Author Archives: woit

Back

Posted on May 18, 2016 by woit

Now back after a satisfying vacation amidst very large trees. Here are some things of note from the past couple weeks: For those fascinated by the arguments over string theory, you might want to look at a document sent to … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype, Uncategorized | 34 Comments

The Big Picture

Posted on May 3, 2016 by woit

I’m about to head out on vacation to commune with nature in the Pacific Northwest, so there’s likely to be no more blogging here until after May 17th. That’s just one reason I’ll leave comments closed here, another is that … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 1 Comment

This Week’s Hype

Posted on May 3, 2016 by woit

The June issue of Discover magazine has an article entitled The Fall and Rise of String Theory (sorry it’s behind a paywall). I had added this as an update to the last posting, but just looked at it more carefully … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 1 Comment

Various Items

Posted on April 29, 2016 by woit

A few short items: Things had been going quite well at the LHC, they were ahead of schedule, starting to ramp up intensity for the new run. Then at 5:30 this morning a weasel decided to visit a 66kV transformer, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 20 Comments

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