Author Archives: woit

Group Theory in a Nutshell for Physicists

Posted on April 22, 2016 by woit

There’s a new book out in the Princeton “Nutshell” series, Tony Zee’s Group Theory in a Nutshell for Physicists. I liked his Quantum Field Theory in a Nutshell quite a lot, it’s packed with all sorts of insights into that … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 30 Comments

For Your Reading Pleasure

Posted on April 21, 2016 by woit

Since I just spent some of the morning not doing what I should have been doing, but reading about other things, in case you also want to do this, here are some options: I’m very excited to see an article … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 8 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on April 19, 2016 by woit

It occurred today that the past year or so there haven’t been as many editions here of This Week’s Hype, with in particular the previously common “Scientists finally find a way to test string theory!” stories now less common than … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 9 Comments

The Man Who Knew Infinity

Posted on April 16, 2016 by woit

Last night I went to see a showing at the Tribeca Film Festival of the new movie about Ramanujan, The Man Who Knew Infinity. It was extremely good, infinitely better than the most recent high profile film about a mathematician, … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews | 29 Comments

Various and Sundry

Posted on April 13, 2016 by woit

Some quick links: Via my Columbia colleague at Mathematics Without Apologies, a documentary about Perelman that I was unaware of. I learned something yesterday about another math department colleague, Mikhail Khovanov: he has games called Ringsanity and Ringiana available as … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Starshot

Posted on April 12, 2016 by woit

I don’t know what this is about, but Stephen Hawking and Yuri Milner are here in New York today, with a press conference downtown scheduled at noon, supposedly to announce a mysterious new space exploration initiative, to be called Starshot. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 37 Comments

Local Debates

Posted on April 4, 2016 by woit

I noticed that tomorrow (Tuesday, April 5) evening here in New York City there will be not one, but two debates involving theoretical physicists: At 7 pm the American Museum of Natural History will host the 2016 Asimov Debate, with … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 66 Comments

Is String Theory Scientific?

Posted on April 1, 2016 by woit

Among the various April Fool’s things on the web, the most subtle one I’ve found is by the people at James Madison University, who are advertising an April 1 event discussing the question of Is String Theory Scientific? Part of … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Short Items

Posted on March 30, 2016 by woit

A few short items: Beams are back in the LHC. You can follow what is going on here real-time, or here for details of this year’s beam commissioning. Physics runs scheduled to start last week of April. There’s a wonderful … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments

Two Book Reviews

Posted on March 28, 2016 by woit

Blogging has been light here, trying to finish a complete draft of the book I’m working on, this should be done very soon. Here are a couple all-too-short reviews of books with some relation to math or physics. A Doubter’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 8 Comments