Category: Multiverse
Startling admission about the science (i.e., non-science) basis for the multiverse
| July 25, 2018 | Posted by News under Fine tuning, Intelligent Design, Multiverse |
From Ethan Siegel at Forbes: So why do so many theoretical physicists write papers about the multiverse? About parallel Universes and their connection to our own through this multiverse? Why do they claim that the multiverse is connected to the string landscape, the cosmological constant, and even to the fact that our Universe is finely-tuned […]
At Prospect: Multiverse theory is undermining the integrity of physics
| July 3, 2018 | Posted by News under Fine tuning, Multiverse |
From Jim Baggott at Prospect: Over the last few decades “multiverse theories” have become increasingly fashionable within a relatively small—but publicly vocal—group of theoretical physicists. This group specialises in foundational problems in cosmology, particle physics, and quantum mechanics. These theories are advertised as science’s answer to much that we can’t otherwise explain about the universe […]
A skeptic’s take on the latest multiverse hype at New Scientist
| July 2, 2018 | Posted by News under Multiverse |
From Columbia mathematician Peter Woit at Not Even Wrong: New Scientist today has a feature article headlined How to think about… The multiverse The idea of an infinite multitude of universes is forced on us by physics. It starts off quoting Sean Carroll: “One of the most common misconceptions is that the multiverse is a […]
At Forbes: Are we doing theoretical physics all wrong?
| June 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Philosophy |
From astrophysicist Ethan Siegel, reviewing Sabine Hossenfelder’s new book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, at Forbes: The history of physics is filled with great ideas that you’ve heard of, like the Standard Model, the Big Bang, General Relativity, and so on. But it’s also filled with brilliant ideas that you probably haven’t […]
At Science: Hawking’s last work attempted to stick a pin in eternal inflation of the cosmos
| May 23, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Multiverse |
In Adrian Cho’s interpretation at Science: When Stephen Hawking died on 14 March, the famed theoretical physicist had a few papers still in the works. Today, the Journal of High Energy Physics published his last work in cosmology—the science of how the universe sprang into being and evolved. (Other papers on black holes are still […]
Did the dying Stephen Hawking strengthen the case for God by reintroducing fine-tuning?
| May 20, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Philosophy, Religion |
In his final paper, with Hertog, scaling back the multiverse? From Philip Goff at the Guardian: But if all of the universes have exactly the same laws – as in Hawking and Hertog’s proposal – the problem returns, as we now need an explanation of why the single set of laws that govern the entire […]
Astrophysicist as advice columnist: Question, should I study string theory?
| May 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Naturalism |
From Sabine Hossenfelder at her blog BackRe(Action), responding to a physics major who has heard from cosmologist Brian Greene that string theory can be a grand theory of everything: Greene states very carefully that superstring theory “has the capacity to embrace” gravity as well as the other known fundamental forces (electromagnetic, weak, and strong). What […]
Are recent dark energy findings a blow for multiverse theory?
| May 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Physics |
Dark energy. From Andrew Masterson at Cosmos: The question of dark energy in one universe does not require others to provide an answer. A hypothetical multiverse seems less likely after modelling by researchers in Australia and the UK threw one of its key assumptions into doubt. Dark energy is supposed to be responsible for the […]
Science at sunset: Dark energy might make a multiverse hospitable to life, IF it exists
| May 15, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Culture, Extraterrestrial life, Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Origin Of Life |
From ScienceDaily: Questions about whether other universes might exist as part of a larger Multiverse, and if they could harbour life, are burning issues in modern cosmology. Now new research led by Durham University, UK, and Australia’s University of Sydney, Western Sydney University and the University of Western Australia, has shown that life could potentially […]
Why do science journalists promote “fake physics” to the public?
| May 6, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Media, Multiverse |
Asks Columbia mathematician Peter Woit at Not Even Wrong: University press offices and grant agencies put out irresponsible hype about the work of one their faculty or grantees. In this case, it’s Taming the multiverse: Stephen Hawking’s final theory about the big bang from Cambridge, and Stephen Hawking’s last paper, co-authored with ERC grantee Thomas […]
Stephen Hawking’s final theory scales back multiverse
| May 2, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design, Multiverse |
From ScienceDaily: The theory of eternal inflation that Hawking and Hertog put forward is based on string theory: a branch of theoretical physics that attempts to reconcile gravity and general relativity with quantum physics, in part by describing the fundamental constituents of the universe as tiny vibrating strings. Their approach uses the string theory concept […]
BICEP2: The day the multiverse turned to dust – and so did someone’s Nobel, as a result
| April 28, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Culture, Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Physics |
Astronomer Brian Keating has a new book out, Losing the Nobel Prize, detailing the rise and fall of an apparent confirmation of cosmic inflation in 2014. From the publisher: In 2014, astronomers wielding BICEP2, the most powerful cosmology telescope ever made, revealed that they’d glimpsed the spark that ignited the Big Bang. Millions around the […]
Sabine Hossenfelder revisits Jim Baggott’s Farewell to Reality
| April 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Culture, Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Naturalism |
Sabine Hossenfelder reflects on British science writer Jim Baggott’s 2013 book Farewell to Reality at her blog, Back(re)action: I largely agree with Baggott’s assessment, though I am less critical of research on the foundations of quantum mechanics and I could quibble with his take on black hole evaporation, but it seems somewhat besides the point. […]
Claim: The multiverse is a logical outcome of the existence of empty space
| March 28, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Fine tuning, Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Physics |
From Natalie Wolchover at Quanta: The controversial idea that our universe is just a random bubble in an endless, frothing multiverse arises logically from nature’s most innocuous-seeming feature: empty space. Specifically, the seed of the multiverse hypothesis is the inexplicably tiny amount of energy infused in empty space — energy known as the vacuum energy, […]
In pursuit of the multiverse’s black hole to infinity
| March 28, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Multiverse, Physics |
From Philip Perry at BigThink: What’s inside a black hole? In most, there’s something called the singularity—an area of such density and intense gravitational force that not even light can escape. Don’t venture too close. Once you enter the event horizon—the outer rim—it’s all over for you. You’d be shredded to ribbons of atoms that’ll […]
Need the struggle to reconcile classical with quantum mechanics end in science’s assisted suicide?
| March 25, 2018 | Posted by News under Culture, Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Physics |
From some thoughts on by Peter Woit at : Part of the problem with this good vs. evil story is that, as the book itself explains, it’s not at all clear what the “Copenhagen interpretation” actually is, other than a generic name for the point of view the generation of theorists such as Bohr, Heisenberg, […]
The “difficult birth” of science’s assisted suicide, the multiverse
| March 23, 2018 | Posted by News under Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Philosophy, Science |
From Adam Becker at Scientific American: Quantum physics, Everett pointed out, didn’t really reduce to classical physics for large numbers of particles. According to quantum physics, even normal-sized objects like chairs could be located in two totally separate places at once—a Schrödinger’s-cat–like situation known as a “quantum superposition.” And, Everett continued, it wasn’t right to […]
Sabine Hossenfelder: Hawking’s final theory is just one of “some thousand” speculations
| March 21, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Culture, Intelligent Design, Multiverse, Naturalism |
From Sabine Hossenfelder at Back(Re)Action: Yesterday, the media buzzed with the revelation that Stephen Hawking had completed a paper two weeks before his death. This paper supposedly contains some breathtaking insight. About the multiverse (parallel universes). The paper is based on an old idea by Stephen Hawking and Jim Hartle called the “no-boundary” proposal. In […]
Did Stephen Hawking discover a means of detecting parallel universes just before he died?
| March 19, 2018 | Posted by News under Cosmology, Culture, Intelligent Design, Multiverse |
From Henry Bodkin at the Telegraph: A final theory explaining how mankind might detect parallel universes was completed by Stephen Hawking shortly before he died, it has emerged. Colleagues have revealed the renowned theoretical physicist’s final academic work was to set out the groundbreaking mathematics needed for a spacecraft to find traces of multiple big […]
What’s the worst thing that would happen if fine-tuning of our universe were acknowledged as real?
| March 18, 2018 | Posted by News under Fine tuning, Intelligent Design, Multiverse |
A reader writes to ask, quoting Sabine Hossenfelder at her blog Back(Re)Action: What the particle physicists got wrong was an argument based on a mathematical criterion called “naturalness”. If the laws of nature were “natural” according to this definition, then the LHC should have seen something besides the Higgs. The data analysis isn’t yet completed, […]
