Author Archives: woit

On Status of KKLT

Posted on August 16, 2018 by woit

(Warning, this is just more about the topic of the last posting, which for most people will be a good reason to stop reading now. On the other hand, if you’re obsessed with the controversy over string theory, you might … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Swampland | 13 Comments

Theorists with a Swamp, not a Theory

Posted on August 13, 2018 by woit

In recent weeks string theory has been again getting a lot of press attention, because of claims that new progress is being made in the study of the relation of string theory and the real world, via the study of … Continue reading →

Posted in Swampland | 15 Comments

Back

Posted on August 6, 2018 by woit

Back now from vacation. On the global warming front, I can report that Northern Norway has gotten rather warm, Svalbard is still pretty cold. While I was away the big mathematics news was from the ICM. As everyone expected, one … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 32 Comments

Leaving Town

Posted on July 19, 2018 by woit

About to head out on vacation tonight, back in a couple weeks. On the hot topics in fundamental physics, two items are: Concerning the “no dS string vacua” conjecture, a new preprint begins by explaining why the existence or non-existence … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | Comments Off on Leaving Town

abc News

Posted on July 17, 2018 by woit

[For those not up to speed on this story, see blog posts here and here from last December, as well as comments to those posts.] The last couple months I’ve heard reports from several people claiming that arithmetic geometers Peter … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 24 Comments

Various Links

Posted on July 5, 2018 by woit

A random assortment of possibly interesting links: New videos from the IHES include new interviews, and talks from the recent Ofer Gabber conference. If you want to know more about prisms than what you can get from the video here, … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 30 Comments

Strings 2018 Panel Discussion

Posted on June 30, 2018 by woit

A panel discussion at the Strings 2018 conference ended by addressing audience questions, and this seemed to me to give some insight into where string theory is now. I noticed that the Youtube video comes with an auto-generated transcript, so … Continue reading →

Posted in Strings 2XXX, Swampland | 18 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on June 27, 2018 by woit

New Scientist today has a feature article headlined How to think about… The multiverse The idea of an infinite multitude of universes is forced on us by physics. It starts off quoting Sean Carroll: “One of the most common misconceptions … Continue reading →

Posted in Fake Physics, Multiverse Mania, Strings 2XXX, Swampland | 17 Comments

Knockin’ On Heaven’s Door

Posted on June 21, 2018 by woit

I’ve been thinking about what to write about this essay by Ben Allanach, which gives his take on the current state of HEP theory. Allanach is a specialist on the phenomenology of SUSY models, but here he announces that he’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized | 17 Comments

The Multiverse Falsified

Posted on June 19, 2018 by woit

The July 1 issue of the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomy Society includes an article evaluating the standard multiverse prediction of the cosmological constant, with result: The predicted (median) value is 50–60 times larger than the observed value. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 15 Comments