Thursday, March 22, 2018

De-hyping the last paper

Just in case you've noticed any headlines about Stephen Hawking's last paper and how it says something remarkable about how we may detect other universes, you need to read Sabine's post debunking such reporting.   An extract:
Allow me put this into perspective.

Theoretical physicist have proposed some thousand ideas for what might have happened in the early universe. There are big bangs and big bounces and brane collisions and string cosmologies and loop cosmologies and all kinds of weird fields that might or might not have done this or that. All of this is pure speculation, none of it is supported by evidence. The Hartle-Hawking proposal is one of these speculations.

The vast majority of these ideas contain a phase of inflation and they all predict CMB polarization. In some scenarios the signal is larger than in others. But there isn’t even a specific prediction for the amount of CMB polarization in the Hawking paper. In fact, the paper doesn’t so much as even contain the word “polarization” or “tensor modes.”

The claim that the detection of CMB polarization would mean the multiverse exists makes as much sense as claiming that if I find a coin on the street then Bill Gates must have walked by. And a swarm of invisible angels floated around him playing harp and singing “Ode To Joy.”

In case that was too metaphorical, let me say it once again but plainly. Hawking has not found a new way to measure the existence of other universes.

Stephen Hawking was beloved by everyone I know, both inside and outside the scientific community. He was a great man without doubt, but this paper is utterly unremarkable. 


4 comments:

TimT said...

Hawking does seem to have been beloved, in large part I'm sure for his demonstrable tenacity in living with his condition for decades. I do think though this has strangely caused him to be wrongly identified as a guru or philosopher... since his death I've noticed a number of people quoting him with as much gravity as they would quote Christ or Socrates. And the Hawking quotes are rather shallow, usually.

Steve said...

Yes, I saw your post along those lines over at your blog.

I pretty much agree. It's all a bit silly, and even Hawking would have agreed, I think.

Steve said...

Hey Tim, you might be interested in this article at Aeon about how Einstein's achieved the generic philosopher status. (There was more reason to do so with him, given that he did actively make some "brave" comments on current social issues, whereas Hawking gave warnings only about climate change, and perhaps aliens.)

https://aeon.co/essays/why-do-we-love-to-quote-and-misquote-albert-einstein

TimT said...

Thanks, I'll have a look!

I was thoughtful, I guess, about Hawking's death because a relative has MND, but also because he's someone I've known of - and a little bit about - for about two decades, ever since I saw him interviewed on an Andrew Denton show. It's true I touched on his guru status at my blog. I don't think it's a dishonour to his name to discuss this aspect of his public personality. To me the cliche 'smart dweeb who is a physical weakling' was as limiting to Hawking as it was empowering - though he must have accrued some economic benefits from it, at any rate.