Category Archives: Favorite Old Posts

Regarding Papers about Fundamental Theories

Posted on September 9, 2019 by woit

Discussion in the comment section of the previous blog entry led me to do a little bit of historical research this morning, and I thought I’d write up the results here. First of all, for some interesting comments from people … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Quantum Mechanics | 26 Comments

Should the Europeans Give Up?

Posted on January 22, 2019 by woit

The European HEP community is now engaged in a “Strategy Update” process, the next step of which will be an open symposium this May in Granada. Submissions to the process were due last month, and I assume that what was … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News, Favorite Old Posts | 78 Comments

Beyond Falsifiability

Posted on January 17, 2018 by woit

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

Latest on abc

Posted on December 16, 2017 by woit

I’ve seen reports today (see here and here) that indicate that Mochizui’s IUT papers, which are supposed to contain a proof of the abc conjecture, have been accepted by the journal Publications of the RIMS. Some of the sources for … Continue reading →

Posted in abc Conjecture, Favorite Old Posts | 62 Comments

Theorists Without a Theory

Posted on November 24, 2017 by woit

I had been intending to write something here on the blog about this essay by George Ellis, so when I was contacted by someone at Inference about writing a letter in response, I did so for publication there. It has … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Multiverse Mania | 10 Comments

A Cosmic Controversy

Posted on May 10, 2017 by woit

A couple months ago Scientific American published an article by Ijjas, Steinhardt and Loeb (also available here), which I discussed a bit here. One aspect of the article was its strong challenge to multiverse mania, calling it the “multimess” and … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Multiverse Mania | 53 Comments

Two Pet Peeves

Posted on April 20, 2017 by woit

I was reminded of two of my pet peeves while taking a look at the appendix A of this paper. As a public service to physicists I thought I’d go on about them here, and provide some advice to the … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Uncategorized | 28 Comments

Fake Physics

Posted on January 20, 2017 by woit

2016 so far wins my lifetime award for most depressing and disturbing year ever (on the front of the larger world one reads about in the newspaper and elsewhere, personally things are fine, thanks). Perhaps the most disturbing thing has … Continue reading →

Posted in Fake Physics, Favorite Old Posts, Multiverse Mania | 61 Comments

The Day After

Posted on November 9, 2016 by woit

The last few months have not been helpful for my sanity (and I think for that of a large number of other Americans). My three-point program to return to better mental health is to: Write one last blog post about … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, Uncategorized | Comments Off on The Day After

Next Week’s Hype

Posted on December 2, 2015 by woit

Next week there will be a workshop in Munich with the title Why Trust a Theory? Reconsidering Scientific Methodology in Light of Modern Physics. It’s organized by Richard Dawid, to discuss his ideas about “non-empirical theory confirmation”, developed to defend … Continue reading →

Posted in Favorite Old Posts, This Week's Hype, Uncategorized | 54 Comments