Category Archives: This Week’s Hype

Last Week’s Hype

Posted on July 6, 2017 by woit

Now back from vacation, more regular blogging should resume imminently. While away, lots of press stories about claims that LIGO could be used to get “evidence for string theory”. As usual, these things can be traced back to misleading statements … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 9 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on June 22, 2017 by woit

I’m on vacation in Europe, not in any mood to spend more time on this than just to point out that it’s the same usual tedious string theory promotional operation from the same people who have been at this for … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 42 Comments

This Month’s Hype

Posted on May 16, 2017 by woit

It seems that a couple of the authors of the recent Cosmic Controversy letter (discussed here) are going on a campaign to embarrass the 29 physicists who were convinced to sign their letter. Andrei Linde has gone to Lubos Motl’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 49 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on September 15, 2016 by woit

Quanta Magazine has over the past couple years been establishing a well-deserved reputation as the smartest and best science journalism around. At the opposite extreme, over many years of interacting with science journalists, the most embarrassingly incompetent one I’ve run … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 25 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on June 4, 2016 by woit

One possible reaction to the phenomenon of hype in fundamental physics is to not worry much, figuring that it should be a self-limiting process. While there’s a huge appetite in the media and elsewhere for the “exciting new idea”, overhyped … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 9 Comments

Back

Posted on May 18, 2016 by woit

Now back after a satisfying vacation amidst very large trees. Here are some things of note from the past couple weeks: For those fascinated by the arguments over string theory, you might want to look at a document sent to … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype, Uncategorized | 34 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on May 3, 2016 by woit

The June issue of Discover magazine has an article entitled The Fall and Rise of String Theory (sorry it’s behind a paywall). I had added this as an update to the last posting, but just looked at it more carefully … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 1 Comment

This Week’s Hype

Posted on April 19, 2016 by woit

It occurred today that the past year or so there haven’t been as many editions here of This Week’s Hype, with in particular the previously common “Scientists finally find a way to test string theory!” stories now less common than … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 9 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on February 13, 2016 by woit

This week’s dramatic announcement of the discovery of gravitational waves was a major milestone for the fields of physics and astrophysics. The LIGO observation validates a lot of previously untested aspects of our understanding of general relativity, and promises the … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 30 Comments

Run 2 and SUSY

Posted on December 15, 2015 by woit

What surprised me most about today’s Run 2 results (see here) was that CMS and ATLAS were able to already significantly push up limits on superpartner masses, especially the gluino mass. Limits on the gluino mass went from 1.3-1.4 TeV … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype, Uncategorized | 16 Comments