Author Archives: woit

Visions of Future Physics

Posted on September 22, 2015 by woit

There’s a great profile of Nima Arkani-Hamed by Natalie Wolchover just out at Quanta magazine, under the title Visions of Future Physics. I recently linked to another profile of him from the IAS, which covers some similar ground. He’s often … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 49 Comments

Connes on the Riemann Hypothesis

Posted on September 21, 2015 by woit

There’s a fascinating new preprint out from Alain Connes, called An essay on the Riemann Hypothesis, written for a volume on “Open Problems in Mathematics”. Evidently the late John Nash is an editor, and responsible for commissioning this piece. Connes … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Various and Sundry

Posted on September 14, 2015 by woit

The semester here is finally underway, and I’m getting back to work on my quantum mechanics and mathematics book (latest version available here). Current plan is to have a final version by next spring, with publication by Springer late next … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 63 Comments

This Week and Next Week’s Hype

Posted on September 3, 2015 by woit

This week’s hype comes to us from Discover Magazine, which has Is Our Universe One of Many? Here’s How We Can Find Out. Needless to say, the author doesn’t actually tell us how we can find out, just repeats the … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 29 Comments

SUSY 2015

Posted on August 29, 2015 by woit

SUSY 2015, this year’s version of the big annual conference on supersymmetry, has been going on for the past week at Lake Tahoe. Joe Lykken began his summary talk by explaining how as a kid he was a big fan … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 36 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on August 28, 2015 by woit

Bogus media stories about how “physicists finally find a way to test string theory” have now been with us for decades, with a large number of them documented here. Recently this phenomenon seemed to finally be dying down, with such … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 10 Comments

A Singularly Unfeminine Profession

Posted on August 23, 2015 by woit

Phenomenologist Mary K. Gaillard has recently published an autobiographical memoir, with the title A Singularly Unfeminine Profession, and last week’s Nature has a detailed review. Gaillard is a very distinguished HEP phenomenologist, with a career that began in the 1960s, … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 12 Comments

Lepton Photon Interactions at High Energies and the Multiverse

Posted on August 22, 2015 by woit

This past week the large biennial “Lepton-Photon” (International Symposium on Lepton Photon Interactions at High Energies) conference has been taking place in Ljubljana. These have been going on since 1965, now alternating years with the ICHEP (“Rochester”) conference. It’s been … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News, Multiverse Mania | 17 Comments

Genius at Play

Posted on August 15, 2015 by woit

A month or two ago I read the new biography of John Conway, Genius at Play, by Siobhan Roberts (whose book about Coxeter I reviewed here). Since then, writing about it has been on my to-do list, but I wasn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 30 Comments

Short Items

Posted on August 12, 2015 by woit

A few short items: The New Yorker has its own coverage here of the NSA GenCyber summer camp program for children that was discussed here. The LHC is about to start doing physics again at 13 TeV, with beam intensity … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 21 Comments