Author Archives: woit

Non-empirical Physics

Posted on June 2, 2021 by woit

I haven’t been paying much attention in recent years to the philosophers of science studying “Non-empirical” or “Post-empirical” physics or theory confirmation. At various times I did write fairly extensively about this, see for instance here, here and here. By … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 27 Comments

The Evolution of the Physicist’s Picture of Nature

Posted on May 24, 2021 by woit

Reading this Nautilus article about Julian Barbour led me recently to something I don’t think I’ve ever read before, Dirac’s 1963 Scientific American article The Evolution of the Physicist’s Picture of Nature. There is a very famous quote from this … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 20 Comments

Some History

Posted on April 29, 2021 by woit

I’m heading out soon for a 10 day vacation in the Rocky Mountains, blogging likely to change from sparse to non-existent for the next couple weeks. I’ve come across the following things that people with an interest in the recent … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Finished Some Things

Posted on April 13, 2021 by woit

I’ve now finished with two things that I’ve been working on over the last year or so: The paper explaining my proposal for “Twistor Unification” is now done and uploaded to the arXiv, see here. I’ve finished lecturing for the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 22 Comments

Hawking Hawking

Posted on April 8, 2021 by woit

There’s a very good new book about Stephen Hawking that just came out, Charles Seife’s Hawking Hawking. Some detailed reviews can be found at Prospect Magazine (Philip Ball) and the New York Review of Books (James Gleick). Seife has chosen … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 19 Comments

Muon g-2 Result

Posted on April 7, 2021 by woit

The long awaited FNAL muon g-2 result was announced today, you can watch a video of the seminar here, look at the paper and a discussion of it at Physical Review Letters, or read stories from Natalie Wolchover at Quanta … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 41 Comments

The God Equation

Posted on April 4, 2021 by woit

When I was out for a bike ride yesterday I stopped by a large book store and looked to see if they had a copy of Michio Kaku’s new book The God Equation. They didn’t, but did have plenty of … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, This Week's Hype | 32 Comments

Twistor Unification

Posted on April 1, 2021 by woit

I’ve finally finished writing up a new version of some ideas that I first wrote about here last summer. The latest draft is here, I may set up a web page with more info here. Several people had very helpful … Continue reading →

Posted in Euclidean Twistor Unification | 11 Comments

The Future of Fundamental Physics

Posted on March 24, 2021 by woit

IAS director Robbert Dijkgraaf will be giving the CERN colloquium tomorrow, with the title The Future of Fundamental Physics. Here’s the abstract: The reports of the death of physics are greatly exaggerated. Instead, I would argue, we are living in … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 30 Comments

New Spaces in Mathematics and Physics

Posted on March 22, 2021 by woit

Available online today (if your institution is paying…) from Cambridge University Press are two volumes well-worth spending some time with: New Spaces in Mathematics and New Spaces in Physics. These contain write-ups based on a workshop organized back in 2015 … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 7 Comments