Sabine has a youtube channel we often watch. I believe it's called Science without the Gobbledyygook. She has a number of pet peeves, prominent among them how science stories are sensationalized/distorted in the news.
In this book, she covers a whole lot of territory about various theories of particle physics, what the next discoveries might be, and just how expensive the equipment has gotten to investigate these theories.
As an example, there's the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). It took decades to build and cost billions. It was built with the high expectation of finding supersymmetry particles. Why supersymmetry? Well, because it makes for a beautiful and elegant theory. When those particles weren't found at the expected energies, physicists tweaked the theory and said the particles would be found in the LHC's next run at slightly higher energies. And so it has gone, physicists moving goalposts to continue to cling to the idea of supersymmetry -- and Sabine calls them on it. There's lots of other theories out there, only not so beautiful or simple, but maybe some of the money should go to exploring them.
The LHC did find the Higgs, and that's great. But it's part of the Standard Model, a messy zoo of particles that behave in precisely predicted ways. But it's so messy! It lacks beauty. But to expect that everything will reduce in some beautiful way is maybe misguided. Maybe nature in its tiniest parts is just messy. As things stand, too many physicists are corrupting the scientific method with an artificial requirement for beauty.
All well and good, you could say, until you realize that prodding reality at the smallest level is very expensive. Building the next expensive prodder should be chosen carefully. And maybe building one to plumb a theory with an implied expectation of beauty is not the best use of our money.
Way over my head, but I learned a lot, and realized I'm guilty as well, thinking that particle physics has to become beautiful and grokkable as we understand it more.
On a side-note, I've been researching getting a new car. So I read an article on Car and Driver about the best EVs of 2022. I became increasingly puzzled as they described the driving experience of the Nissan Leaf as "boring," while a Mercedes Benz or some-such was "playful," and I realized I had entered a zone of fictitious beauty judgments.
Also, the comment stream below was full of people saying, "What's up with Car and Driver? Have they suddenly become a millionaires' club?" Or, "Car and Driver has totally lost it's audience." Because all of their choices were in the $100,000 range.
I'm now leaning towards the LHC Ranger.
In this book, she covers a whole lot of territory about various theories of particle physics, what the next discoveries might be, and just how expensive the equipment has gotten to investigate these theories.
As an example, there's the LHC (Large Hadron Collider). It took decades to build and cost billions. It was built with the high expectation of finding supersymmetry particles. Why supersymmetry? Well, because it makes for a beautiful and elegant theory. When those particles weren't found at the expected energies, physicists tweaked the theory and said the particles would be found in the LHC's next run at slightly higher energies. And so it has gone, physicists moving goalposts to continue to cling to the idea of supersymmetry -- and Sabine calls them on it. There's lots of other theories out there, only not so beautiful or simple, but maybe some of the money should go to exploring them.
The LHC did find the Higgs, and that's great. But it's part of the Standard Model, a messy zoo of particles that behave in precisely predicted ways. But it's so messy! It lacks beauty. But to expect that everything will reduce in some beautiful way is maybe misguided. Maybe nature in its tiniest parts is just messy. As things stand, too many physicists are corrupting the scientific method with an artificial requirement for beauty.
All well and good, you could say, until you realize that prodding reality at the smallest level is very expensive. Building the next expensive prodder should be chosen carefully. And maybe building one to plumb a theory with an implied expectation of beauty is not the best use of our money.
Way over my head, but I learned a lot, and realized I'm guilty as well, thinking that particle physics has to become beautiful and grokkable as we understand it more.
On a side-note, I've been researching getting a new car. So I read an article on Car and Driver about the best EVs of 2022. I became increasingly puzzled as they described the driving experience of the Nissan Leaf as "boring," while a Mercedes Benz or some-such was "playful," and I realized I had entered a zone of fictitious beauty judgments.
Also, the comment stream below was full of people saying, "What's up with Car and Driver? Have they suddenly become a millionaires' club?" Or, "Car and Driver has totally lost it's audience." Because all of their choices were in the $100,000 range.
I'm now leaning towards the LHC Ranger.
I'm nobody's pony.
