7 ms·

I dare say the author is right on many points but statements like: "But for all I can tell at this moment in history I am the only physicist who has at least c

I dare say the author is right on many points but statements like: "But for all I can tell at this moment in history I am the only physicist who has at least come up with an idea for what to do." make it hard for me to share her point of view, especially as these ideas are not mentioned.

celticmusic 7y ago
I'm not sure how you missed it, but she did give a recommendation. Attempt to resolve inconsistencies as a means of discovery.
- ocfnash 7y ago
  I did not miss this statement; for me this does not constitute a recommendation. Indeed I think many of the researchers of whom she is critical could claim that this is what they're doing.
  - celticmusic 7y ago
    more than a tad unfair to accuse her of not offering suggestions by claiming her suggestion isn't a suggestion.
    - drdeca 7y ago
      I think whether it is unfair would hinge on whether it is true that the thing isn’t a “recommendation”. I have no firmly held answer to the question of whether it is.
- chopin 7y ago
  But that's like telling me "run faster" if I am complaining that I can't run 100m in 10sec. I would think that almost all theoretical work revolves around resolving inconsistencies (such as between quantum field theory and general relativity). This advice is too generic.
- cambalache 7y ago
  This is so general and vague that it is useless, even more considering that the author has been saying the same for the last 10 years (the same timeframe her career progression stopped) and there is not a single valuable paper proposing a somewhat-valuable idea. I hate to sound like Lubos Motl (for the cognoscenti) but Sabine's criticism is trite.
  - danharaj 7y ago
    It's not general and vague if you're a practicing physicist and know what those inconsistencies are. For example, the Standard Model assumes neutrinos don't have mass, but they do.
    - pdonis 7y ago
      > the Standard Model assumes neutrinos don't have mass No, it doesn't. The original Standard Model from the 1970s did, but then neutrino masses were discovered and the Standard Model was modified to include them.
      - danharaj 7y ago
        By which mechanism do neutrinos gain their mass?
        pdonis 7y ago
        AFAIK the seesaw mechanism is the one currently used to model neutrinos in the Standard Model.
- orbifold 7y ago
  This is not a very original recommendation. In fact a major selling point of String Theory is that one can manage to derive both Einstein's Field equations and quantum field theory scattering amplitudes from its equations. This approach is currently the only one that can claim that for itself. Of course people like Hossenfelder never made an effort to understand String Theory in detail, so they can only make first order observations about the current state of the field. It is also not true that no progress has been made in the understanding of String Theory in the last 40 years and it still seems like the best bet that could eventually generate a fundamental theory. What is missing is still a lot though: - We don't seem to possess the correct mathematics to develop a non-perturbative formulation of String Theory and there are too many potential string backgrounds that we could expand around. - It is also hard to derive the matter content of low energy effective actions from most brane configurations. String theory provided major insight into non-perturbative quantum field theory as well. There is tons of examples, let me highlight one of them: The discovery of the Amplituhedron (Arkani-Hamed et al., 2012) was preceded by the discovery of the BCFW recursion relation (Britto et al., 2005), which in turn was motivated a relationship between perturbative Yang-Mills theory and the instanton expansion of a certain string theory in twistor space (Witten, 2003).
shkkmo 7y ago
She provides one of her ideas immediately prior to that quote: ”I have said many times that looking at the history of physics teaches us that resolving inconsistencies has been a reliable path to breakthroughs, so that’s what we should focus on." And given that she has written at least one book on this general subject, I would guess that idea is elaborated in much greater detail there or on her blog. https://backreaction.blogspot.com https://backreaction.blogspot.com
- Redoubts 7y ago
  "We just need to innovate" K.
  - ibeckermayer 7y ago
    In this case, though, the idea that we need to resolve inconsistencies is the correct diagnosis and shines a light on the incredible failure of the prevailing institutions. Take for example the idea that a photon is both a particle and a wave. This dogma has been force fed to students for decades without the glaring inconsistency being resolved, or even pointed to as a thing that needs resolving — something is either a particle or it’s a wave; if we observe properties of both, then we need a physical explanation for how one becomes the other. Something can’t be two distinct things. Logically, all I’m pointing out is that “A is A”. Yet my perspective that there is an unsolved inconsistency here is considered heretical. “Shut up and calculate” is the reigning dogma.
    - Scarblac 7y ago
      A photon isn't both a particle and a wave. It's something else that happens to share some features with both.
      - ibeckermayer 7y ago
        Fair point, so then let me reframe the inconsistency as: there’s a phenomena that appears exhibits properties of both a particle and a wave but it can’t be both. So what is it? And the criticism of mainstream thought in physics would be: its wrongfully dismissive of my question, and ignoring the important job of looking for the answer.

celticmusic 7y ago

I'm not sure how you missed it, but she did give a recommendation. Attempt to resolve inconsistencies as a means of discovery.

ocfnash 7y ago
I did not miss this statement; for me this does not constitute a recommendation. Indeed I think many of the researchers of whom she is critical could claim that this is what they're doing.
- celticmusic 7y ago
  more than a tad unfair to accuse her of not offering suggestions by claiming her suggestion isn't a suggestion.
  - drdeca 7y ago
    I think whether it is unfair would hinge on whether it is true that the thing isn’t a “recommendation”. I have no firmly held answer to the question of whether it is.
chopin 7y ago
But that's like telling me "run faster" if I am complaining that I can't run 100m in 10sec. I would think that almost all theoretical work revolves around resolving inconsistencies (such as between quantum field theory and general relativity). This advice is too generic.
cambalache 7y ago
This is so general and vague that it is useless, even more considering that the author has been saying the same for the last 10 years (the same timeframe her career progression stopped) and there is not a single valuable paper proposing a somewhat-valuable idea. I hate to sound like Lubos Motl (for the cognoscenti) but Sabine's criticism is trite.
- danharaj 7y ago
  It's not general and vague if you're a practicing physicist and know what those inconsistencies are. For example, the Standard Model assumes neutrinos don't have mass, but they do.
  - pdonis 7y ago
    > the Standard Model assumes neutrinos don't have mass No, it doesn't. The original Standard Model from the 1970s did, but then neutrino masses were discovered and the Standard Model was modified to include them.
    - danharaj 7y ago
      By which mechanism do neutrinos gain their mass?
      - pdonis 7y ago
        AFAIK the seesaw mechanism is the one currently used to model neutrinos in the Standard Model.
orbifold 7y ago
This is not a very original recommendation. In fact a major selling point of String Theory is that one can manage to derive both Einstein's Field equations and quantum field theory scattering amplitudes from its equations. This approach is currently the only one that can claim that for itself. Of course people like Hossenfelder never made an effort to understand String Theory in detail, so they can only make first order observations about the current state of the field. It is also not true that no progress has been made in the understanding of String Theory in the last 40 years and it still seems like the best bet that could eventually generate a fundamental theory. What is missing is still a lot though: - We don't seem to possess the correct mathematics to develop a non-perturbative formulation of String Theory and there are too many potential string backgrounds that we could expand around. - It is also hard to derive the matter content of low energy effective actions from most brane configurations. String theory provided major insight into non-perturbative quantum field theory as well. There is tons of examples, let me highlight one of them: The discovery of the Amplituhedron (Arkani-Hamed et al., 2012) was preceded by the discovery of the BCFW recursion relation (Britto et al., 2005), which in turn was motivated a relationship between perturbative Yang-Mills theory and the instanton expansion of a certain string theory in twistor space (Witten, 2003).

shkkmo 7y ago

She provides one of her ideas immediately prior to that quote: ”I have said many times that looking at the history of physics teaches us that resolving inconsistencies has been a reliable path to breakthroughs, so that’s what we should focus on." And given that she has written at least one book on this general subject, I would guess that idea is elaborated in much greater detail there or on her blog. https://backreaction.blogspot.com https://backreaction.blogspot.com

Redoubts 7y ago
"We just need to innovate" K.
- ibeckermayer 7y ago
  In this case, though, the idea that we need to resolve inconsistencies is the correct diagnosis and shines a light on the incredible failure of the prevailing institutions. Take for example the idea that a photon is both a particle and a wave. This dogma has been force fed to students for decades without the glaring inconsistency being resolved, or even pointed to as a thing that needs resolving — something is either a particle or it’s a wave; if we observe properties of both, then we need a physical explanation for how one becomes the other. Something can’t be two distinct things. Logically, all I’m pointing out is that “A is A”. Yet my perspective that there is an unsolved inconsistency here is considered heretical. “Shut up and calculate” is the reigning dogma.
  - Scarblac 7y ago
    A photon isn't both a particle and a wave. It's something else that happens to share some features with both.
    - ibeckermayer 7y ago
      Fair point, so then let me reframe the inconsistency as: there’s a phenomena that appears exhibits properties of both a particle and a wave but it can’t be both. So what is it? And the criticism of mainstream thought in physics would be: its wrongfully dismissive of my question, and ignoring the important job of looking for the answer.