Tag Archives: Steven Weinberg
The question of Abdus Salam ‘deserving’ his Nobel
Peter Woit has blogged about an oral history interview with theoretical physicist Sheldon Glashow published in 2020 by the American Institute of Physics. (They have a great oral history of physics series you should check out if you’re interested.) Woit … Continue reading
Posted in Analysis, Science
Tagged Abdus Salam, BICEP2, Brian Keating, electroweak theory, ICTP Trieste, Nobel Prize for physics, Nobel Prizes, Norman Dombey, Paul Dirac, Peter Woit, Sheldon Glashow, Steven Weinberg
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Engels, Weinberg
Dialectics of Nature, Friedrich Engels, 1883 (ed. 1976): … an acquaintance with the historical course of evolution of human thought, with the views on the general inter-connections in the external world expressed at various times, is required by theoretical natural … Continue reading
Review: ‘Salam – The First ****** Nobel Laureate’ (2018)
Awards are elevated by their winners. For all of the Nobel Prizes’ flaws and shortcomings, they are redeemed by what its laureates choose to do with them. To this end, the Pakistani physicist and activist Abdus Salam (1926-1996) elevates the … Continue reading
Posted in Culture, Science
Tagged Abdul Kalam, Abdus Salam, Abdus Salam ICTP, Ahmadiya sect, Benito Mussolini, Enrico Fermi, Nishan-e-Imtiaz, Nobel Prize for physics, Nobel Prizes, Pakistan, religious presecution, Srinivasa Ramanujan, Steven Weinberg, theoretical physics, Zia-ul-Haq, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto
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‘Nothing in the history of science is ever simple’
Once I finished Steven Weinberg’s book Dreams of a Final Theory, I figured I’d write a long-winding review about what I think the book is really about, and its merits and demerits. But there is a sentence in the seventh chapter – … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Dreams of a Final Theory, history of science, Robert Nozick, science philosophy, Steven Weinberg, The Elegant Universe, theory of everything
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Debating the business of beauty in ‘Dreams of a Final Theory’
In his book Dreams of a Final Theory, Nobel-Prize-winning physicist Steven Weinberg discusses the various aspects of the journey toward a unifying theory in fundamental physics. One crucial aspect is the aesthetic of such a theory, and Weinberg’s principal contention … Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged aesthetics, beauty, critical exponents, Dreams of a Final Theory, framling, randomness, renormalization, Speaker for the Dead, Steven Weinberg, Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar, thermal demagnetization, utlänning, varelse
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The hunt for supersymmetry: Is a choke on the cards?
As scientists have progressed by leaps and bounds in making discoveries and confirming new ideas, they have been disappointed by how one of their favorite theories has been unable to post a positive status update in… years. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Advanced Cold Molecule Electron, bosons, dark matter, electron dipole moment, fermions, Higgs boson, Large Hadron Collider, mesons, particle physics, Project X, Standard Model, Steven Weinberg, superspace, supersymmetry
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