Cosmology and Philosophy at La Pietra

I've traded off my reasons for not blogging much of late. Last week and before it was The Particle at the End of the Universe (in stores November 13!), but that's now been handed in and I can kick back and catch up on my martini-drinking. Except that instead of doing that, I instantly hopped on a plane for Europe, where I'm now participating in a workshop on philosophy and cosmology. Not that you should feel sorry for me -- the workshop is being held at the La Pietra conference center, a beautiful facility owned by NYU in Florence. I'm not sure why NYU owns a conference center in Florence; it could have been a targeted purchase, but it could easily have just been a gift. (Caltech for a while owned an abandoned gold mine. Universities get all sorts of crazy gifts.) But at least temporarily, martinis have been put ...