Author Archives: woit

Recent Developments in Constructive Field Theory

Posted on March 13, 2018 by woit

This week there’s a mini-workshop here at Columbia organized by the probabilists, on Recent Developments in Constructive Field Theory. I’ll be attending some of the talks, will write more here if I can come up with something constructive to say. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Presumptuous Blogging

Posted on March 12, 2018 by woit

John Horgan at Scientific American today has an interview with Martin Rees in which Rees says: It’s presumptuous (as some people like Woit and Smolin have done) to deride the way some manifestly brilliant people choose to dedicate their scientific … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 28 Comments

Rochester Colloquium Talk

Posted on March 6, 2018 by woit

I’m heading up to Rochester this evening, will give a colloquium talk there in the physics department on Wednesday at 3:45. I’ll put up a link to the slides after the talk, for now, here’s the abstract: Particle theory: a … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 22 Comments

Applied Group Theory

Posted on February 26, 2018 by woit

I just noticed that Greg Moore has been teaching a wonderful course in recent years with the misleadingly bland title of Applied Group Theory. His choice of the topics he wants to cover given here is an excellent one and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Various and Sundry

Posted on February 9, 2018 by woit

I recently spent some time looking at old postings on this blog, partly because of writing this blog entry, partly because Gil Kalai got me a copy of his book Gina Says. For a moment I thought this would be … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

Muon g-2 Anomaly Gone?

Posted on February 1, 2018 by woit

I just learned some interesting news from Tommaso Dorigo’s blog. Go there for more details, but the news is the claim in these three papers that, accounting for GR effects on the precision measurement of the muon anomalous magnetic moment, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 54 Comments

15 Years of Multiverse Mania

Posted on January 29, 2018 by woit

Today is the 15th anniversary of the event that kicked off the Multiverse Mania that continues to this day, recently taking the form of a concerted attack on conventional notions of science. 2018 has seen an acceleration of this attack, … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 29 Comments

Quick Links

Posted on January 27, 2018 by woit

Various things that may be of interest, ordered from abstract math to concrete physics: Jacob Lurie is teaching a course this semester on Categorical Logic. Way back when I was a student at Harvard this is the kind of thing … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

Beyond Falsifiability

Posted on January 17, 2018 by woit

Sean Carroll has a new paper out defending the Multiverse and attacking the naive Popperazi, entitled Beyond Falsifiability: Normal Science in a Multiverse. He also has a Beyond Falsifiability blog post here. Much of the problem with the paper and … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Multiverse Mania | 40 Comments

The Quantum Spy

Posted on January 17, 2018 by woit

I don’t often read spy thrillers, but just finished one, The Quantum Spy, by David Ignatius. Ignatius is a well-known journalist at the Washington Post, specializing in international affairs and the intelligence community (and known to some as The Mainstream … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 10 Comments