Category Archives: Multiverse Mania

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

There Are No Laws of Physics. There’s Only the Landscape.

Posted on June 4, 2018 by woit

At Quanta magazine, IAS director and string theorist Robbert Dijkgraaf has signed up to the multiverse mania bandwagon with an article announcing There are no laws of physics. There’s only the landscape. Dijkgraaf’s version of the string landscape ideology is: … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 19 Comments

This Week’s (Stale) Hype

Posted on May 2, 2018 by woit

The usual hype machine is at work this week, with the usual mechanism: University press offices and grant agencies put out irresponsible hype about the work of one their faculty or grantees. In this case, it’s Taming the multiverse: Stephen … Continue reading →

Posted in Fake Physics, Multiverse Mania | 10 Comments

Presumptuous Blogging

Posted on March 12, 2018 by woit

John Horgan at Scientific American today has an interview with Martin Rees in which Rees says: It’s presumptuous (as some people like Woit and Smolin have done) to deride the way some manifestly brilliant people choose to dedicate their scientific … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 28 Comments

15 Years of Multiverse Mania

Posted on January 29, 2018 by woit

Today is the 15th anniversary of the event that kicked off the Multiverse Mania that continues to this day, recently taking the form of a concerted attack on conventional notions of science. 2018 has seen an acceleration of this attack, … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 29 Comments

Beyond Falsifiability

Posted on January 17, 2018 by woit

Sean Carroll has a new paper out defending the Multiverse and attacking the naive Popperazi, entitled Beyond Falsifiability: Normal Science in a Multiverse. He also has a Beyond Falsifiability blog post here. Much of the problem with the paper and … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Multiverse Mania | 40 Comments

The Last Refuge of Cowards

Posted on December 6, 2017 by woit

The talks and panel discussions from the 2018 Breakthrough Prize symposium are available via Facebook video. They ended with the following, from prize winner David Spergel: Well, alright, I’m going to say something that I probably shouldn’t say in Palo … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 37 Comments

Theorists Without a Theory

Posted on November 24, 2017 by woit

I had been intending to write something here on the blog about this essay by George Ellis, so when I was contacted by someone at Inference about writing a letter in response, I did so for publication there. It has … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Multiverse Mania | 10 Comments

Shut Up and Calculate!?

Posted on October 17, 2017 by woit

I noticed recently that Nima Arkani-Hamed was giving a talk at Cornell, with the title Three Cheers For “Shut Up And Calculate!” In Fundamental Physics. No idea whether or not video is now or will become available. From the abstract … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania | 61 Comments