Category Archives: Multiverse Mania

Hard Evidence for the Multiverse Found, but String Theory Limits the Space Brain Threat

Posted on May 22, 2013 by woit

In recent years there have been many claims made for “evidence” of a multiverse, supposedly found in the CMB data (see for example here). Such claims often came with the remark that the Planck CMB data would convincingly decide the … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 24 Comments

The Existence of Nothing

Posted on March 22, 2013 by woit

The sold-out “debate” held Wednesday night here in New York is now available for viewing online, see here. I just watched most of it, and one of many things I couldn’t figure out is what if any propositions were being … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 34 Comments

More about Nothing

Posted on March 13, 2013 by woit

It seems that last year’s philosopher-physicist fight over nothingness (if you missed this, you can read about it starting here) is flaring up again. Recall that it all started with a David Albert New York Times review of Lawrence Krauss’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 25 Comments

Linde on Inflation and the Multiverse

Posted on August 25, 2012 by woit

Andrei Linde is one of Yuri Milner’s $3 million dollar men, best known for his “chaotic inflation” version of inflationary theory, as well as being one of the main proponents of anthropic multiverse mania. There’s a long piece based on … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 38 Comments

Short Items

Posted on July 26, 2012 by woit

A few short items: To compare and contrast to the activities of the Simons Foundation, there’s the Templeton Foundation, which has a $1.7 billion or so endowment to spend: They have a new Big Questions Online site, which asks Does … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 12 Comments

Welcome to the Multiverse

Posted on May 21, 2012 by woit

Multiverse Mania makes the big time this week, with a cover story Welcome to the Multiverse by Brian Greene in Newsweek. While the title indicates that the Multiverse is here and part of our scientific world-view, the subtitle is a … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 94 Comments

Much Ado About Nothing

Posted on April 27, 2012 by woit

I suppose I’m posting too much about this, but the ongoing fight over nothing between prominent physicists and philosophers strikes me as perhaps marking some kind of end-point in the multiverse-mania-driven decline of part of theoretical physics from a difficult, … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 60 Comments

Something and Nothing

Posted on April 23, 2012 by woit

In the something of interest category, last week at Columbia there was a panel discussion held as part of the World Leader’s Forum, introduced by our president Lee Bollinger, on the topic What If We Find the Higgs Particle and … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 34 Comments

Short Items

Posted on April 13, 2012 by woit

The LHC is back in business, with the experiments collecting data at 4 TeV/beam, marginally higher than last year’s 3.5 TeV/beam. They are ramping up the number of bunches in each beam, already this afternoon achieving a higher initial luminosity … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News, Multiverse Mania | 9 Comments

Nothingness in LA on April Fool’s Day

Posted on April 1, 2012 by woit

The media and blogosphere today are full of April Fool’s Day jokes of various degrees of funniness. Then there’s the Los Angeles Times, which used the date to publish a piece by Lawrence Krauss entitled A Universe Without Purpose. It … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 30 Comments