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A review by bozonio
Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray by Sabine Hossenfelder
4.0
The book makes some really good points about modern theoretical physics. It identifies core issues with the concepts of naturalness, simplicity and “beauty”. Even more importantly issues about how theories become popular, who works on what and what gets funded. These are all things we should talk about and they are exposed in an honest direct way. There are interviews with both famous theoretical physicists and those that work on the fringes of the field. It reads fast and easily without being superficial. I would like a longer “what to do” chapter with positive examples especially since those appear often at the “backreaction” blog.
What I didn’t like about the book was that it felt that it wasn’t sure what audience it was made for. For a large part it read as an internal discussion, meant for theoretical physicists or at least physicists. Then suddenly and often as a footnote, there was a layperson explanation of what a quark is or what we mean by action. As a theoretical physicist the book was very interesting to me and these short interludes of explanations were not that distracting. However I am not sure how non-physicists approach it. I can see how it can appear confusing or give the wrong impression to someone that is far from the field. I would prefer a just-physicist version that would go deeper but I can see how that might not have been a viable option.
What I didn’t like about the book was that it felt that it wasn’t sure what audience it was made for. For a large part it read as an internal discussion, meant for theoretical physicists or at least physicists. Then suddenly and often as a footnote, there was a layperson explanation of what a quark is or what we mean by action. As a theoretical physicist the book was very interesting to me and these short interludes of explanations were not that distracting. However I am not sure how non-physicists approach it. I can see how it can appear confusing or give the wrong impression to someone that is far from the field. I would prefer a just-physicist version that would go deeper but I can see how that might not have been a viable option.