Author Archives: woit

The Amplituhedron and Twistors

Posted on January 25, 2014 by woit

Yesterday Nima Arkani-Hamed was here at Columbia, giving a theory seminar on the topic of the Amplituhedron, which is a characterization of the integration region in a calculation of scattering amplitudes by integrating over regions in the so-called positive Grassmannian. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Topcites 2013

Posted on January 25, 2014 by woit

The people at SLAC for a long time have been compiling “Topcites” data which includes various lists of the most heavily-cited papers in HEP. From 1997-2003 Mike Peskin each year would write something about the significance of the lists. I … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 5 Comments

Not Giving Up

Posted on January 23, 2014 by woit

One question I’ve been wondering about for the last 20 years or so has been what SUSY proponents would do when the LHC finally gathered data and found no SUSY. Would they finally admit this was an idea that hadn’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 36 Comments

Our Mathematical Universe

Posted on January 17, 2014 by woit

Max Tegmark has a new book out, entitled Our Mathematical Universe, which is getting a lot of attention. I’ve written a review of the book for the Wall Street Journal, which is now available (although now behind a paywall, if … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Multiverse Mania | 125 Comments

What Scientific Idea is Ready for Retirement?

Posted on January 14, 2014 by woit

Every year John Brockman’s Edge web-site hosts responses to a different question. This year the question was What scientific idea is ready for retirement?. It shouldn’t be too hard to guess what I chose to write about, with results available … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 70 Comments

Scientists Find a Practical Test for String Theory

Posted on January 6, 2014 by woit

This sort of thing seemed to be dying down (2013 required a record low number of “This Week’s Hype” postings), but 2014 is starting off with the usual promotion by physicists of nonsense about how they have “found a test … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 46 Comments

Short Items

Posted on January 2, 2014 by woit

Harvard has announced that the Chinese firm Evergrande Group will be supporting various activities at Harvard, including a new Center for Mathematical Sciences and Applications, with S.-T. Yau as director. No details of what the center will do other than … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 20 Comments

Acknowledgments

Posted on December 30, 2013 by woit

Two of the prominent string theorists working on ideas about holography and cosmology featured in Amanda Gefter’s new book are Tom Banks and Willy Fischler, who have a new paper out on the subject, entitled Holographic Space-time and Newton’s Law. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 32 Comments

Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn

Posted on December 29, 2013 by woit

Amanda Gefter, a science writer who has often covered theoretical physics topics for New Scientist, has a new book coming out soon, Trespassing on Einstein’s Lawn. On one level it’s a memoir, telling a story that begins with her father … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 11 Comments

Trust the math? An Update

Posted on December 21, 2013 by woit

Back in September, I wrote here about the news that Snowden’s revelations that confirmed suspicions that back in 2005-6 NSA mathematicians had compromised an NIST standard for elliptic-curve cryptography. The new standard was promoted as an improvement using sophisticated mathematical … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 27 Comments