This is undoubtedly true, but raises questions about why beauty has long been such an important criterion for theories about how nature operates. Worth noting, moreover, that earlier generations of scientists/philosophers developed sophisticated responses to the lack of 1/2
Saw a great talk by @skdh here at @FollowStevens on the perils of searching for "beauty" in physics — big take away was that "beauty" as a criteria for a scientific theory has a poor historical and philosophical track-record. Sometimes nature is beautiful, sometime it ain't.
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beauty in natural phenomena, e.g. Leibniz and others arguing that beauty was a matter of perspective and not means obviously accessible. Also calls to mind more recent commentary from posthumanists about the tendency to identify reason in nature, even among modern scientists. 2/2
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Hossenfelder's argument, I believe, is that the "beauty" issue evolved from something that scientists would sometimes opine about (e.g. Newton) to something that became a mandate for new theoretical outcomes (which she suggests has a sociological basis in late-20th c. physics).
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But I agree that a deep historicizing of it in physics (as your work does for Hooke) would be an interesting project. Hossenfelder's goals are more programmatic (trying to convince other physicists to change their theoretical goals).
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She gave a similar talk at the Santa Fe Institute last month.... Great talk! (Bought her book, too.)
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Leave “beauty” to the arts.
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