Monthly Archives: October 2019

Today’s Hype

Hype about string theory and fundamental physics seemed to have been dying down recently, with only three editions here so far in 2019 of This Week’s Hype. Today however brings a bumper crop of the highest quality, with new examples … Continue reading

Posted in Swampland, This Week's Hype | 13 Comments

John Tate 1925-2019

John Tate, who was responsible for some of the most important developments in number theory and arithmetic geometry during the second half of the twentieth century, has passed away at the age of 94. Tate was a faculty member in … Continue reading

Posted in Obituaries | 1 Comment

Foundations

Some links related to the foundations of math and physics: Kevin Hartnett at Quanta has a long article on Jacob Lurie and his work on infinity categories. Unfortunately Lurie didn’t participate in the article himself, so comments are only from … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

2019 Physics Nobel Prizes Announced, John Horgan Wins

The 2019 Physics Nobel Prizes were announced this morning, half going to Jim Peebles for his work on big bang cosmology, half to Michel Mayor and Didier Queloz for discovery of an exoplanet. You can read elsewhere more details about … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 25 Comments

Various and Sundry

Various HEP-related links: The physics briefing book for the ongoing update to the European Strategy for Particle Physics is now available, for more see here. This describes the physics that one might hope to do with various proposed new machines. … Continue reading

Posted in Uncategorized | 6 Comments

Salam: The First ****** Nobel Laureate

This evening I noticed that a recent documentary about Abdus Salam, entitled Salam: The First ****** Nobel Laureate, has just appeared on Netflix, and I spent some time watching it. The title is a reference to Salam’s membership in the … Continue reading

Posted in Film Reviews | 5 Comments