With string theory, there was the first well posed theory that could unify in principle gravity with all the other forces. The real challenge is that gravity seems to be a different kind of theory. There's plenty of reasons to think that gravity is in some sense fundamentally non-local. But now we have much more subtle, challenging features of quantum gravity that we would like to explain.
Physics is in crisis, what else is new? That's what we hear in certain corners, anyway, usually pointed at "fundamental" physics of particles and fields. (Condensed matter and biophysics etc. are just fine.) In this solo podcast I ruminate on the unusual situation fundamental physics finds itself in, where we have a theoretical understanding that fits almost all the data, but which nobody believes to be the final answer. I talk about how we got here, and argue that it's not really a "crisis" in any real sense. But there are ways I think the academic community could handle the problem better, especially by making more space for respectable but minority approaches to deep puzzles.
Blog post with transcript: https://www.preposterousuniverse.com/podcast/2023/07/31/245-solo-the-crisis-in-physics/
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