Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray

A contrarian argues that modern physicists' obsession with beauty has given us wonderful math but bad science
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.

• Einstein's Unfinished Revolution: The Search for What Lies Beyond the Quantum
• What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics
• Losing the Nobel Prize: A Story of Cosmology, Ambition, and the Perils of Science's Highest Honor
• Beyond Weird: Why Everything You Thought You Knew about Quantum Physics Is Different
• Something Deeply Hidden: Quantum Worlds and the Emergence of Spacetime
• The Universe Speaks in Numbers: How Modern Math Reveals Nature's Deepest Secrets
• What Is Real?: The Unfinished Quest for the Meaning of Quantum Physics
• Infinite Powers: How Calculus Reveals the Secrets of the Universe
• The Trouble With Physics: The Rise of String Theory, The Fall of a Science, and What Comes Next
• Special Relativity and Classical Field Theory: The Theoretical Minimum