Author Archives: woit

New Milner Prizes

Posted on December 10, 2012 by woit

The New York Times is reporting that tomorrow Yuri Milner will be announcing the award of a new set of prizes for fundamental physics work, this time including some experimentalists as recipients. The awards are $3 million for the experimental … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 57 Comments

First Results from the Large Hardon Collider

Posted on December 10, 2012 by woit

There’s a conference in Bad Honnef going on now entitled First Results from the LHC, with a website that carries two different interpretations of what “LHC” stands for (see the screenshot below): The talks are here. Yesterday CERN DG Rolf … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 6 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on December 10, 2012 by woit

Space.com has a new story entitled Space Bursts Provide Insight to Theory of Everything, which has been picked up elsewhere as “evidence for string theory”. For instance Physicists Find New Evidence Of A ‘Theory Of Everything’ In The Wreckage Of … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 2 Comments

Decay: The LHC Zombie Film

Posted on December 8, 2012 by woit

Today is the release date for the film Decay, described as “a zombie film made and set at the LHC, by physics PhD students”. It’s available for download here, on Youtube here. The plot is summarized as The film follows … Continue reading →

Posted in Film Reviews | 7 Comments

Forty Years of String Theory

Posted on December 5, 2012 by woit

The journal Foundations of Physics has been promising a special issue on “Forty Years of String Theory: Reflecting on the Foundations” for quite a while now, with a contribution first appearing back when it really was 40 years since the … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 31 Comments

News from CERN

Posted on December 5, 2012 by woit

Very light posting recently, partly due to being busy keeping up with my class, but more due to just not noticing anything particularly newsworthy. Matt and Lubos have quite a lot to say about Time magazine’s not describing the Higgs … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 9 Comments

Assorted Links

Posted on November 23, 2012 by woit

Paul Frampton has been found guilty on drug charges in Buenos Aires, looks like he will be able to serve out his sentence under house arrest, get released sometime in 2014. It’s unclear at this point how the University of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 34 Comments

Scrutinizing the Cosmological Constant Problem

Posted on November 20, 2012 by woit

Normally I do my best to ignore claims to have figured out the vacuum energy problem. There’s an endless number of them, mostly looking pretty dubious, and the world is full of people much more expert on the subject than … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 26 Comments

Latest from Arkani-Hamed, Ellis and Gross

Posted on November 20, 2012 by woit

Three of the leading figures in HEP theory have today or recently spoken about their current view of SUSY in light of the negative LHC results, here’s a report: At the IAS recently, Nima Arkani-Hamed spoke on The Inevitability of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 36 Comments

New Higgs Results

Posted on November 13, 2012 by woit

New results about the Higgs should appear over the next day or so, perhaps first here and here. First to appear is the CMS tau-tau result which is a signal strength of .72 +/- .52 the SM value. Will update … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 20 Comments