Author Archives: woit

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

SUSY in the Hospital?

Posted on November 13, 2012 by woit

HCP2012 Higgs results will be announced Wednesday (I’m hearing that CMS tau-tau signal is .7 +/- .5 x the SM value), but interest may focus much more on the strong SUSY exclusions being announced there. So far the LHCb result … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 52 Comments

HCP2012

Posted on November 9, 2012 by woit

The Hadron Collider Physics Symposium will be next week in Kyoto, with announcements of new results from the LHC, some details of which are starting to trickle in. Chris Quigg explains what to look for here. The LHC has just … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 26 Comments

A Lost Generation?

Posted on November 4, 2012 by woit

I’m in Northern California, on a vacation originally intended to be short, but started early due to the storm in New York. I wanted though to recommend reading something that a commenter here pointed to. It’s an article by Mikhail … Continue reading →

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Latest Links

Posted on October 26, 2012 by woit

On the LHC front, new results will be announced at the Hadron Collider Physics Symposium in Kyoto, which opens November 12. Jester has a good summary of what to look for on the Higgs front here. The new results should … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 32 Comments

Why Author Pays Open Access is a Bad Idea

Posted on October 20, 2012 by woit

There’s a wonderful piece of software out there I hadn’t heard about, called Mathgen, which generates impressive looking mathematics research papers that are utter gobbledygook. A Mathgen paper on Independent, Negative, Canonically Turing Arrows of Equations and Problems in Applied … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 50 Comments

Fields Medal Symposium

Posted on October 19, 2012 by woit

I just got back from a few days in Toronto, where I attended the Fields Medal Symposium on Fundamentals of the Langlands Program. This is the first of a planned yearly series to be held a the Fields Institute, with … Continue reading →

Posted in Langlands | 14 Comments

Templeton Funds Physics of Information

Posted on October 19, 2012 by woit

FQXi has recently issued a Request for Proposals, using money from the Templeton Foundation to fund about $3 million in grants for research on the “Physics of Information”: What is the relationship between information and reality? Can information exist without … Continue reading →

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