Monthly Archives: December 2011

2011: A Banner Year for Hype

Posted on December 30, 2011 by woit

Since every blogger seems to feel it necessary to have a year-in-review posting, I thought it appropriate to point out that 2011 has been a banner year for string theory and related hype, with about twice as many editions of … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 59 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on December 22, 2011 by woit

The Japanese are getting in on the string theory hype business, with KEK issuing a press release today with the title: The mechanism that explains why our universe was born with 3 dimensions: a 40-year-old puzzle of superstring theory solved … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 21 Comments

Short Items

Posted on December 21, 2011 by woit

A few short items: The Multiverse propaganda campaign continues this month, with a piece by Alan Lightman in Harpers entitled The Accidental Universe: Science’s Crisis of Faith. The content is pretty much the usual: string theory implies an untestable multiverse, … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews, Experimental HEP News, Multiverse Mania, Uncategorized | 37 Comments

Physics on the Fringe: Smoke Rings, Circlons and Alternative Theories of Everything

Posted on December 16, 2011 by woit

There’s a new very thought-provoking book out from Margaret Wertheim, entitled Physics on the Fringe: Smoke Rings, Circlons and Alternative Theories of Everything. Much of the book is the beautifully told story of “outsider” physicist Jim Carter, who has spent … Continue reading →

Posted in Book Reviews | 56 Comments

Today’s Higgs Results

Posted on December 13, 2011 by woit

The discussion after the talks is going on at CERN now, and the results that were presented agree well with what was posted here over the past week or so. This looks a lot like a Higgs near 125 GeV. … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 71 Comments

This Week’s Hype

Posted on December 12, 2011 by woit

The announcement at CERN tomorrow of a likely-looking signal for a 125 GeV mass Standard Model Higgs will probably unleash a flood of hype from theorists claiming this as evidence for their favorite Beyond the Standard Model scenario. One obvious … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 37 Comments

Higgs Predictions and Results

Posted on December 12, 2011 by woit

Tomorrow at 14:00 CET CERN will start to unveil the results of this year’s LHC Higgs search, see here. Jester has just posted details consistent with what I’ve been hearing for the past couple weeks, although his numbers are slightly … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News | 8 Comments

String and M-theory: answering the critics

Posted on December 7, 2011 by woit

Mike Duff has a new preprint out, a contribution to the forthcoming Foundations of Physics special issue on “Forty Years of String Theory” entitled String and M-theory: answering the critics. Much of it is the usual case string theorists are … Continue reading →

Posted in This Week's Hype | 67 Comments

A 125-126 GeV Higgs?

Posted on December 2, 2011 by woit

Some more detail on Higgs rumors I’ve been hearing recently. Evidently the latest ATLAS data shows an excess in the gamma-gamma channel around 126 GeV, of the size expected if the Higgs is there, and CMS is also seeing an … Continue reading →

Posted in Experimental HEP News, Favorite Old Posts | 77 Comments