Because the heavier particles discovered at colliders found almost no practical use, not even for building better colliders. This is the key point. The rest follows: colliders become big, slow, expensive. Theory detaches from experiment. I regard string theory as etudes for physicists like there exist etudes for piano players. We have at the moment no one who is capable to produce a masterpiece like did Bach or Chopin in music, for example.
We are just practicing and preparing for it. Some possible reactions to this problem are:. Ignore it, refuse to acknowledge it publicly, and keep on pursuing previously popular research programs that have failed. Keep training new generations of students in the complexities of SUSY or string theory. Give up, abandon HEP theory for another healthier field e. A big problem is the historical sociology of the field has become dysfunctional.
It emphasized concentration on a small number of questions, driven by experiment providing the right question. This falls apart when experiment stops providing the right promising question for everyone to focus on. Mark, I think that for quite a while post you could sensibly make the argument that while the string unification conjecture was a failure, there was a lot to be learned from the deeper study of string theory and it was worthwhile for people to pursue that.
Unfortunately, over the past 20 years or so, progress in learning new things from the deeper study of string theory has pretty much come to a halt. Keeping doing the same things over and over, while waiting for a genius to save you from yourself is not a good plan.
For one thing, up and coming geniuses who take a look at a field and see that going on will flee and look for another field in which to exercise their genius. Thanks for mentioning. Butterfield has misstated my position on some issues. I have a brief response to this here. Does it have any promising ideas or is it just the old failed ideas? Also curious about your take on pursuing deep mathematics as a promising way to progress. Can you elaborate on that? Cut the funding. I think of this because, I believe, the true problem is the!
And scare resources should be a resource for creativity. Arkani-Hamed was visiting Harvard, it was an opportunity for him to explain his current research program in detail. Experimentalists and theorists have worked hard to change this, but nature is not cooperating. The problem is how to make progress given this situation. Theorists need to work with abstract assumptions on how the universe should be, but they need to do a better job of rejecting ones that fail to lead anywhere and coming up with new ones to try.
Cutting off funding to failed research programs would be helpful, but what really matter is how the leading figures in the field deal with the problem of no progress. Hossenfelder is doing a good job trying to get theorists to face up to the problem, in some sense what we need is a more serious response to her challenge.
One of the problems I see is the concentration of power with certain fields in the theory departments around the world but particularly within the US.
I think physics would need to revise their publication culture and get closer to that of mathematics. Way fewer papers but an idea worked out in full detail. There are interesting alternative approaches out there which manage to resolve some of the conceptional issues.
Non-Commutative geometry, for example, seems interesting, although lacking a Lorentzian formulation as far as I can tell. E8 theory is another one. Causal Fermion Systems, which can explain the 3 generations of fermions belongs to that set as well. Then on the foundations of quantum mechanics there is also interesting new work being done. Ellis approach that claims the macro to be as real as the micro aspects of the world, resolving the measurement problem by top down causation.
What all of these have in common is that they require deep mathematics which unfortunately scares away many physicists, even theoretical ones, from truly engaging with them. Thanks for your answer and for the time it took.
For sure you have better hard data than me to judge on this. Is there any evidence for a paradigm shift? Maybe occasionally some scientists switch the field but as I said, you have better data. As for the nature which does not cooperate, again, I believe you have better knowledge I also believe it is a lot easier to cook up a complex mathematical theories about quantum foams than to think of a better technology to extract new data from that quasar which is that far away.
I also agree that theorists need to work with abstract assumptions on how the universe should be, but there also must be a limit on that: the pathology is now an inflation of theories that explains nothing, since there was little-to-nothing observed or experimented to start from in the first place.
Peter and others: How come universities with theory departments are not offering dedicated courses in neutrino physics? Yes, if funding, hiring, training of graduate student, etc. While they often have moved on to other things, the problem is that they are still advertising string theory to the public, training graduate students in string theory, and evaluating new research directions based on whether they somehow follow from the string theory research program path of the past. Shantanu, Pretty much every institution teaches courses on QFT, leading up to the Standard Model QFT, and in many of these I would expect that there is some discussion of neutrino masses and possible extensions of the Standard Model involving them.
If forthcoming neutrino experiments turn up something unexpected, I think courses on the topic would quickly become much more popular. As you said, there is already evidence for what I believe more dubious research in spite of huge pressure, etc. Which is rather consistent with my little samplings of string — theorists claiming that string theory did make significant progress in the last decades. I mean: you, Sabine, Lees Smolin doing great job.
And it could bring hundreds of others being just as vocal. Still waiting for that to see it happening. I only say it may not be enough. Theoretical physicists have developed a habit of putting forward entirely baseless speculations.
Planck put forth the entirely baseless speculation that light came in chunks of discrete energy and won a Nobel Prize. Dirac put forth the entirely baseless speculation that the entire universe was a sea of electrons that had both extra electrons and holes and won a Nobel Prize. Experiments have been replaced by some complicated social process that selects some subset of the entirely baseless speculations that physicists come to a consensus on believing, but which seems to do a terrible job of separating the correct baseless speculations from the incorrect ones.
The idea that one needs high energies to probe new physics is simply wrong. But maybe more importantly it is generally an unjustified assumption that the next breakthrough in the foundations will come from going to higher energies or short distances as opposed to probing other regimes that have been untested so far. My favorite example are quantum effects in many particle systems. This is imo presently the obvious frontier to push. The point is that higher energies is not the only route. Colliders are something we will certainly come back to.
Maybe in a hundred years or years. Unless by then hunting with wooden sticks has become ground-breaking technology. But this is not the right time to throw more money at particle physicists. Let me also repeat that the problem with lacking experimental input is not decoupled from the lack of progress in theory development. The days in which we could bank on serendipitous discoveries in the foundation of physics are over. The string of failed experiments in the past 40 years is evidence for that.
Re the supposed lack of alternatives. There are various alternatives. They are easy to dismiss because they have open questions simply due to lack of manpower. But besides that, I am sick and tired of the claim that theorists in the foundations should be allowed to do a crappy job because no one has any better idea what to do. Seriously, what kind of attitude is this? Sabine, I agree with much of what you have to say here, do disagree though about the issue of a higher energy collider. The to me serious HEP argument is that the most mysterious and least understood part of the Standard Model is the Higgs sector some might want to argue for the neutrino sector, but that area of HEP is going ahead with little controversy over its funding, since it is quite a bit cheaper.
The problem of course is the cost. For the latest on the leading proposal, see this talk from yesterday. Alex, Thanks, I updated the posting. His hypothesis was certainly elegant, but it was also wrong. Physicists have often sought mathematical elegance in their theories; at the same time, they've been drawn by the closely related idea of simplicity or economy, as it's sometimes called.
Some justify this attraction to aesthetics with references to " Occam's razor ," a dictum that holds that when choosing between competing theories the simpler one is usually correct. But Wilczek cautions that there is no guarantee these principles pay off. Although they have a good track record, he says, "They don't have to work. Wilczek agrees that physics in recent years has seemed lackluster, but he says that's partly because we were "so spectacularly successful earlier on, in the '70s and '80s — which led to such good models of the world that it's been very, very difficult to improve on them.
As for supersymmetry and the dark matter particle, he says it's too soon to bury either idea. Turok, too, remains optimistic that a new era of physics may be just around the corner — one that might produce bold new ideas on the scale of quantum theory and relativity. IE 11 is not supported. For an optimal experience visit our site on another browser. Share this —. Without its metaphysical basis, physics just spins around and cannot access new physics, new technologies we need to meet the known challenges and threats we are facing.
Eric Baird 26 July Partly because they get their history from texts written by other physicists rather than from the source material. Popular physics history, designed to produce a rosy picture of constant progress in which important physics people never make serious mistakes, is a fantasy. We are told that Einstein's general theory makes an incredibly good match to the data and we forget that in order to get that match we have to invent dark matter, and dark energy, and inflation We are told that Einstein's GR "has passed every test with flying colours", that special relativity is not a theory but a fact Clifford Will , and that major established scientific theories are never wrong, they merely become parts of even better theories.
Physicists are not learning from past failures because physics students are taught that no such failures have ever happened. They are not taught that Newton's advanced aether model crashed and burned in about , when it was found that the speed of light was slower in glass than air, in agreement with Huygens' principle, but disproving Newton's theory, which then had to be rewritten. They are not taught that Einstein's general theory, which Einstein presented as a principle-based theory in which all the components had to be correct or else the entire theory was wrong earning Karl Popper's admiration was found to be geometrically unworkable in Schild.
It turned out that the general principle of relativity and the principle of equivalence were incompatible with special relativity, and could not coexist with it as exact solutions in the same structure. Post, GR is explained as being based on a principle of covariance, not relativity, and we are told that the GPoR is not a fundamental principle, but is now known to be a useful heuristic guideline that we suspend whenever it disagrees with SR.
When our favoured theories turn out to disagree with fundamental principles, we respond by redefining the principle to fit the theory. The principle of equivalence of inertial and gravitational mass, which leads to an invalidation of special relativity as physics Schild, , is replaced by the Einstein Equivalence Principle EEP , which states that SR-compliance is compulsory.
We feed students a sanitised version of history in which major revolutions never happen, and we tell them that all progress in physics is incremental, and then we are surprised when they fail to produce any revolutionary ideas.
We train students to believe utterly in whatever theories are currently mainstream, and when they come out of the other end of the sausage machine years later, we say, "great, now you're trained, let's see you be creative! We teach them how to conform, and how to apply standard tool-sets, and once they've "earned their dues", and are allowed to go out and discover things, we find that they are no good at it. Because they've never discovered anything in their lives, and don't know how.
They are like professional session musicians, who can play any tune and improvise on it in standard ways, but can't write an original song.
Science progresses at full speed when we all agree that our theories are seriously wrong and need replacing. Progress in fundamental physics theory shuts down when our lecturers do too good a job of convincing students that all our major theories are just fine. At that point, the really bright students leave as soon as they have their PhD's for some other career in which they beleive they can make a difference to the world, and what we have left is the conformists.
This was a very enlightening article for me. My field is saturated with amateurs that have no concept of scientific method, they simply throw everything at a wall to see what sticks. I was surprised to see similar human behavior in physics, such as not understanding the history of successes and more importantly the failures.
Of course there are highly credentialed scientists investigating psychical phenomenon such as at the London Society for Psychical Research of which I am a member.
I expected ro find this behavior in my field of study, but not in Physics. This human behavior will evidently impede progress and innovation in every discipline. I was recording myself one night to determine the severity of my sleep apnea when three voices appeared loud and clear on the recording that I cannot explain.
Was my own mind projecting thought waves? Were there discarnate entities in the room with me? Was my digital recorder picking up stray radio or television waves?
Even if I could, what would the value of that information be? Restricted by lack of funding and the social distancing I experience when telling friends and family about it I have become discouraged. I expected the behavior in my eclectic field, how much more discouraging must it be for physicists?
David Harness 11 May The multi-body problem is proven to be computationally intractable starting with the 3-body problem let alone the entire freaking universe. Computationally intractable means no hidden dimensional unknown string-membrane-lattice material mechanisms can be described or operate in machine language logic. Hence: Contradiction by AI failure. As Prof. Hossenfelder describes the particle zoo keepers haven't found the superpartner critters they need to make the standard model of physics SM-SUSY particle-sparticle foundations of physics model work.
Clearly the foundations of physics trend has arrived at verification of the immaterialism of Plato, Planck, Bohr, Heisenberg, Born, Schrodinger, and Wheeler is taking place — verifying at both the high-energy physics and low-energy physics spooky NPR Bell inequality entanglement freedom of choice experimental levels — the last theory standing of quantum information theory psychophysical parallelism.
Clearly the falsification at LHC energy levels of Aristotle's classical materialism in modern form Randall, Krauss, Greene, Tyson, Higgs of the SM-SUSY particle-sparticle zoo — of zero-sized imaginary-invisible mathematical point particle unknown string-membrane-lattice classical materialism mechanisms which occupy no space having the 4D spacetime measurements of nothingness — is apparent in having all the self-definition and explanatory attributes of immaterialism — except for the logical conclusion.
The virtually immaterial explanations of standard materialism — indicate a nonstandard foundation of physics is starting to seem more likely all the time, especially since there is a 4D computational mathematical physics quantum information theory formalization one can just read — or better yet just click through the Maplesoft or Mathematica 4D electromagnetic energy-momentum density tensor integration equations:.
Sanjeev Aaryabhatt 2 May I'll reply in below points- 1- this article is good. Suggest me if I can use in my upcoming book. The science witnessed the tallest building in the city. They took the direction which seems aligned to the science. The science reached to a hill, where from the city was looking too small along with the tallest building. Bent with loads of responsibility, the science lost its free mind and declared that tallest building in the city is very tiny.
No different way of experimenting is required. Science is actually very easy. You just need to know the right logic with logical source of information. Your brain is wise enough to confirm you the correctness of logical information.
How long you will dare to go to find the truth? You just need the right path. After lock down, I'll try to help you. You may remind me. Juris Bogdanovs 14 April For approach like this I like Professor Sabine Hossenfelder! And yet, when other people say virtually the same about some of the existing theories, she becomes angry and somewhat takes an insult herself I wrote an article on Quora about the true pattern of Magnetic field that is revealed in that book titled 'Blunders of Science and Religions", and no scientist finds it inspiring or even worth looking at.
The general feeling about the world of science today is that it is more like the Emperor's New Clothes tale That book I was quoting previously describes how the idea about the Big Bang itself has derived from mathematical model and the idea is absolutely contradicting real life observations.
That book explains many claims from this theory as being absolutely false and impossible. And the same is with the magnetic field and its mechanics. Big Bang claims that the universe was smaller up to the point of Singularity. And, the smaller it was, the hotter it was.
Real life observations and experiments say that this is impossoble. The hotter something is, the more it expands. No exceptions apart from few gases in a small range of temperatures, and even that might be a misinterpretation of the reality. Also, the Big Bang declares that whole Matter of Universe was billions and trillions and zillions etc But that is also impossible according to real life observations.
The most iconic example of that is the pressure of air in our tyres. The more we squeeze them, the more they push back. And this correlation, as we know it, never stops. So, to get the Universe times smaller would request unimaginable force, let alone to keep going in this direction for trillions of times There is absolutely no evidence that anything of that could be possible.
Nevertheless, science declared that the Big Bang theory is the best theory we have as Einstein's mathematics allowed it Since when mathematical models replaced reality? And you see this all over theoretical physics today. It creates and teaches impossible models all over the place. And that String theory or Multiverses are only the best known of them. The subatomic zoo is made up following identical approach - it was absolutely invented and there is no shred of proof for it.
Once again, this is spectacularly addressed in that book I quoted previously - Blunders of Science and Religions. It suggests a theory that explains everything in respect to origins of Universe and doesn't leave any open questions. But who cares, as we are in love with the least possible of all theories addressing Origins of the universe, namely, the Big Bang madness So, who and why is pedalling this Big Bang???
Uncle Al 20 February This is essential to number theory and to string theory. It is also silly at face value - but that does not matter. So stipulated! Greald Henstra 27 January Ever since Popper, exactly one hundred years ago now, true science is a cycle of inventing and trying to falsify hypotheses. Hypotheses are nothing but speculations, healthy or not, until having past at least one falsification test.
Math has been shown to be an excellent tool to make up new hypotheses. But when they can no longer be tested i's reached its scientific limits. Too bad for the scientific industry. Let me add a drop in the ocean with a suggestion to clean up science. See falsificationindex. Vadim Golub 23 January It seems that all science and information related industries suffer from the same malady - inability to communicate constructively.
It will only grow further as volume of information grows and, unfortunately, most of it is garbage even filtering takes time and it certainly takes time to learn, to distinguish one from another.
Inability to communicate is not only scientific and informational staple. Those industries are just facing it most acutely, as they require high flexibility and constructive action. At the same time, it is only here where we have any chance at all to approach the question intelligently, discover and test a new way of approaching problems and consequently education. Sabine noticed the urgent need for us to find more constructive strategies and better ways to communicate them.
It is exactly the crux of the issue. However, if I understood it correctly not a physicist , I do not think looking at history would be of much help here. Not that it is useless, it is just now we are facing completely different models, not sure anyone is yet fully aware of how the Internet changed and continue to change the game. But the intuition is spot on here. Lacking communication is a systematic behavior and it can be approached more sanely.
Ironically, math or scientific thinking plays a key function here. Usually, when we think about math, we think about some abstract conception, a reduction which is distant from life. We forget about the main strength of math - thinking in relations. For simplicity and further elaboration let's mark them thinking A - thinking in terms, definitions - and thinking B - thinking in relations. When we think about math, we mostly stress thinking A, that is a reduction of process to a thing and operating over this thing without any connection to anything else.
That is a prevalent mode of thinking overall, not only in scientific circles. It necessarily leads to missing connection with the real processes and miscommunication as a result.
However, in reality math or scientific thinking is successful exactly because of prevalence of thinking in relations, or thinking B. Why is it ironic? Many scientists, mathematicians, programmers, etc. Although, feel it instinctively in communication with others e. How is it all connected? When we function in A thinking, we don't feel the connection toward anything, we cannot share.
We communicate starting from a concept. That part is important. On the other hand, when we feel the deep connection toward something we generally tend to find the language and communicate it. Connection is relation. It only comes from understanding. It reveals what relates to what and how. Therefore, it cannot be drilled, coerced, forced. It can only be discovered through observation, experimentation, and dare one say In that case communication is catalyzed by connection, or through relation.
That is important. A: concept - first, prove it to life - second. B: life - first, concept - later. So it is not history as such which is crucial albeit, intuition behind it is , but connection, or seeing the relations first. What relates to what and how. Otherwise, everything becomes artificial, dull, without any sense, mere intellection.
Sabine, if you read this commentary, think about Max Born's "Einstein's Theory of Relativity" and how well he approaches it, presenting all the required for understanding structure of science even from a layman's perspective from Galilei to Newton to Lorentz, and managing to make it terse and meaningful, so it becomes alive and kicking.
Or Faraday's brilliant "The Chemical History of a Candle" which doesn't even require any previous knowledge. Or a good example can be seen in Feynman's case e. What happens there? And there even was a man who due to the same very concern search for methodology to develop proper communication attempted to come up with general enough approach, so that anyone can benefit from it, not only a scientist.
He attempted to come up with the theory of sanity through communication. The man is Alfred Korzybski and the book is "Science and Sanity". Some claim that he started the wave of NLP not natural language processing, another one, stupid one , it is a common misconception of those who did not read the book.
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