{"id":11330,"date":"2019-09-18T16:43:00","date_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:43:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=11330"},"modified":"2019-09-18T16:44:36","modified_gmt":"2019-09-18T20:44:36","slug":"the-number-of-the-heavens","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.math.columbia.edu\/~woit\/wordpress\/?p=11330","title":{"rendered":"The Number of the Heavens"},"content":{"rendered":"

Multiverse mania seems to have been dying down recently, with this only the third entry in that category<\/a> here so far this year, after 10 in 2018, 13 in 2017, 10 in 2016, 17 in 2015, 18 in 2014, 12 in 2013, 9 in 2012, 15 in 2011. Bringing up the rear (hopefully…) is The Number of the Heavens<\/a>, Tom Siegfried’s new book out today from Harvard University Press.<\/p>\n

Siegfried is about the worst of the many journalists covering fundamental physics that I’ve run into over the years (only real competition is K.C. Cole). For some of his efforts as a journalist over the years, see here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, here<\/a>, and here<\/a>. It’s not surprising that his multiverse book is an atrocious piece of propaganda.<\/p>\n

It’s basically a compendium of arguments for string theory and the multiverse, with a bit of extra history tacked on. You get to read long sections of all the usual pro-string landscape and multiverse arguments from the usual suspects: Carroll, Deutsch, Guth, Greene, Linde, Polchinski, Rees, Susskind, Tegmark, and Weinberg. There’s the usual chapter on the MWI, ending with the acknowledgement that this has nothing at all to do with what the rest of the book is about. There’s a chapter about the glories of supersymmetry, brane-world scenarios, nothing about negative results from the LHC.<\/p>\n

The way Siegfried handles criticism of string theory, etc. is very simple: pretend it doesn’t exist. As far as I can tell, there’s nothing anywhere in the book that even acknowledges that there’s another side to this story: for instance, no Baggott, Hossenfelder, Smolin, Penrose, or any reference to any book at all critical of string theory or multiverse hype. While there’s zero criticism of string theory, there are, as far as I can tell, just two appearances of multiverse critics:<\/p>\n