Category Archives: This Week’s Hype

This Week’s Hype

Posted on November 3, 2011 by woit

Now that the LHC has turned out to be dud, producing no black holes or extra dimensions, the latest news is that physicists are planning a new machine, “to follow in the footsteps of the Large Hadron Collider”. This one … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 56 Comments

The Status of SUSY

Posted on October 22, 2011 by woit

You may have seen by now claims from various sources about evidence for SUSY coming from CMS, for instance Hints of New Physics Crop Up at LHC, A Lifeline for Supersymmetry?, and CMS sees SUSY-like trilepton excesses. This nonsense is … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News, This Week's Hype | 45 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on October 19, 2011 by woit

A couple people have written to tell me about the new BBC Faster Than the Speed of Light? documentary on superluminal neutrinos which evidently featured trademark hype from string theorist Mike Duff about how string theory could explain this. For … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 13 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on September 28, 2011 by woit

It had to happen. New Scientist managed to find a physicist willing to describe the OPERA result as “evidence for string theory”: So if OPERA’s results hold up, they could provide support for the existence of sterile neutrinos, extra dimensions … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 69 Comments

This Week’s Hype, Part III

Posted on August 25, 2011 by woit

Today’s Wisconsin State Journal covers the String Phenomenology 2011 conference going on in Madison this week, where, according to the organizers, about 100 scientists are discussing how to “test string theory”: The Madison conference is something of a milestone in … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 12 Comments

This Week’s Hype, Part II

Posted on August 21, 2011 by woit

String theory hype is still coming fast and furious, so much so that the latest edition of This Week’s Hype needs to be a double issue. Today we learn that Black holes and pulsars could reveal extra dimensions, solving that … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 7 Comments

String Theorists Suggest Space Wormholes Possible

Posted on August 18, 2011 by woit

I was just out for a bike ride, during which an idle thought came to me about a rule of thumb that might deserve publicity. This rule of thumb is that the mention of wormholes in a popular science book, … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 13 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on August 5, 2011 by woit

I noticed today that BBC News has a story headlined ‘Multiverse’ theory suggested by microwave background that assures us that: The idea that other universes – as well as our own – lie within “bubbles” of space and time has … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 25 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on June 15, 2011 by woit

Last month’s Quark Matter 2011 conference was a venue for discussion of new results from the first heavy-ion run at LHC energies last fall. I’ve looked a bit at the slides of the talks, but this is an area far … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 41 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on June 1, 2011 by woit

The latest New Scientist has a much larger dose of M-theory/multiverse hype than I’ve seen in one place in quite a while. There’s a four-part series on M-theory (here, here, here and here) by Mike Duff. It tells the story … Continue reading →

Posted in Multiverse Mania, This Week's Hype | 47 Comments