![]() ![]() She fears it reinforces an orthodoxy that threatens theoretical physics with stagnation and, worse, undermines the scientific method. This, Hossenfelder contends, is a mistake. Theories that don’t conform to these criteria tend to be unpopular, to receive less funding for experiments and less attention in papers. ![]() As the subtitle implies, Hossenfelder feels that theoretical physicists are too obsessed with creating “beautiful” theories, in the sense that the mathematics that underpins the theories (because these days, theories are basically math, even though, as Hossenfelder stresses, physics isn’t math) must be beautiful and use “natural” numbers (by which she means numbers close to 1). In Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, Sabine Hossenfelder argues that these two concepts are not equivalent. Is truth beauty and beauty, truth? It can be hard to tell. ![]()
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