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A review by gemmamilne
Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray by Sabine Hossenfelder
4.0
This is a fab read if you’re wanting a popular science book focused on physics which gives you that bit more than just an explanation of dark matter, particle physics and the theories of the universe.
Hossenfelder does all that, and also writes about why physics isn’t really moving forward. She talks about how the beauty that mathematical structures at the heart of theorems have - and the search for this beauty - is clouding physicists from really looking at the data in front of them, and thus this misguided approach to new physics is holding everyone back.
As someone who studied pure maths (and is therefore alllllllll about the beauty in maths) I thought I’d read this pretty defensively, but Hossenfelder’s arguments, wit and hopeful(ish) perspective about what a revolution in physics research would mean won me over. (About physics that is, not about pure maths
Hossenfelder does all that, and also writes about why physics isn’t really moving forward. She talks about how the beauty that mathematical structures at the heart of theorems have - and the search for this beauty - is clouding physicists from really looking at the data in front of them, and thus this misguided approach to new physics is holding everyone back.
As someone who studied pure maths (and is therefore alllllllll about the beauty in maths) I thought I’d read this pretty defensively, but Hossenfelder’s arguments, wit and hopeful(ish) perspective about what a revolution in physics research would mean won me over. (About physics that is, not about pure maths