https://backreaction.blogspot.com/2020/04/book-review-dream-universe-by-david.html
Sabine Hossenfelder writes: In the end, Lindley [The Dream Universe: How Fundamental Physics Lost Its Way, by David Lindley] puts the blame for the lack of progress in the foundations of physics on mathematical abstraction, a problem he considers insurmountable. “The unanswerable difficulty, as I hope has become clear by now, is that researchers in fundamental physics are exploring a world, or worlds, hopelessly removed from our experience… What defines those unknowable worlds is perfect order, mathematical rigor, even aesthetic elegance.” He then classifies “fundamental physics today as a kind of philosophy” and explains it is now “less about a strictly rational understanding of the universe and more about finding a scenario that we deem intellectually respectable.” He sees no way out of this situation because “Observation, experiment, and fact-finding are no longer able to guide [researchers in fundamental physics], so they must set their path by other means, and they have decided that pure rationality and mathematical reasoning, along with a refined aesthetic sense, will do the job.” I am sympathetic to Lindley’s take on the current status of research in the foundations of physics, but I think the conclusion that there is no way forward is not supported by his argument. The problem in modern physics is not the abundance of mathematical abstraction per se, but that physicists have forgotten mathematical abstraction is a means to an end, not an end unto itself. They may have lost sight of the goal, alright, but that doesn’t mean the goal has ceased existing. It is also simply wrong that there are no experiments that could guide physicists in the foundations of physics, and I say this as someone who has spent the past 20 years thinking about this very problem. It’s just that physicists are wasting time publishing papers about beautiful theories that have no relevance for nature instead of analyzing what is going wrong in their discipline and how to make progress. In summary, Lindley’s book is not so much a competition to Lost in Math as a complement. If you want to understand what is going wrong in the foundations of physics, The Dream Universe is an excellent and timely introduction. (Sabine Hossenfelder also tweeted that she has no interest in delving into the Wolfram Model; then Sean Carroll tweeted he was at least interested. Funny lot.) @philipthrift On Wednesday, April 29, 2020 at 12:06:41 PM UTC-5, Brent wrote: > > It's a symptom of success. Physics has done a good job of modeling > everything within the scope of experiment and observation. So now > extending theories means going beyond what's testable; i.e. speculation. > > Brent > > On 4/29/2020 1:10 AM, Philip Thrift wrote: > > > > Over the past few decades there is an explosion of people who think the > "mathiest" math will help in advancing physics. > > This is a typical example: > > *Modern Physics formalized in Modal Homotopy Type Theory* > > https://ncatlab.org/schreiber/show/Modern+Physics+formalized+in+Modal+Homotopy+Type+Theory > > There are many other examples based on many other areas of advanced > mathematics. > > None of this stuff helps in understanding nature - supposedly what physics > is about, or is any way useful in using physics in real applications > (technology). > > It can all be interesting pure mathematics, but actually worthless. > > > Actually it's worse than worthless, It suggests nature (or rather, the > best code of nature we have so far) is this stuff. > > @philipthrift > > > > > > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/6292ce75-e086-491a-bb78-4b681198c59c%40googlegroups.com.
