Author Archives: woit

Breakthrough Prize 2018

Posted on November 16, 2017 by woit

The Breakthrough Prizes for 2018 will be awarded at a ceremony on December 3, I believe at the usual NASA Hangar 1 in Mountain View. The next day Stanford will host the 2018 Breakthrough Prize symposium, which one will be … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 18 Comments

Various Stuff

Posted on November 12, 2017 by woit

A few links that may be of interest. Mathematics first: A seminar “Lectures Grothendieckiennes” on the mathematical ideas of Alexander Grothendieck is taking place this year in Paris, and has just recently started up. My ex-Columbia colleague Jeff Achter is … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 11 Comments

Where the Money Comes From

Posted on November 11, 2017 by woit

Since returning from a vacation partly spent isolated from the internet, I’ve been catching up and noticed that some of the most prominent sources of funding for math and physics research have been making the news: The New York Times … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 15 Comments

Quantum Theory, Groups and Representations

Posted on November 11, 2017 by woit

While I was away last week on vacation, it seems that Springer has published my book on quantum mechanics and representation theory (previously discussed in various blog posts). The Springer page is here, your institution may provide access to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Quantum Theory: The Book | 10 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on October 26, 2017 by woit

Yet another entry in the long line of nonsensical hype about fundamental physics driven by misleading university press releases is today’s news that CERN Scientists Conclude that the Universe Should Not Exist. Tracking this back through various press stories (see … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 24 Comments

Short Items

Posted on October 24, 2017 by woit

A few short items: My graduate school roommate Nathan Myhrvold has a new book coming out this month, a five-volume series about the science of bread, based on several years of research into the subject at his laboratory near Seattle. … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 8 Comments

Shut Up and Calculate!?

Posted on October 17, 2017 by woit

I noticed recently that Nima Arkani-Hamed was giving a talk at Cornell, with the title Three Cheers For “Shut Up And Calculate!” In Fundamental Physics. No idea whether or not video is now or will become available. From the abstract … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 61 Comments

50 Years of Electroweak Unification

Posted on October 14, 2017 by woit

The 50th anniversary of electroweak unification is coming up in a couple days, since Weinberg’s A Model of Leptons paper was submitted to PRL on October 17, 1967. For many years this was the most heavily cited HEP paper of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

Various Topics in Interpretation of Quantum Mechanics

Posted on October 11, 2017 by woit

A couple of recent discussions about quantum mechanics that may be of interest: There’s a recent paper out by Don Weingarten that looks looks like it might have a different take on the fundamental “many-worlds” problem of, as he writes: … Continue reading →

Posted in Quantum Mechanics | 19 Comments

The Big Bang Theory and the Death of SUSY

Posted on October 5, 2017 by woit

If you’re a fan of The Big Bang Theory, perhaps you’ve seen the latest episode, The Retraction Reaction. If not, you might be interested in the following transcript (taken from here). The show has always done a good job of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 35 Comments