Hossenfelder: The standard model works just fine with that number and it fits the data. But a small number like this, without explanation, is ugly and particle physicists didn’t want to believe nature could be that ugly.
Tag: Sabine Hossenfelder
Sabine Hossenfelder asks if reductionism has run its course
She definitely does not think that looking for shorter distances and smaller particles is the answer.
Sabine Hossenfelder explains the problem with the “many worlds” hypothesis
Hossenfelder: In the many worlds interpretation, if you set up a detector for a measurement, then the detector will also split into several universes.
Rob Sheldon responds to Sabine Hossenfelder on the hologram universe
Sheldon: … it isn’t just HEP theory, it is large swathes of all the sciences. They have painted themselves into a sterile, but formerly well-funded “consensus” corner, and are discovering that the younger generation (and the NYT) is quite flippant on their prospects for survival.
Sabine Hossenfelder: Why some scientists think the universe is a hologram
Her view: “Personally I think that the motivations for the holographic principle are not particularly strong and in any case we’ll not be able to test this hypothesis in the coming centuries. ” And in our next post, experimental physicist Rob Sheldon replies.
At Nature: The “bizarre logic” of the multiverse is explored in a review
Crease writes as if he would very much like to buy into Carroll’s ideas but still thinks that sanity has something to offer. Possibly, many establishment science figures teeter on that brink.
Artificial vs human intelligence: Sabine Hossenfelder offers us 10 differences
As AI types like to say, the system is so easily fooled because it doesn’t “know” anything. We are slowly learning, in consequence, more about what it means for a human being to “know” something.
Sabine Hossenfelder dusts off “superdeterminism”
Hossenfelder: “Now, a lot of people discard superdeterminism simply because they prefer to believe in free will, which is where I think the biggest resistance to superdeterminism comes from.”
Particle physics is a mess but Hossenfelder should chill, fellow physicist says
Hmmm. He’s not giving fellow physicists much of an incentive to sort out the mess. On the other hand, civilized theoretical physicists fight so politely that you can learn a lot just by listening.
The multiverse is just religion, theoretical physicist charges
Of course she’s right about the religion part. Much that is going wrong with science today is the tendency to use various science ideas as secular religions. The multiverse happens to be a particularly devastating one because it strikes at the very idea of evidence.
Sabine Hossenfelder: Don’t expect too much from new proposals to detect dark matter
She doesn’t so much oppose it as she doesn’t want to “wait another 40 years for physicists to realize that falsifiability alone is not sufficient to make a hypothesis promising.” In any event, those who remember science from fifty or thirty years ago find this state of affairs odd.
Sabine Hossenfelder summarizes multiverse theories, asks: Science or fiction?
With respect to the simulation multiverse: Why could there not be countless, helplessly infinite, simulations of the simulations as well?
What does it mean to say, in physics, that something like the Higgs boson “exists”?
Sabine Hossenfelder’s view: Realism is a philosophy. It’s a belief system, and science does not tell you whether it is correct.
Sabine Hossenfelder: Black holes vs. quantum mechanics = something has to give
Her view: Most physicists believe that the solution is that the Hawking radiation somehow must contain information after all.
When particle physicists collide, some are transformed into children
My, my. A commenter formed the correct impression and suggests, “Could you please answer the very valid questions raised by Sabine [Hossenfelder] instead of smearing her like this?”