Category Archives: Uncategorized

Convergence

Another conference that starts today is the Convergence conference at the Perimeter Institute. The concept is explained by Neil Turok here. His point of view is one I’m very much in sympathy with: Turok explains that the “large bandwagon” of … Continue reading

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Various Links

Ordered from the more to less serious… On the geometric Langlands front, there’s video posted today of this talk by Dennis Gaitsgory. Michael Harris has already commented here about the local geometric Langlands conjecture in terms of 2-categories that Gaitsgory … Continue reading

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A View from an Ex-String Theorist

Every so often I’ve taken a look at something about theoretical physics on Reddit, generally ending up not spending much time there. One reason was that I realize I’m already spending more of my life than is healthy arguing with … Continue reading

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The Nash Musings

Since the news of the tragic death recently of John Nash and his wife in an automobile accident last weekend, some of those who were at Princeton during the same time I was (late 70s, early 80s) have been exchanging … Continue reading

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Various News

First test collisions at 6.5 TeV/beam at the LHC are tentatively scheduled for Thursday morning. At CERN today there’s a workshop about the Higgs Machine Learning Challenge. Also on the topic of LHC data analysis news, Tommaso Dorigo announces the … Continue reading

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Contested Boundaries

Apologies for too much recent posting here about the tired topic of the string wars. I hope to soon make amends by writing about something new I learned about geometric Langlands. The summer 2015 issue of Perspectives in Science has … Continue reading

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The Admiral of the String Theory Wars

The science magazine Nautilus this month has a profile of me, under the title The Admiral of the String Theory Wars. The writer, Bob Henderson, spent a lot of time talking to me and other people around here, including attending … Continue reading

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Things Have Changed

I’ve been busy with other things, but after taking a look today at various new things related to quantum gravity, I was struck by how much things have changed sociologically in that subject over the last few years. Back in … Continue reading

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The Lady Gaga of French Mathematicians Comes Stateside, and Other News

Cédric Villani is in town today, giving a talk at the French consulate. He’ll discuss his book, recently translated into English (I wrote a bit about it here). Yesterday, despite the lack of suitable bread and cheese, he was in … Continue reading

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LHC News

The LHC has just ramped up for the first time to 6.5 TeV, and has a probe beam circulating in one direction, the highest energy protons humans have ever accelerated. You can follow what’s happening here. The BBC has gotten … Continue reading

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