Category Archives: This Week’s Hype

This Week’s Hype

Posted on August 28, 2015 by woit

Bogus media stories about how “physicists finally find a way to test string theory” have now been with us for decades, with a large number of them documented here. Recently this phenomenon seemed to finally be dying down, with such … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 10 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on July 28, 2015 by woit

Symmetry, the FNAL/SLAC run online magazine funded by the DOE, today is running a piece of multiverse mania entitled Is this the only universe?. It’s a rather standard example of the pseudo-scientific hype that has flooded the popular scientific media … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 16 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on May 27, 2015 by woit

I’m busy with other things, so no possible way I can keep up with the claims about string theory flooding the media for some reason these days. It’s hard enough to find the time to read all of this, much … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 22 Comments

Next Week’s Hype

Posted on May 14, 2015 by woit

I know I should be coming up with material on different topics here, but the multiverse stuff sometimes is just too hard to ignore. Next week’s Comicpalooza in Houston will feature string theorist Gerald Cleaver. His blurb tells us that: … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 28 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on February 20, 2015 by woit

A quarter-century or so ago, one of common arguments for string theory research was that it was “the only game in town”, in the sense that it was the only possible way to get a unified theory. For instance, back … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 18 Comments

Last Week’s Hype

Posted on November 3, 2014 by woit

When looking at the nonsense spread around the media by this week’s university press-release-driven hype about string field theory “explaining quantum mechanics”, I realized that maybe I shouldn’t have ignored last week’s university press-release-driven hype, which was about the multiverse … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 13 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on November 3, 2014 by woit

From commenter Hendrik, there’s the news that USC has put out a press release claiming that String Theory Could Be the Foundation of Quantum Mechanics. These claims are based on this paper, which argues that finding the Heisenberg commutation relations … Continue reading →

Posted in Quantum Mechanics, This Week's Hype | 5 Comments

Quantum Connection Could Revitalize Superstrings

Posted on August 4, 2014 by woit

Finally back from vacation, postings may appear somewhat more regularly… Science journalist Tom Siegfried has been one of the most vociferous proponents of string theory for many, many years (see here), but even his faith seems like it might be … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 22 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on May 25, 2014 by woit

About every three years KEK issues a hype-filled press release announcing that Jun Nishimura and collaborators have used a supercomputer to get evidence for string theory. Back in 2008, the announcement was of a numerical simulation on a supercomputer of … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 18 Comments

Scientists Find a Practical Test for String Theory

Posted on January 6, 2014 by woit

This sort of thing seemed to be dying down (2013 required a record low number of “This Week’s Hype” postings), but 2014 is starting off with the usual promotion by physicists of nonsense about how they have “found a test … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 46 Comments