Saddened but retrospectively unsurprised to hear that physics, too, has succumbed to the disease that destroys science — the one that has already crippled psychology, human nutrition and medicine, and social science:https://www.econtalk.org/sabine-hossenfelder-on-physics-reality-and-lost-in-math/ …
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Replying to @zooko
The reasons are completely different. In some small(!) but important parts of physics, things have gone mind bogglingly successfully. The Standard Model and General Relativity are just too damned good. That's at the root of the problem...
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Replying to @michael_nielsen @zooko
Consider that LIGO measured fluctuations in spacetime accurate to better than 1 part in 10 to the 22. I.e., better than measuring the distance to the Sun to the diameter of a hydrogen atom. That's the kind of place you need to go looking to find exceptions to GR. And it works...
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Replying to @michael_nielsen @zooko
By way of contrast, it's pretty obvious some huge things people could do in, say, social psych, & immediately get much, much better results. In fundamental physics, it's easy to point to social problems, but those aside: there's no obvious way of making progress.
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Replying to @michael_nielsen @zooko
Put another way: improve the social processes in social psych => way better science, immediately; improve the social processes in fundamental physics => no idea if anything changes at all. I hope it would.
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Replying to @zooko
An important thing I forgot to say: the problems Sabine is talking about are most problematic in a small (but important) part of physics. Areas like condensed matter physics are vastly larger than quantum gravity research, say.
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Not to say that condensed matter (& similar areas) couldn't do with some major improvements to social process. But they do continue to routinely produce major results. OTOH, in fundamental physics, I'm sympathetic to Sabine's criticisms of the way the ILC has often been sold
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Replying to @zooko
International Linear Collider https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Linear_Collider …
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