It must however be daunting to be a theoretical physicist right now. It seems like the field has been in a standstill for years. The advances in the 20th century were just eye-watering. The Standard Model is a mixed bag of stunningly accurate prediction (eg electron monopole moment [1]) vs the wildly inaccurate (eg the so-called "vacuum catastrophe" [2]).
And there are so many unanswered questions, like nobody really seems to know what particle generations are or why they exist. Or that particle masses can't be derived from first principles (or that the math can't be solved, I'm honestly not sure).
It seems like we have no intuition for a lot of this stuff because there's no analog in the real world. So we give names to things (eg color, spin) that are just abstract properties. Electromagnetism is tantalizingly simple. The strong nuclear force interacts with its own carrier particles so is far from simple. The mediating particles of the weak nuclear force were, I believe, the first evidence of the Higgs field (because they have mass) but again, not my speciality.
But here's the interesting part (to me): the human systems surrounding it. When progress slows in a field, you'll find the tendency of people to coalesce around certain ideas that may border on dogma because careers are built on reputation and nobody wants to be "wrong". Likewise, string theory has a lot of investment in it. People have built careers on it. Nobody wants to throw that away.
The LHC gave experimental evidence to the Higgs boson, which was one of its goals. It's also managed to disprove a lot of theories, which is useful. But it hasn't given any hint of where to go. There's already talk of a successor but nobody really knows what to look for so it's hard to imagine that'll go anywhere.
So string theory seems to be like physics orthodoxy now.
j[1]: https://cfp.physics.northwestern.edu/documents/PhysicsToday-...
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cosmological_constant_problem
The general public don't really understand where most physicists work. The largest subfield of Physics is really in condensed matter, where (depending on how you count it) somewhere like 30-50% of physicists work, and where there is plenty of interesting theory work. High energy physics is the next biggest subfield, but much of it is experimental, and then you get into "classical physics" like acoustics, optics, etc. Astrophysics is relatively smaller. There's also nuclear, plasma, fusion and then a whole host of interdisciplinary work like biophysics, materials science, etc. Especially with interdisciplinary work, people often do bits and pieces throughout their career, not everyone sticks strictly to a single subfield.
There's plenty of interesting theoretical physics work in pretty much all of these fields. Not everyone works on grand problems of the universe!
The most optimistic view I've heard on string theory is that the Ads/CFT correspondence actually can move to de-sitter space one day. String theory proponents actually believe this. They do believe the Ads/CFT correspondence is one of the crowning achievements of string theory.
The most pessimistic view I've heard is that we're waiting for the people who have made string theory their life's work since the 1980's to retire and allow new funding efforts to go to different ideas.
But as a side note, Sabine has the annoying habit of speaking authoritatively in matters outside her expertise (i.e. physics) in her YouTube videos. You catch someone doing that once in a scripted presentation, in a subject area where you have expertise and you know they are being superficial at best and wrong at worst, and you basically tune out.
Maybe planet nine if it exists will turn out to be a small primordial black hole within probe range, or we will locate a micro primordial black hole within the solar system.
Would building an even bigger deeper into time gazing JWST help?
I’ve gone down the black hole rabbit hole lately and personally I’d love to see an ultra sensitive fish eye X-ray and gamma ray telescope to hunt for the weak signatures that might be emitted by tiny accretion discs in or near our solar system. Find us a lovely marble to go examine and chuck stuff into.
You can sometimes make models which can put these under various parts of the proverbial rug and, sure, claim we just need to build the next generation of experiment, but at that point what are you really doing? I suspect this is what "worse than you think" is trying to get at.
So this guy works on string theory and has never heard of Einstein?
Why not use science to check what makes sense? - Because anyone would instantly notice that string theory is bs.
I think there should be a system, that when scientists act in bad faith (wasting money on questionable ideas because they personally profit) should retire.
> anyone would instantly notice that string theory is bs.
People said that about this wonky BS from Einstein too. And Einstein himself had some issues with that wonky BS of quantum mechanics (and he was not alone).
These people convinced the world they were geniuses, but ended up fleecing funding agencies and universities for millions with zero accountability and scientific progress.
What's the funding you're referring to with zero accountability?
Yes, this article and the whole crisis it references.
Will people be removed from their position? Prosecuted, even? No.
That's what zero accountability means.
The pattern is similar: an infinitely fascinating puzzle to solve full of interesting math with potentially revolutionary implications if only… if only… but not enough people ask if it’s the right math solving the right problems in the right way or if it’s even applicable.
This phenomenon of smart people being nerd sniped to this degree reminds me of that episode of Star Trek TNG where they figured out a way to possibly destroy the Borg by giving them an infinitely fascinating unsolvable geometry problem to ponder until they lost their minds.
I also see some similarity to how people get triggered and sucked into and addicted to spirals of culture war and political rage or fear mongering or other media driven mind traps. This is less intellectual but seems similar in that you’ve got this meme that hooks us and creates a discourse around it that hooks us more and not enough people poke their heads out of the vortex and say “hey everyone is this really this big of a deal?”
We should become skeptical when we see a big idea accrete a lot of sound and fury around it but it’s not producing much and the main focus of the community circling it is self referential fascination with the idea itself.
