Category Archives: Multiverse Mania

Witten Goes Anthropic

Posted on December 22, 2021 by woit

Multiverse mania started seriously among string theorists around 2003, with a defining event Susskind’s February 2003 The Anthropic Landscape of String Theory. At the time I was finishing up writing what became the book “Not Even Wrong”, and my reaction … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 41 Comments

This and That

Posted on December 2, 2019 by woit

First, a few physics items: Mark Alpert has a new novel out, Saint Joan of New York, a thriller subtitled “A Novel About God and String Theory”, which is an accurate description. It’s published by Springer, so you may be … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 23 Comments

The Number of the Heavens

Posted on September 18, 2019 by woit

Multiverse mania seems to have been dying down recently, with this only the third entry in that category here so far this year, after 10 in 2018, 13 in 2017, 10 in 2016, 17 in 2015, 18 in 2014, 12 … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Multiverse Mania | 10 Comments

Something Deeply Hidden

Posted on August 20, 2019 by woit

Sean Carroll’s new (available in stores early September) book, Something Deeply Hidden, is a quite good introduction to issues in the understanding of quantum mechanics, unfortunately wrapped in a book cover and promotional campaign of utter nonsense. Most people won’t … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Multiverse Mania | 76 Comments

Witten Interview

Posted on May 2, 2019 by woit

Graham Farmelo has posted a very interesting interview he did with Witten last year, as part of his promotion of his forthcoming book The Universe Speaks in Numbers. One surprising thing I learned from the interview is that Witten learned … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 38 Comments

The End of (one type of) Physics, and the Rise of the Machines

Posted on November 20, 2018 by woit

Way back in 1996 science writer John Horgan published The End of Science, in which he made the argument that various fields of science were running up against obstacles to any further progress of the magnitude they had previously experienced. … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 43 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on September 10, 2018 by woit

The Stanford string theory group is not taking the attack by Harvard’s Cumrun Vafa lying down. After an arXiv barrage of papers defending KKLT (see here), they’ve now enlisted the Stanford press office, which has produced a five part promotional … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 19 Comments

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 | 15 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

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