Lost in Math
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"Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria. Worse, these "too good to not be true" theories are actually untestable and they have left the field in a cul-de-sac. To escape, physicists must rethink their methods. Only by embracing reality as it is can science discover the truth"--
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Theoretical physics has reached an impasse. The Large Hadron Collider did manage to locate the Higgs boson, which everyone expected, but hasn't yet produced any novel and interesting data. All theory-of-everything attempts are so far out there that no experiments can currently be devised to verify them. Does high-level physics turn into philosophy, without the need to crunch any numbers?
Sabine Hossenfelder is here to call out the whole field of theoretical physics on their cognitive bias towards beautiful math, beautiful theories and group think. Her writing is sharp and funny and offers a fascinating glimpse into the a field that's so abstract and far from our everyday, that we just assume these smart people must know what they're doing.
There's a fair amount of serious physics explained in this. I admit, after a first attempt I gave up on trying to follow along with it (with an intention of going back should I ever be in need of a good explanation). But the book is still interesting and thought-provoking even for the non-initiated.
