The Future of Physics

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I think that we absolutely need a mechanism to support diverse approaches. It's hard for me to say, okay, let's hire someone working on Monde or working on loop quantum gravity. But I do think that they're serious. And probably this is not just a deal with physics, right? This is probably a much broader feature of academia,. There are mainstream views. People with their plucky minority views have a tough time getting through. We all know stories of the plucky minority view that turns out to triumph in the end. Those are the very, very rare stories to be clear. Most plucky minorities remain minority views.

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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