Category Archives: Multiverse Mania

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

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

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

(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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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