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As usual with Sabine, this article blatantly misrepresents how science is done and how actual scientists think, and serves mainly to portray herself as the only

• qnsi 7y ago
  Seriously, this quote „I am the only physicist who has at least come up with an idea for what to do.” Seemed pretty arrogant. But I have no knowledge of her
  • xpuente 7y ago
    Kevin was also pretty arrogant, but when you see is a newcomer to the field, it is understandable.
    • knzhou 7y ago
      Yeah, do call me out if I'm still this arrogant in 10 years. ;-)
  • poelzi 7y ago
    Stoyan Sarg understood this problem in the 90 and fixed it by building a model from scratch that actually works :)
• hn_throwaway_99 7y ago
  Not being familiar with this author, the biggest reason I dismissed it is because I didn't see any kind of honest discussion that, well, maybe fundamental particle physics is just harder now, in that that next step of what can be probed by experiments isn't actually possible by humans, now or really ever (e.g. requiring a particle accelerator with the radius of Pluto's orbit, etc.) So instead you get all this hand-wringing about the process, about how theorists come up with elegant math that isn't testable, yada yada, without at least an honest statement that "It is at least possible that the universe's final secrets will never be amenable to human inquiry."
  • pxhb 7y ago
    (Note also not familiar with the author) I think that I mostly agree with the theme of your post. An important thing to keep in mind is that physics is inherently an experimental science, so the critique of formulating untestable theories is valid. I have heard that cosmology is particularly bad about this, however I am not in that field...so who knows.
  • analog31 7y ago
    >>> particle physics is just harder now This is something I've thought about. I'm a physicist, but am now happily working in industry. My job is to solve problems, and for most part I do, but it always seems possible that one fine day, someone will walk into my cubicle with a problem that I just can't solve. I'm always faced with the fact that I can't honestly predict how long the next problem will take. Maybe a day, maybe a week, maybe... forever? Despite a string of successes, we never know for sure when physics will be hit with a problem that takes a decade, or a century, or even a millennium, to solve. As I understand the history, the ancient Greeks could formulate quadratic equations that they couldn't solve, and it wasn't until something like a millennium later that Al-Khwarizmi cracked it, at least for real roots. Now we teach it to children in middle school. Finding a testable theory of quantum gravity might be the problem that takes a millennium.
• Barrin92 7y ago
  > As usual with Sabine, this article blatantly misrepresents how science is done and how actual scientists think No offence but she is a trained physicist so she too is an 'actual scientist' by the very definition of the term. And she's completely right about the neglect of economic reasoning. The arguments against blowing 40 billion bucks on an accelerator that will likely not surface anything new is valid. Physicists gotta accept that opportunity costs are real. And the 'canary in the coalmine' point in particular in regards to pharmaceuticals is valid too. The research costs for very specialised, small scale drugs has exploded by a magnitude or two depending on who you ask. Other fields are starting to suffer as well. I would go even further than she does and say it's an almost universal condition of modern research. We see diminishing returns everywhere, and if this is not stopped and we don't manage to drastically increase the efficacy of scientific research we'll effectively flatline at some point. Almost any material hard metrics you look at like life expectancy, economic growth or whatever you could consider a sign of technological advancement, even tens of billions in investment seem to produce only marginal improvements. We are not living in the golden age of science.
  • pxhb 7y ago
    > Almost any material hard metrics you look at like life expectancy, economic growth or whatever you could consider a sign of technological advancement, even tens of billions in investment seem to produce only marginal improvements. We are not living in the golden age of science. As a knit pick, these metrics are all derivatives of science output, and not science itself. For example, detecting gravity waves does move the needle on any of these metrics, but it is still a great achievement for experimental physics.
    • OnlineGladiator 7y ago
      I think his point is the science would be better served if it focused on solving problems for people, rather than exploring knowledge for the sake of it. But really I think that is the realm of engineering, and science is really just pursuing knowledge for the sake of it. It's impossible to know what will be useful - Richard Feynman thought it would be fun to analyze the flight characteristics of a flying plate. He later used the math he developed doing that to help him earn a Nobel prize. https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html https://www.asc.ohio-state.edu/kilcup.1/262/feynman.html
• H8crilA 7y ago
  One thing that bothers me is that indeed it has been resolving inconsistencies that often lead to progress, as the author points out. What would you say to that? What are the still unresolved inconsistencies in physics? To me it feels more like that we just mostly ran out of the obvious inconsistencies to resolve.
  • Robotbeat 7y ago
    Dark matter, dark energy, quantum gravity.
    • Will_Parker 7y ago
      Consciousness :trollface:
      • empath75 7y ago
        I actually do think that to some extent, studying physics is studying the mind — specifically studying exactly how ‘reality’ differs from our intuition about it. A new discovery in physics is often also a discovery about psychology — for example — relativity exposed our intuition about time and space as incorrect.
      • garmaine 7y ago
        Go read some a Daniel Dennett and/or Max Tengmark. Consciousness is a conceptual problem, not a physical one. It merely goes away once you start asking the right questions.
        • mellosouls 7y ago
          Aka "Consciousness Explained Away" Consciousness is still an extant and very unexplained phenomenon.
          • garmaine 7y ago
            That's a bit like saying phlogiston is an unexplained part of physical theory. Once you understand the underlying mechanics of thought, it stops being mysterious and really stops being a problem at all.
• cryptica 7y ago
  Having worked with scientists and mathematicians with PhDs, I can relate to the notion that they could have difficulties when it comes to identifying what is important and what to focus on. Their lack of eagerness to find real-world applications for their substantial skills is perhaps what had allowed them to stay at university and keep studying for so many years in the first place. It's no coincidence that, on the other end of the spectrum, a lot of successful entrepreneurs could barely stay in college long enough to get their bachelor's degree. I'm not sure if "eagerness to efficiently apply one's skills" is something that can be taught but it could certainly be incentivized.
  • SiempreViernes 7y ago
    Once upon a time, people spoke about the inherent value of knowledge, not just about if it can help patch your leaky conversion funnel. Please respect those that still think there need not be any base reason for learning about the world
    • cryptica 7y ago
      Please respect the people who have to work grueling, repetitive and unpleasant jobs to put food on your table and a roof over your head.
• mfer 7y ago
  > actual scientists and > I am a working scientist, which means I have neither the time to keep up nor the audience. For those that don't know about Sabine, who is criticized in the parent, you can read about her at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine_Hossenfelder https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabine_Hossenfelder Short summary... she is a research fellow, theoretical physicist, and of course has a PhD in physics. I fully expect scientists to disagree with each other. I even enjoy reading about their disagreements. But, to take shots at qualifications (even if in a passive aggressive manner) is rude. The tone of the parent attempts to dismiss her by making us feel she isn't a read scientist while in fact she's talking about her profession.
  • knzhou 7y ago
    I'm not taking shots at qualifications. I only say that people should be defined by what they spend the majority of their time doing, not their job title. Sabine has more qualifications than me, but like Michio Kaku and NDT, she now spends most of her time promoting a certain message to the public in a very one-sided way. That's why I called her a popularizer. Like Michio Kaku, she can afford to spend the time on that, and I can't.
• bumbledraven 7y ago
  You could at least link a few of your rebuttals so people can check your claims.
• pdonis 7y ago
  > this article blatantly misrepresents how science is done and how actual scientists think Her factual statements, that every high-energy physics experiment since the 1970s has only confirmed an existing theory (the Standard Model) and that every prediction made by physicists about possible extensions to that existing theory has turned out to be wrong, are correct. If you think that the underlying cause for these facts is not what she says, what do you think it is?
  • knzhou 7y ago
    > Her factual statements, that every high-energy physics experiment since the 1970s has only confirmed an existing theory (the Standard Model) and that every prediction made by physicists about possible extensions to that existing theory has turned out to be wrong, are correct. Well, the snarky answer is that the equivalent of the LHC (America's SSC) was defunded halfway through construction in the 1990s. This set back the field by nearly 20 years. It's rather unfair to say that no progress was made in the 1990s and 2000s if the very instrument that could have done so was defunded. Anyway, the real answer is that the vast majority of scientific theories ever formulated were completely wrong. Some people say the early 20th century was the golden age of physics. But there were several failed theories of relativitistic gravity proposed in the 1910s, many failed attempts to formulate the quantum theory of fields in the 1920s, and within particle physics, a slew of failed theories of the atomic nucleus and the fine structure constant. None of this appears in textbooks. And this is just the tip of the iceberg. Recall that back then the journals were still getting filled with theoretical papers weekly -- the fact that we teach the material that was right to undergraduates in slim textbooks shows that the vast majority was wrong or irrelevant. Experimental confirmation has always taken a long time, e.g. see the long disputes over the ether that stretched well into the 1940s, 40 years after the proposal of special relativity, complicated by false positives and systematic uncertainties. Fundamental science is simply hard, and it only looks like it used to be easy because we forgot 99% of the failures. There is a perfectly valid point to be made that it may be getting harder, but it is insufficient to just point to failures to prove it.
  • frumiousirc 7y ago
    Standard Model predicted massless neutrinos. That was demonstrated to be wrong. Standard Model then implied neutrino mixing would be slight (based on quark mixing). That was also demonstrated to be incorrect. Standard Model has no good reason to predict that protons are stable, yet so far they apparently are. There is more to particle physics than Higgs, Horatio.
• IMAYousaf 7y ago
  I'm new to the field. I'd appreciate some links to past rebuttals that you've done because I also want to learn about the discourse and politics surrounding the field. I think that understanding all of those things is quite important, and could benefit me greatly. Thanks.
• hitekker 7y ago
  Yesterday you proclaimed that the status quo of physics is free from "bad science", and today you're engaging in a character assassination against a well-renowned female physicist who is questioning the status quo. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21389029 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21389029
  • knzhou 7y ago
    No, that's very different. Yesterday I proclaimed that our experimental colleagues do an excellent job of avoiding false positives, because they use great scientific practices. Sabine would agree with me on that. This article is not about doing data analysis in experiment, it's more about how we should choose the theories that guide our choices in experiments in the first place. I disagree with Sabine because I see her as painting an unfair picture of theorists, as if we were all completely unreflective and she was the only one in the world to think seriously about theory selection. Most of her vague suggestions are things that people (sometimes, hundreds of people) have been already doing for decades. That breaks the cardinal rule of science popularization: don't trash people or take credit for insights without giving a careful, fair picture of everything that is going on, because the scientists affected don't have the right of reply.
• SiempreViernes 7y ago
  Well, she’s out of a job by the end of the year it looks like, so I guess she’s preparing to live on the ads and the book sales? Still, I don’t think Hossenfelder is a reason to be this salty! Just post links to some other physics blogger that contradicts her and move on. That’s how Lubos is handled and it works ok as far as I can tell (I can’t actually tell very well on account of all the ignoring of Lubos I’m doing).
  • pas 7y ago
    At least Lubos uses/shows some math to diss on other's work. Of course since research math is so ungodly far from rigor we can't check without the full burden of becoming a similar theoretician. But maybe, one can dream at least, in the future science will be done with smart models, that can at least verify themselves given some assumptions.