Category Archives: Uncategorized

Visions of Future Physics

Posted on September 22, 2015 by woit

There’s a great profile of Nima Arkani-Hamed by Natalie Wolchover just out at Quanta magazine, under the title Visions of Future Physics. I recently linked to another profile of him from the IAS, which covers some similar ground. He’s often … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 49 Comments

Connes on the Riemann Hypothesis

Posted on September 21, 2015 by woit

There’s a fascinating new preprint out from Alain Connes, called An essay on the Riemann Hypothesis, written for a volume on “Open Problems in Mathematics”. Evidently the late John Nash is an editor, and responsible for commissioning this piece. Connes … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 3 Comments

Various and Sundry

Posted on September 14, 2015 by woit

The semester here is finally underway, and I’m getting back to work on my quantum mechanics and mathematics book (latest version available here). Current plan is to have a final version by next spring, with publication by Springer late next … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 63 Comments

SUSY 2015

Posted on August 29, 2015 by woit

SUSY 2015, this year’s version of the big annual conference on supersymmetry, has been going on for the past week at Lake Tahoe. Joe Lykken began his summary talk by explaining how as a kid he was a big fan … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 36 Comments

Math and Physics Summer Camps

Posted on August 1, 2015 by woit

With the kids shipped off to NSA summer camp, now is the time for mathematicians and physicists to head off to their own summer camp experiences. Some of these have websites where the rest of us can participate a bit … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Random Notes

Posted on July 21, 2015 by woit

The LHC has now finished the first part of its physics run at 13 TeV, with intensity ramping up more slowly than hoped. Total luminosity/experiment so far is about .1 inverse fb (see here), about a tenth of some earlier … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 10 Comments

GenCyber

Posted on July 18, 2015 by woit

Over the years the NSF has financed various summer camps for high school students, designed to get them interested in mathematics or other areas of science. This summer they’ve teamed up with the NSA to deal with the problem of … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 39 Comments

My Summer Vacation

Posted on July 15, 2015 by woit

When I was young, I recall that a standard assignment when restarting school was an essay on “what I did on my summer vacation”. Now that I’m back in the office after a vacation, here’s a version of that, covering … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

Summer Break

Posted on June 29, 2015 by woit

Heading out soon for summer vacation travels, this time to Ireland and France, back in about two weeks. While away comments will be shut off. My vacation will spare readers commentary on the rest of the Strings 2015 talks, which … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 2 Comments

Anomalies Revisited

Posted on June 22, 2015 by woit

Some of the talks at Strings 2015 have now appeared online, and one of them I found quite fascinating, Witten’s Anomalies Revisited. Some of his motivation comes from string perturbation theory and M-theory, but the questions he addresses are fundamental, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 9 Comments