Author Archives: woit

Physics Nobel Prize 2012

Posted on October 8, 2012 by woit

I had decided to retire from the Nobel Prize prediction business at the top of my game after my first prediction soon after this blog was started. I haven’t heard anything about what tomorrow’s announcement will be, but did just … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 33 Comments

Physics Frontiers Prize

Posted on October 1, 2012 by woit

Yuri Milner’s Fundamental Physics Prize Foundation announced today the process by which future winners of the $3 million Fundamental Physics Prize will be chosen (for more about this, see here), a process which involves setting up yet another prize, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 61 Comments

Wide World of Links

Posted on September 26, 2012 by woit

Some short items of a wide variety of kinds: Witten has posted to the arXiv a long paper about the work on superstring perturbation theory that he has been doing. Superstring Perturbation Theory Revisited, together with two papers of background … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 22 Comments

PPAP Community Meeting

Posted on September 18, 2012 by woit

Following up on last week’s European Strategy Group Meeting in Krakow, this week UK particle physicists are doing something similar, with a Particle Physics Advisory Panel community meeting in Birmingham. The talks on the experimental side tell much the same … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 22 Comments

European Strategy Group Meeting

Posted on September 10, 2012 by woit

CERN has a new version of the European Strategy Group (last convened in 2005/6), tasked with updating medium to long-term plans for future accelerators and particle physics in general. This week they’re running an Open Symposium (live webcast here), with … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 21 Comments

Langlands and Twistors?

Posted on September 6, 2012 by woit

I just heard about this from George Sparling, who is giving a talk this afternoon with the title “From Roger Penrose to Robert Langlands and back” at a symposium in Pittsburgh. I don’t at all know what this is about, … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands | 5 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on September 5, 2012 by woit

BBC Horizon this week is running an episode How Small is the Universe? with a description that features the usual sort of hype about modern physics: It is a journey where things don’t just become smaller but also a whole … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 15 Comments

Proof of the abc Conjecture?

Posted on September 4, 2012 by woit

Jordan Ellenberg at Quomodocumque reports here on a potential breakthrough in number theory, a claimed proof of the abc conjecture by Shin Mochizuki. More than five years ago I wrote a posting with the same title, reporting on a talk … Continue reading →

Posted in abc Conjecture | 17 Comments

Fall Course: Quantum Mechanics for Mathematicians

Posted on September 3, 2012 by woit

This fall I’m teaching on quantum mechanics for mathematicians, at the undergraduate level. There’s a web-page with more information here. I’ll be writing up lecture notes, which should appear on that web-page as the course goes on, starting Wednesday. We’ll … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 35 Comments

The Templeton Effect

Posted on September 3, 2012 by woit

The Chronicle of Higher Education has a long story about the Templeton Foundation, entitled The Templeton Effect. Much of it is about various subfields of philosphy where Templeton money has been successful at bringing religion, theological concerns and religious philosophers … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 7 Comments