Strings 2011 in Uppsala, Sweden (1)

1 Name: Anonymous Scientist : 2011-07-02 16:41 ID:L7y7pN4q

Lectures are now online:

http://media.medfarm.uu.se/flvplayer/strings2011/

I recommend Wilczek:

http://media.medfarm.uu.se/flvplayer/strings2011/video24

Via Peter Woit:

"One of the main themes of the conference so far has been study of mathematically interesting supersymmetric QFTs in 3,4,5 and 6 dimensions, often obtained from a specific class of 6d theories, which themselves remain poorly understood (what is known about them was reviewed by Greg Moore). Witten gave an overview of his work relating Khovanov homology and QFT, which involves a chain of various 6d, 5d, 4d, 3d and 2d QFTs. Nati Seiberg reviewed the technology used for constructing these theories on various special backgrounds, noting that this was all about “rigid” SUSY theories, with supergravity and string theory making no appearance. I took a look at the Verlinde talk, and the ideas he is putting forward still strike me as pretty much empty of any significant content. In Jeff Harvey’s summary of the conference, he notes that many people have remarked that there hasn’t been much string theory at the conference. About the landscape, his comment is that “personally I think it’s unlikely to be possible to do science this way.” He describes the situation of string theory unification as like the Monty Python parrot “No, he’s not dead, he’s resting.” while expressing some hope that a miracle will occur at the LHC or in the study of string vacua, reviving the parrot."

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