Author Archives: woit

WIMPs on Death Row

Posted on July 21, 2016 by woit

One of the main arguments given for the idea of supersymmetric extensions of the standard model has been what SUSY enthusiasts call the “WIMP Miracle” (WIMP=Weakly Interacting Massive Particle). This is the claim that such SUSY models include a stable … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 52 Comments

Ghostbusters

Posted on July 14, 2016 by woit

Last night I went to a preview screening of the new Ghostbusters film. This isn’t a review, all I’ll say is that if you liked the first one, you’d probably like this one too. In the first film, an early … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews | 14 Comments

Physics and Math News

Posted on July 11, 2016 by woit

Now back from vacation, here’s the latest on revolutionary developments in physics and mathematics: On the high energy physics front, the good news is that the LHC is performing remarkably well, with already over 13 inverse fb of luminosity, far … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 39 Comments

Short Items

Posted on June 30, 2016 by woit

Erica Klarreich at Quanta magazine has a wonderful profile of Peter Scholze. Scholze has been busy revolutionizing various parts of arithmetic geometry in recent years, and the article does a good job of giving some of the flavor of this. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 4 Comments

Some Ancient History

Posted on June 27, 2016 by woit

A couple months ago there was a session at an APS meeting with the topic Sidney Coleman Remembered. Slides are available for talks by Coleman’s student Erick Weinberg and colleague Howard Georgi. Georgi has recently posted a written version of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 24 Comments

Rumor Mongering

Posted on June 21, 2016 by woit

Since I don’t see why Resonaances should have all the fun, I guess I’ll post something here about the big upcoming news of the summer: is the 750 GeV diphoton bump still there in the 2016 LHC data? We’re very … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 39 Comments

String Sociology

Posted on June 20, 2016 by woit

If you’re interested in the various sorts of internal divisions these days among people doing what gets called “string theory”, you might want to take a look at this blog entry and the discussion there with string phenomenologist Joseph Conlon. … Continue reading →

Posted in Strings 2XXX | 8 Comments

Quick Items

Posted on June 15, 2016 by woit

In a couple hours, at 1:15 pm New York time, there will be a press conference at the AAS meeting where LIGO and Virgo scientists will discuss “ongoing research” (webcast here). The general assumption is that there will be observations … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 50 Comments

Some History of Science

Posted on June 13, 2016 by woit

The period of the “String Wars” has now receded far enough into the past that it has become a topic of interest to historians of science. I learned today from Sabine Hossenfelder’s round-up of various articles addressing the history and … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 19 Comments

Short Items

Posted on June 8, 2016 by woit

String theory continues to make progress. Today the news is from Megan Fox: “Sometimes I just know things,” she explains. “I accidentally tap into stuff sometimes. I used to do it as a kid, and I do it as an … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 39 Comments