Author Archives: woit

Philip Anderson 1923-2020

Posted on March 30, 2020 by woit

I heard this morning about the death yesterday of Philip Anderson, at the age of 96. It’s not hard to make the case that Anderson was the most important condensed matter theorist of the twentieth century, with a huge influence … Continue reading →

Posted in Obituaries | 12 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on March 25, 2020 by woit

Maybe it’s because people are at home with nothing else to do, but somehow the COVID-19 pandemic seems to be having the side-effect of generating new infections of “test of string theory” hype, a disease common many years back that … Continue reading →

Posted in Swampland, This Week's Hype | 8 Comments

Fourier Analysis Notes

Posted on March 23, 2020 by woit

This semester I’ve been teaching a course on Fourier Analysis, which has, like just about everything, been seriously disrupted by the COVID-19 situation. Several class sessions have been canceled, and future ones are supposed to resume online next week. To … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on March 20, 2020 by woit

In this disturbing time of pandemic, it’s reassuring to see that some activities continue as usual. On the string theory hype front, yesterday NASA put out a press release announcing that Chandra Data Tests ‘Theory of Everything’, which starts by … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 3 Comments

Penrose at The Portal

Posted on March 6, 2020 by woit

Since last summer Eric Weinstein has been running a podcast entitled The Portal, featuring a wide range of unusual and provocative discussions. A couple have had a physics theme, including one with Garrett Lisi back in December. One that I … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on February 28, 2020 by woit

Sabine Hossenfelder already has this covered, but I wanted to add a few comments about this week’s hype, a new article in Quanta magazine by Philip Ball entitled Wormholes Reveal a Way to Manipulate Black Hole Information in the Lab … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 32 Comments

Why String Theory Is Both A Dream And A Nightmare (as well as a swamp…)

Posted on February 26, 2020 by woit

Ethan Siegel today has a new article at Starts With a Bang, entitled Why String Theory is Both a Dream and a Nightmare. For the nightmare part, he writes: its predictions are all over the map, untestable in practice, and … Continue reading →

Posted in Swampland, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Robert Hermann 1931-2020

Posted on February 15, 2020 by woit

I was sorry to hear today of the recent death of Robert Hermann, at the age of 88. While I unfortunately never got to meet him, his writing had a lot of influence on me, as it likely did for … Continue reading →

Posted in Obituaries | 11 Comments

Various

Posted on February 3, 2020 by woit

A few months ago I ended up doing a little history of science research, trying to track down the details of the story of the Physical Review’s 1973 policy discouraging articles on “Foundations”. The results of that research are in … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 20 Comments

London Calling with Career Opportunities II

Posted on January 27, 2020 by woit

If you’re a mathematician, you don’t need to go work for Dominic Cummings in order to have dramatically improved career opportunities in the UK. The British government has just announced a huge increase in funding for mathematical research: 60 million … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments