Theoretical physicist and widely read blogger Sabine Hossenfelder has lobbed a Molotov cocktail in the world of physics, particularly the part which has made a fetish out of the aesthetic appeal of mathematical explanations of the universe.
Her book ‘Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray” demolishes the much cherished idea that the most remarkable theories about the universe are elegant and beautiful. Her primary contention appears to be that in their fixation on the elegance and beauty of mathematical theories physicists have let physics stagnate for the past four decades.
Hossenfelder is a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies and the author of the popular physics blog Backreaction.
A description accompanying the book on Amazon puts it thus: “Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades. The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria. Worse, these "too good to not be true" theories are actually untestable and they have left the field in a cul-de-sac. To escape, physicists must rethink their methods. Only by embracing reality as it is can science discover the truth.”
In the preface to the book Hossenfleder writes, “What failed physics wasn’t their math; it was their choice of math. They believe that Mother Nature was elegant, simple, and kind about providing clues. They thought they could hear her whisper when they were talking to themselves. Now Nature spoke, and she said nothing, loud and clear.”
This particular passage takes me back to an old view of mine about Nature in a different but philosophically related context. Let me, for want of a better expression, quote me. When one is as quotable as I am, what is one to do?
“Over the years I have written about the utterly misplaced ennobling of Nature as mother. As recently as January 9, 2014, I did a quick piece on request from a Mumbai-based newspaper in the wake of the frightening cold spell caused by a phenomenon called the polar vortex, which simply means a cyclone over Earth’s geographical poles.
That piece began with my longstanding theme. “One always knew that Nature has no direct stake in sentient well-being. It does what it must do irrespective of its consequences on life.” That piece ended with this paragraph: “For me personally, once a native of Ahmedabad where summer heat can nearly destroy conscience, the cold in Chicago is always a reminder that it is us, sentient life that must adapt to Nature and not Nature to us. That is because Nature is inherently detached and unemotional even if people curiously ennoble it with the sobriquet Mother. Its affections, if there are any at all, are not motherly by any imagination.”
My basic point has been that we are incidental to Nature whose primary purpose or for that matter any purpose is not to ensure that humans survive and flourish. At best we are an unintended consequence of the enormously complex natural forces that have existed since the existence of the planet over the past four and half billion years. Nature does not cradle us like babies, swaddling up in her motherly embrace. It couldn’t care less if we are around or not. Some of my friends who have this near divine view of Nature were unhappy at my approach which can come across as devoid of emotion.”
Hossenfleder’s book, which I am in the midst of reading, is bound to make the establishment physicists rather uncomfortable and perhaps even rightly so. They might need some Preparation H. Having followed physics for a little longer than the timeframe of four decades or so that she talks about I have had similar misgivings about it. I have found these intellectually brilliant theories a bit too glib—the idea about a multiverse for instance. A lot of what we have been told about the fundament aspects of Nature/Universe over the decades has been so captivating and even elegant that we have come to believe its intrinsic veracity.
Hossenfleder writes, “After 20 years in theoretical physics, most people I know make a career by studying things nobody has seen. They have concocted mind-boggling new theories, like the idea that our universe is but one of infinitely many that together form a “multiverse.” They have invented dozens of new particles, declared that we are projections of a higher-dimensional space, and that space is spawned by wormholes that tie together distant places.”
Her justifiable objection is that most of these ideas are “so difficult to test, they are practically untestable.” And then she adds something that is the core intellectual argument of her book. “What they have in common is that they are backed by theoreticians convinced their math contains an element of truth about nature. Their theories, they believe, are too good not to be true.”
It is an extraordinary contention to make and I am thrilled that a professional theoretical physicist is making it. I might do a longer piece once I have finished reading the book but now it is enough to recommend all those who devour complex physics made sexy to read Hossenfleder’s book.
It is not Nature’s primary purpose to vindicate our obsessive sense of aesthetics. It is also not the Universe’s obligation to in fact be as spectacularly elegant as the mathematics we have worked out would have us believe.