Monthly Archives: August 2020

Funding Priorities

Posted on August 26, 2020 by woit

The research that gets done in any field of science is heavily influenced by the priorities set by those who fund the research. For science in the US in general, and the field of theoretical physics in particular, recent years … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 36 Comments

Guys and Their Theories of Everything

Posted on August 21, 2020 by woit

I’m a big fan of Sabine Hossenfelder’s music videos, the latest of which, Theories of Everything, has recently appeared. I also agree with much of the discussion of this at her latest blog posting where Steven Evans writes nobody wants … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 16 Comments

Twistors and the Standard Model

Posted on August 11, 2020 by woit

For the past few months I’ve been working on writing up some ideas I’m quite excited about, and the pandemic has helped move things along by removing distractions and forcing me to mostly stay home. There’s now something written that … Continue reading →

Posted in Euclidean Twistor Unification | 15 Comments

Quantization and Dirac Cohomology

Posted on August 7, 2020 by woit

For many years I’ve been fascinated by the topic of “Dirac cohomology” and its possible relations to various questions about quantization and quantum field theory. At first I was mainly trying to understand the relation to BRST, and wrote some … Continue reading →

Posted in BRST | Comments Off on Quantization and Dirac Cohomology

(Imaginary) Time Asymmetry

Posted on August 6, 2020 by woit

When people write down a list of axioms for quantum mechanics, they typically neglect to include a crucial one: positivity (or more generally, boundedness below) of the energy. This is equivalent to saying that something very different happens when you … Continue reading →

Posted in Quantum Mechanics | 22 Comments

Yesterday’s Hype

Posted on August 1, 2020 by woit

Every summer CERN runs a summer student programme, designed to bring in a group of students to participate in scientific activities at CERN and provide lectures for them about the basics and latest state of the field of high energy … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 28 Comments