Category Archives: Uncategorized

East Coast versus West Coast

Back when I was a student I remember learning that there were two possible sign conventions to use for the Minkowski space metric: the “East coast” one, mostly + signs, favored by relativists and Steven Weinberg, and the “West coast” … Continue reading

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Various Links

This week there’s a conference in Oxford I’d have loved to have been at. Slides from some of the talks are already posted here. The conference is in honor of Graeme Segal’s 70th birthday. Happy Birthday Graeme! Physics Today has … Continue reading

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Quantum Mechanics Fall Class Lecture Notes

Classes are over for the semester, and I’ve put together the lecture notes for my undergraduate “Quantum Mechanics for Mathematicians” course, which are available here. The idea for the course was to try and explain the basics of quantum mechanics, … Continue reading

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Arkani-Hamed on Naturalness

For the latest SUSY enthusiast take on the implications of what the LHC has been (not) seeing, your best bet might be yesterday’s talk at the KITP by Nima Arkani-Hamed on Naturalness. An hour and 40 minutes, no slides, nothing … Continue reading

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New Milner Prizes

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

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Forty Years of String Theory

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

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Assorted Links

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

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Scrutinizing the Cosmological Constant Problem

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

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Latest from Arkani-Hamed, Ellis and Gross

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

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A Lost Generation?

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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