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Lawrence Krauss: Something from Nothing

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Lawrence Krauss, who teaches physics at Arizona State University, also fancies himself a popularizer of science in the manner of Asimov or Sagan.

In that spirit, he wrote A UNIVERSE FROM NOTHING (2012). He argued therein that something could in fact come from nothing, and physics could explain why. In effect, he proposed to answer the age-old philosophical question "why is there something rather than nothing" in a thoroughly non-theistic way.

The book made Krauss a big deal within what is nowadays broadly called the 'skeptic community.' Heck, no less a figure therein than Richard Dawkins wrote the afterword to Krauss' 2012 book. 

All well and good, except that his something-from-nothing effort doesn't hold up. Many bright people, without any taint of mysticism about them, have explained why, and science journalist John Horgan collected the key points in a column for Scientific American:

https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/is-lawrence-krauss-a-physicist-or-just-a-bad-philosopher/

Anyway: Krauss was and is a big deal. So it is a Big Deal that the #MeToo wave has reached his sandals. Buzzfeed has an elaborate write-up, beginning with the most dramatic allegation, which sounds like a charge of attempted rape, although one made without using the r word.

https://www.buzzfeed.com/peteraldhous/lawrence-krauss-sexual-harassment-allegations?utm_term=.pn9vEXzqR#.xxMYPA7og

The usual pattern is that after Buzzfeed posts something like this, various news sources work to corroborate it and then come out with their pieces. As I write the first draft of this piece, it remains unclear whether this will really blow up on Krauss or whether it will fade away, a something turning harmlessly back into ... nothing.



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