Author Archives: woit

Number Theory News

Andrew Wiles is the recipient of this year’s Abel Prize. I have to confess that I found this surprising, since I assumed he’d already won this. His work in general and specifically the work that led to the proof of … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 20 Comments

The Ultimate Simplicity of Everything

There’s a wonderful interview with Perimeter Institute director Neil Turok here, entitled The Ultimate Simplicity of Everything, and done for a Canadian radio program. Turok discusses his point of view on whether we’re at “the end of physics”, and I’m … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

This and That

A few short items: Nature has an editorial this week summarizing the situation with the 750 GeV possible diphoton bump. It mentions a new paper analyzing related data (the number of theory papers on this as a function of time). … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments

Multiverse Observed, South of Glasgow

It turns out the multiverse does exist, just off the A76, 25 miles north of Dumfries in Scotland. It’s called the Crawick Multiverse and is now open 10 am to 4 pm. Admission is 5 pounds, but parking is free. … Continue reading

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 18 Comments

Michael Atiyah’s Imaginative State of Mind

Quanta magazine has an intriguing article by Siobhan Roberts out about Michael Atiyah, and what he’s up to these days. It mentions some new ideas about twistor theory I hadn’t heard about, that emerged from a conversation with Penrose, which … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 13 Comments

Who’s Winning the String Wars and Why Should You Care?

Part two of Gerald Alper’s piece at Smashpipe is now available there, with the title Who’s Winning the String Wars and Why Should You Care?, and some more substantive material than in part one. One of the great things about … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 30 Comments

Beyond Experiment: Why the scientific method may be old hat

This week’s New Scientist has an article by Jim Baggott and Daniel Cossins entitled Beyond Experiment: Why the scientific method may be old hat, which deals with the recent controversy over attempts to excuse the failure of string theory by … Continue reading

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 69 Comments

Various and Sundry

The online magazine Smashpipe has the first part of a two-part article written by Gerald Alper, who recently came up here to Columbia to talk to me about string theory/etc. It was an interesting conversation, so I’m curious to see … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments

Yet More About Grothendieck

Since Grothendieck’s death somewhat more than a year ago, quite a lot of new material about him and his mathematics has become available. Visit the Grothendieck Circle to find a lot of this, with just one example some new chapters … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

This Week’s Hype

This week’s dramatic announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves was a major milestone for the fields of physics and astrophysics. The LIGO observation validates a lot of previously untested aspects of our understanding of general relativity, and promises the … Continue reading

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 30 Comments