Category Archives: Wormhole Publicity Stunts

Science Outreach News

Posted on April 16, 2024 by woit

A few items on the science outreach front: The Oscars of Science were held Saturday night in Hollywood, with a long list of A-listers in attendance, led by Kim Kardashian. More here, here and here. You’ll be able to watch … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 26 Comments

Quantum Supremacy

Posted on May 3, 2023 by woit

We’re hearing this week from two very different parts of the string theory community that quantum supremacy (quantum computers doing better than classical computers) is the answer to the challenges the subject has faced. New Scientist has an article Quantum … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, This Week's Hype, Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 29 Comments

Not Quite What Happened

Posted on March 23, 2023 by woit

Quanta has an article out today about the wormhole publicity stunt, which sticks to the story that by doing a simple SYK model calculation on a quantum computer instead of a classical computer, one is doing quantum gravity in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 21 Comments

Yet More on the Wormholes

Posted on February 27, 2023 by woit

The paper explaining that this Nature cover story, besides being a publicity stunt, was also completely wrong, has so far attracted very little media attention. The first thing I’ve seen came out today at New Scientist, a publication often accused … Continue reading →

Posted in Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 13 Comments

Latest on the Wormholes

Posted on February 17, 2023 by woit

I had thought that the wormhole story had reached peak absurdity back in December, but last night some commenters pointed to a new development: the technical calculation used in the publicity stunt was nonsense, not giving what was claimed. The … Continue reading →

Posted in Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 10 Comments

Various and Sundry

Posted on February 7, 2023 by woit

A few things that may be of interest: Fermilab is continuing to push the wormhole publicity stunt, with Joe Lykken, the lab’s Deputy director for research on the 17th giving a public lecture on Wormholes in the Laboratory. The promotional … Continue reading →

Posted in Uncategorized, Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 9 Comments

The New Yorker and the Publicity Stunt

Posted on December 12, 2022 by woit

The wormhole publicity stunt story just keeps going. Today an article about the Google Santa Barbara lab and quantum computer used in the publicity stunt appeared in the New Yorker. One of the main people profiled is Hartmut Neven, the … Continue reading →

Posted in Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 29 Comments

Wormhole Publicity Stunts: Past, Present and Future

Posted on December 9, 2022 by woit

Most of the news I’m hearing today about the current wormhole publicity stunt is that physicists who could do something about it are instead blaming any problem on journalists and defending the stunt as some sort of progress forward. I’ve … Continue reading →

Posted in Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 13 Comments

Publicity Stunt Fallout

Posted on December 6, 2022 by woit

Latest news this evening from Scott Aaronson at the IAS in Princeton: Tonight, David Nirenberg, Director of the IAS and a medieval historian, gave an after-dinner speech to our workshop, centered around how auspicious it was that the workshop was … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype, Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 29 Comments

The Wormhole Publicity Stunt

Posted on December 3, 2022 by woit

The best way to understand the “physicists create wormholes in the lab” nonsense of the past few days is as a publicity stunt (I should credit Andreas Karch for the idea to describe things this way), one that went too … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype, Wormhole Publicity Stunts | 59 Comments