En route to my local Royal Mail depot

Physics is Solved.

Last Friday, Peter (who did his PhD in maths (analysis) at King's and is now working in The City), having joined us at the pub, sat down and promptly informed us, much to the dismay of the theoretical physicists present, that "physics is solved." He had found this article and the paper on the arXiv to which it referred. Peter's claim was intended as mockery of the grandiose title of the paper, "An Exceptionally Simple Theory of Everything" but of course it's difficult to mock such a title with exaggeration.

I don't know much of anything about physics, but Not Even Wrong explains a bit more of what Lisi did (and did not) do, and gives references to some other commentary as well, leading to this pretty picture.

I kid you not.

Perhaps they're being sarcastic. Or maybe the Chinese confused the program. If it could understand what I've written in Chinese, my blog would be at toddler level. Possibly it extrapolates more than it should from the occasional math post. Or do they mean that it takes a genius to decipher my garbled posts?

Guo Juan visits London!

I had lunch with Guo Juan and her friend Bob this afternoon. They're in London on holiday this week. It's always great to see Guo Juan.

She took us to a restaurant in Chinatown which she says is famous for having good cheap food and awful service. I didn't notice the service being so terrible, but then Guo Juan just ordered for us quickly in Chinese. We didn't even look at the menu. It was certainly good, and unbelievably cheap.

They were supposed to join me for the Royal Opera House lunchtime recital today, but unfortunately it was cancelled. Apparently the singer was ill, which is no surprise given the cold, wet, windy, dark and generally miserable weather we've had lately. Last night my umbrella broke while I was walking home. Fortunately, one can buy an umbrella anywhere in London, including any post office. Of course I haven't bought a new one yet. I just walk around with one side of the umbrella flopping down. I'll have to give in soon though, as the weather is unlikely to change.

Guo Juan asked me if I know Pierre Colmez, who is an excellent number theorist in France. He's also a very good Go player, at French 5 or 6 dan. I certainly know of him, and I've seen him give talks, but I've never actually met him. Go players always ask me if I know him, because he is a mathematician and mathematicians always ask me if I know him, because he is a Go player. I'm afraid I'll have to get much better at both before anyone asks him whether he knows me.