Category Archives: This Week’s Hype

String Theorists Suggest Space Wormholes Possible

Posted on August 18, 2011 by woit

I was just out for a bike ride, during which an idle thought came to me about a rule of thumb that might deserve publicity. This rule of thumb is that the mention of wormholes in a popular science book, … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 13 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on August 5, 2011 by woit

I noticed today that BBC News has a story headlined ‘Multiverse’ theory suggested by microwave background that assures us that: The idea that other universes – as well as our own – lie within “bubbles” of space and time has … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 25 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on June 15, 2011 by woit

Last month’s Quark Matter 2011 conference was a venue for discussion of new results from the first heavy-ion run at LHC energies last fall. I’ve looked a bit at the slides of the talks, but this is an area far … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 41 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on June 1, 2011 by woit

The latest New Scientist has a much larger dose of M-theory/multiverse hype than I’ve seen in one place in quite a while. There’s a four-part series on M-theory (here, here, here and here) by Mike Duff. It tells the story … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 47 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on May 8, 2011 by woit

Philip Gibbs points to an impressive piece of string theory hype from British Channel 4 news. If you watch the clip, you get the latest news about string theory and the LHC: people were getting discouraged about string theory, but … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 21 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on April 28, 2011 by woit

This week’s hype comes from an unusual source, John Baez and his ex-student John Huerta, who have a new article in Scientific American entitled The Strangest Numbers in String Theory. The expository article about octonions by John (Baez) that appeared … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 27 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on April 18, 2011 by woit

This week’s string theory hype is brought to you by a press release headlined Dark Matter and String Theory? from the Institut Laue-Langevin in Grenoble, and another one from the Vienna University of Technology. These have led to a BBC … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 34 Comments

This Week’s Hype II

Posted on March 16, 2011 by woit

LHC-related hype is coming fast and furious this week during my vacation, with Vanderbilt University yesterday issuing a press release headlined Large Hadron Collider could be world’s first time machine. It’s based on this paper, and the Vanderbilt press release … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 49 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on March 14, 2011 by woit

The LHC is back in business, producing stable colliding beams for the first time this year, although still with a small number of bunches and thus a low luminosity. The number of bunches and luminosity will increase over the next … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News, This Week's Hype | 22 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on February 21, 2011 by woit

A session on results from the LHC at last week’s AAAS meeting has generated some news reports about results from the heavy ion run, see here and here. Under the heading “String theory supported”, MSNBC reports: Previous experiments conducted at … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 23 Comments