Marcelo Gleiser sounds as though he thinks that the great mysteries of physics are about this universe, not space aliens, computer sim universes, cyborgs, and so forth (on that score, see 2011 Templeton winner Sir Martin Rees).
Physics
Should research funding agencies move resources away from particle physics to fighting climate change?
You know particle physics is in serious trouble when the idea of just putting the money into climate change instead gets serious face time.
Astrophysicist: Photons with mass wouldn’t solve the dark matter puzzle
He examines the possibilities and decides that photons probably do not really have mass. But even if they did, that wouldn’t help much with the puzzle that we need dark matter but can’t find it.
At the New York Times: Are dark forces messing with our cosmos?
If this is what passes for theoretical physics these days, Sabine Hossenfelder, author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, is clearly right.
Sabine Hossenfelder: Is science harmed by an illusion of progress?
Tellingly, Hossenfelder adds, “So here is the puzzle: Why can you not find any expert, besides me, willing to publicly voice criticism on particle physics? Hint: It’s not because there is nothing to criticize. ”
We’ll find those “sparticles” if we have to dig up the universe!
Calling this stuff science does not transform it into a rational endeavor. A rational endeavor includes deeper and more honest analysis of why the Standard Model is so widely hated even if it may well be correct.
How did Stephen Hawking get to be “world’s smartest scientist”?
Top People need a multiverse. The rewards go to those who can conjure one. Hawking did his best within the boundaries of science and is to be commended for going no further. We have heard and will hear plenty from those who show no such qualms.
At Forbes: The “miracle” hope for finding the dark matter of the universe is dead
The WIMP (Weakly Interacting Massive particles) model has just not worked out: We understand how the Standard Model particles behave. We have solid predictions for how they should interact through all of the fundamental forces, and experimental confirmation of those theories. We also have extraordinary constraints on how they’re permitted to interact in a beyond-the-Standard-Model […]
Physicist: It’s not the answers we lack, it’s the question
Arkani-Hamed: “We’re not building a machine that calculates answers, he says; instead, we’re discovering questions. Nature’s shape-shifting laws seem to be the answer to an unknown mathematical question.”
How is the hologram universe coming?
Still closer to sci-fi than the classroom, it would seem.
Dark matter vs. dark energy in a world where neither have been discovered
Hossenfelder’s clarifications will at least help us understand what we are all confused about.
Experiment: Quantum particles can violate the mathematical pigeonhole principle
Which says that if there are more holes than pigeons, some pigeons must share.
Are black holes partly a philosophy question?
The black hole has always occupied a sort of space in the middle, between science and philosophy. It’s good to see that acknowledged. From ScienceDaily: Erik Curiel studied Philosophy as well as Theoretical Physics at Harvard University and the University of Chicago, and the primary aim of his current DFG-funded research project is to develop […]
Theoretical Physicist weary of people telling her 2+2 = 5
No, Sabine, you’re not crazy. But you live in crazymaking times. Cosmology has degenerated into the pursuit of cool nonsense like the multiverse via string theory. So much now seems to revolve around whether findings help or hurt the nonsense. Not about learning more about what is really happening here now.
Raining carrots: Falsifiability does not, by itself, make for good science
In short, she is saying, the universe wasn’t supposed to be like this and that’s the basis for the current crisis in cosmology. One can always invent “falsifiable” theories but their falsifiability is not in itself a virtue; it is simply the basis for them being theories in science at all. The question of whether they should be pursued or funded is a quite different one.