY 2023 school. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

Various and Sundry

Posted on February 7, 2023 by woit

A few things that may be of interest: Fermilab is continuing to push the wormhole publicity stunt, with Joe Lykken, the lab’s Deputy director for research on the 17th giving a public lecture on Wormholes in the Laboratory. The promotional … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 9 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on January 24, 2023 by woit

The New York Times today has Where is Physics Headed (and How Soon Do We Get There?). It’s an interview by Dennis Overbye of Maria Spiropulu and Michael Turner, the chairs of the NAS Committee on Elementary Particle Physics – … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 12 Comments

What is the AdS/CFT Conjecture?

Posted on January 22, 2023 by woit

In recent years I’ve found there’s no point to trying to have an intelligible argument about “string theory”, simply because the term no longer has any well-defined meaning. At the KITP next spring, there will be a program devoted to … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 31 Comments