Category Archives: This Week’s Hype

This Week’s Hype

Posted on July 7, 2009 by woit

A Leiden University press release headlined Physical Reality of String Theory Demonstrated is being picked up and used to generate news stories in the media. It starts off: String theory has come under fire in recent years. Promises have been … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 25 Comments

Role Reversal

Posted on May 29, 2009 by woit

It used to be that New Scientist had somewhat of a reputation for publishing misleading articles about speculative physics, and Science News was a more stodgy but reliable publication that stuck to serious physics. Recently there has been a role … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 2 Comments

Star Trek Warp Speed?

Posted on May 8, 2009 by woit

To continue with the string theory/movie theme, a commenter just wrote in to tell about some new ideas for using M-theory to create a warp-drive. These are contained in some papers from the past year or two by string theorists … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 19 Comments

Brane Science

Posted on May 2, 2009 by woit

There’s a nice article in Nature News about the solution to the Kervaire invariant problem mentioned here. It’s an excellent and accurate description of the result and its significance, except for the last paragraph, on “Brane science”, where the author … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 9 Comments

The Only Game in Town

Posted on May 1, 2009 by woit

This week’s New Scientist has an article promoting the string theory multiverse, starting off with positive comments from Brian Greene, and continuing with a claim that the majority of physicists now embrace the idea: Greene’s transformation is emblematic of a … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 42 Comments

Atiyah-Singer String Index Theorem

Posted on April 21, 2009 by woit

Just made it to Edinburgh for the Atiyah conference. It seems that someone at a local newspaper really wants to get my goat. See the story headlined World’s Great Minds Gather to Celebrate Atiyah’s Birthday. Update: Will try and write … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 23 Comments

Quantum tunnelling of a new, third kind could finally put string theory to the test

Posted on April 20, 2009 by woit

The whole “finally, a way is found to test string theory” business is starting to become a complete joke. See the latest such nonsense: Quantum tunnelling of a new, third kind could finally put string theory to the test which … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 7 Comments

Strings Strike Back

Posted on April 14, 2009 by woit

The February AAAS press event (discussed here) designed to get out the word that the critics are wrong and string theory is making predictions about physics that are getting tested has finally made it to Slashdot, via an article in … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 27 Comments

Mission Accomplished

Posted on February 18, 2009 by woit

A few years ago the asset value of string theory in the market-place of ideas started to take a tumble due to the increasingly obvious failure of the idea of unifying physics with a 10/11 dimensional string/M-theory. Since then a … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 82 Comments

The Complete Idiot’s Guide to String Theory

Posted on November 17, 2008 by woit

I recently acquired a copy of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to String Theory, by Scientific American’s George Musser, which has been out for a few months now. It’s a popular-level treatment of modern physics, string theory and quantum gravity, much … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, This Week's Hype | 19 Comments