The Power of Nature

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Physicists are making progress in fundamental physics, but it's nowhere near the pace it was 100 years ago. "I do think we could be better at nurturing plucky minority approaches," he says. In a situation where progress is slower than it was before, that's the time to roll the dice and take some chances. 'Who knows, we might have a breakthrough that makes the second half of the 21st century just as exciting'

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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