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A review by sarsaparillo
Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray by Sabine Hossenfelder
5.0
After reading a lot about the success stories of cutting-edge science and grandly laid out theories, this book is a refreshing look behind the curtain at the messy, muddled, stumbling, confused goings-on in fundamental physics, and an increasingly dire problem therein. The theories we have are incomplete and "ugly" - full of graceless arbitrary numbers that seem to lack justification and cry out for a "deeper" explanations.
But we are reaching the limits of what experiments can practically probe about the universe. So there is a strong incentive to invent more satisfying "beautiful" theories that aren't experimentally verifiable, but are parsimonious in a way that seems elegant to our sensibilities.
But is this a scientific way to evaluate theories? Hossenfelder thinks not. Why must a fundamental theory (which are always mathematical) be constructed only of simple numbers, such as 1? I must admit it seems intuitive to me that it should.
This is less a book about math as about philosophy. It's about the unexamined philosophical beliefs held as maxims in the field of physics and the risks they pose to the scientific method as data "dries up".
This is a very well-written book. Hossenfelder's disarming blend of earnest, rigorous criticism and self-deprecating wit takes you on a tour of science's dark and bewildering "basement" - where particle physicists, cosmologists and unimaginably clever engineers chip away at the foundations of our universe.
Part travelogue, Hossenfelder visits various great minds in their home institutions, trying to understand why they aren't freaking out about the state of physics as much as she is. These encounters with eccentric geniuses can be very entertaining and she deftly walks a tightrope between awed admiration and gentle mockery.
Despite her clear intention to contradict the conventional wisdom, she seems to give very fair and sympathetic accounts of it, and Socratically reminds the reader at regular intervals of her own humble status in the pecking order, and her feelings of befuddlement. This isn't the treatise of stern old man who knows he is right. This is a plea from a young researcher who knows something is wrong and despairs for the field of study that she loves.
The book concludes with an excellent summary of human cognitive biases and their applicability to scientists in particular. Hossenfelder calls for science and philosophy to be reunited - two grand enterprises now barely on speaking terms - but which, she reminds us, really need to keep eachother honest. Hear hear.
But we are reaching the limits of what experiments can practically probe about the universe. So there is a strong incentive to invent more satisfying "beautiful" theories that aren't experimentally verifiable, but are parsimonious in a way that seems elegant to our sensibilities.
But is this a scientific way to evaluate theories? Hossenfelder thinks not. Why must a fundamental theory (which are always mathematical) be constructed only of simple numbers, such as 1? I must admit it seems intuitive to me that it should.
This is less a book about math as about philosophy. It's about the unexamined philosophical beliefs held as maxims in the field of physics and the risks they pose to the scientific method as data "dries up".
This is a very well-written book. Hossenfelder's disarming blend of earnest, rigorous criticism and self-deprecating wit takes you on a tour of science's dark and bewildering "basement" - where particle physicists, cosmologists and unimaginably clever engineers chip away at the foundations of our universe.
Part travelogue, Hossenfelder visits various great minds in their home institutions, trying to understand why they aren't freaking out about the state of physics as much as she is. These encounters with eccentric geniuses can be very entertaining and she deftly walks a tightrope between awed admiration and gentle mockery.
Despite her clear intention to contradict the conventional wisdom, she seems to give very fair and sympathetic accounts of it, and Socratically reminds the reader at regular intervals of her own humble status in the pecking order, and her feelings of befuddlement. This isn't the treatise of stern old man who knows he is right. This is a plea from a young researcher who knows something is wrong and despairs for the field of study that she loves.
The book concludes with an excellent summary of human cognitive biases and their applicability to scientists in particular. Hossenfelder calls for science and philosophy to be reunited - two grand enterprises now barely on speaking terms - but which, she reminds us, really need to keep eachother honest. Hear hear.