This book by this year’s Nobel laureate Francis Halzen is very popular - you could see it was used a lot! I have a collection of physics books signed by my colleagues. It all started with a curious incident when I started my position at Cornell many years ago… 🧪

Congratulations to Francis Halzen on the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics!!! Well deserved! 🧪

Nobel Prize@nobelprize.org · 5d ago

BREAKING NEWS The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences has decided to award the 2026 #NobelPrize in Physics to Francis Halzen “for decisive contributions to the IceCube Neutrino Observatory and the discovery of high-energy neutrinos of astrophysical origin.”

Nobel Week is upon us, with the 2026 Nobel Prize in Physics being awarded on Tuesday, October 6th. This year, instead of asking you for predictions (my pick is Aharonov and Berry), I asked several AI models what they “think.” Here are the results: 🧪

An interesting analysis of parallels between the crisis of US federal funding for physics in the late 1960s and today. The article claims particle physics took the heaviest hit from funding cuts, with several accelerator projects canceled. [cont.] 🧪 physicstoday.aip.org/features/the...

The last crisis of US physics

At the end of the turbulent 1960s, the postwar funding boom in US physics came to a crashing halt. The lessons learned then may be helpful to today’s physicists.

physicstoday.aip.org

So ChatGPT Astra with its human underlings solved one of the Millennium Problems, the Navier-Stokes equations. Not without human controversies, of course. See the first comment. 🧪 openai.com/index/navier...

On the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem

We’re sharing an AI-generated solution to the Navier–Stokes Millennium Prize Problem, including a writeup and a formal proof in Lean.

openai.com

Interestingly, according to Agent Smith from the movie The Matrix, it is humans who exhibit all the characteristics of a virus! 🧪 arxiv.org/html/2609.03...

Interesting… 🧪 www.cbc.ca/news/politic...

Canada recruited 64 professors with new research fund. Three-quarters are from U.S. schools | CBC News

Industry Minister Mélanie Joly announced on Thursday that the federal government is providing $541 million in research funding to a tranche of new professors recruited into Canadian institutions from ...

cbc.ca

Fun fact from math. There are weird numbers (official name) which are natural numbers whose sum of proper divisors is greater than the number itself, but no subset of those divisors adds up to the number (I.e., they are abundant but not semiperfect). The smallest weird number is 70. 🧪

The Encyclopedia of Particle Physics is now published! Everything you wanted to know about particle physics (but were afraid to ask) is now available here: www.sciencedirect.com/referencewor... I wrote a chapter of this encyclopedia describing CP violation. 🧪

The premise, style, and even the perceived timing of Michael Kratsios’ 2026 paper, "Science: A New Golden Age," invites a comparison with Vannevar Bush's classic "Science, the Endless Frontier," written in 1945, which established the US science funding doctrine. 🧪

Mark Wise died over the weekend… He was a great physicist whose contributions to particle physics were enormous. I learned a lot from him. RIP… 🧪

Happy Independence Day! I'd like to take this opportunity to emphasize that our nation's 250-year resilience is rooted in forward-thinking investments in science, research, and development, with a triad of fundamental science, applied science, and engineering propelling our country's advancement. 🧪

Frank Avignone is a great scientist who made our department into a research powerhouse, and he is still very active in research and departmental life. I am fortunate to have him as a colleague. 🧪 www.sc.edu/uofsc/posts/...

Big Bang Theory

Frank Avignone has been fascinated by physics longer than most people have been alive, an intense curiosity that began in the waning days of World War II. Now, more than six decades after being recrui...

sc.edu

“The U.S. Department of Energy today announced its Quantum Genesis initiative” Any comments? 🧪 content.govdelivery.com/accounts/USD...

NSF has its own Genesis Mission? 🧪 www.science.org/content/arti...

Exclusive: NSF slashes research programs to support new tech initiative, insiders say

Unexpected shift in funds has meant sharp drop in grants this fiscal year

science.org

…and we're off to a good start for the 5th International Conference on Charged Lepton Flavor Violation (CLFV 2026) at the University of Rome La Sapienza! It’s great to be here in Rome - remembering that the Mu2e experiment at Fermilab will start taking data soon. 🧪

We are off to a good start with the XVI International Conference on Beauty, Charm, and Hyperons in Hadronic Interactions (BEACH 2026) in beautiful Florence; it's great to see old friends and listen to great talks. 🧪

CERN decided to update the European Strategy for Particle Physics, defining electron-positron Future Circular Collider (FCC-ee) as its future flagship project “thereby maintaining Europe’s leadership in the field.” 🧪 home.cern/the-cern-cou...

This tape contains Paul Dirac’s lecture (yes, that Paul Dirac, one of the founders of quantum mechanics) at the University of South Carolina. This tape is also legendary; it has been missing for the past 32 years! And guess what: Prof. Frank Avignone found it today! Now we need to digitize it! 🧪

The rain it raineth on the just And also on the unjust fella; But chiefly on the just, because The unjust steals the just’s umbrella. Lord Bowen Равно На честных и бесчестных льется Господень дождь с небесной высоты… Но честным все же больше достается! Бесчестные Крадут у них зонты!

The beautiful campus of the University of South Carolina. Two weeks until the finals... 🧪

Oh, no! It was a member of the Five College consortium when I was a student at UMass… 🧪 www.nepm.org/regional-new...

Hampshire College announces closure effective this fall

The small, liberal arts college in Amherst was founded in 1965 and has been facing financial pressures in recent years.

nepm.org

New paper! In this article, we show that new Mu2e experiment at FNAL not only can probe new physics in the mu-to-e interactions with nuclei, it can also probe light axion-like particles in the interactions of muons with atomic shell electrons. 🧪 inspirehep.net/literature/3...

We are introducing Darden Fellows in the Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of South Carolina: senior physics majors serving as peer mentors to their freshman and sophomore colleagues, sharing advice, etc. Do you have similar initiatives? Do they work well at your institution? 🧪

Why is it happening?🧪 www.nature.com/articles/d41...

Massive budget cuts for US science proposed again by Trump administration

Budget proposal would also curb federal payments for scientific publishing.

nature.com

New paper! In this article for the journal Annual Reviews of Nuclear and Particle Science, we review the physics case and technology solutions for the new tau-charm factory. 🧪 inspirehep.net/literature/3...

Antimatter in motion! The BASE experiment at CERN literally put antimatter (92 antiprotons) the antiparticles of a hydrogen nucleus, on a truck and moved it across the CERN site. I find it amusing that, at some point, you could order delivery of antiprotons if your experiment needs them! 🧪

I had a great time at the Astronomy on Tap event at Tin Roof yesterday. There was a very good turnout, a responsive crowd, and good food. People said they will be back for the next installment! 🧪

So, is it more than rumors? Does anyone have something in writing regarding the DOE Nuclear Theory budget? What about High Energy? Why is it happening? The Nuclear Theory budget is tiny compared to other items in the government budget… 🧪

I just received a message from the Department of Energy, my main federal sponsor. There is a strategic realignment that unites the Office of High Energy Physics and the Office of Nuclear Physics. What do you think will happen to the overall level of funding? 🧪