Apr 1, 2025 10:42 PM
https://aeon.co/essays/why-the-hunt-for-...or-physics
EXCERPT: Over its history, physics has delivered elegant and accurate descriptions of the physical Universe. Today, however, the reality physicists work to uncover appears increasingly removed from the one they inhabit. Despite its experimental successes, physics has repeatedly failed to live up to the expectation of delivering a deeper, ‘final’ physics – a reality to unify all others. As such, physicists appear forced to entertain increasingly speculative propositions.
Yet, with no obvious avenues to verify such speculations, physicists are left with little option but to repeat similar approaches and experiments – only bigger and at greater cost – in the hope that something new may be found. Seemingly beset with a sense of anxiety that nothing new will be found or that future experiments will reveal only further ignorance, the field of fundamental physics is incentivised to pursue ever more fanciful ideas.
I argue that the pursuit of unity and dominance of a more fundamental reality presents itself not as physicists’ unique prerogative, but instead as an impossible burden placed on their shoulders by the modern world. I suggest that we should embrace a more pluralist and nuanced understanding of what comprises the cosmos, an understanding that not only accepts but invites criticism from other practices, disciplines and realities into its current predicament.
My time spent in physics, both as an aspiring theoretical physicist and later as a sociologist studying the practices of fundamental physics, has left me to wonder to what extent narratives of unity and finality continue to serve the communities that proliferate them. And, further, to what extent does achieving greater fidelity towards what comprises existence, to what reality is, and to the constituents of the cosmos require that physics give up the mantle as reality’s primary purveyor? (MORE - missing details)
EXCERPT: Over its history, physics has delivered elegant and accurate descriptions of the physical Universe. Today, however, the reality physicists work to uncover appears increasingly removed from the one they inhabit. Despite its experimental successes, physics has repeatedly failed to live up to the expectation of delivering a deeper, ‘final’ physics – a reality to unify all others. As such, physicists appear forced to entertain increasingly speculative propositions.
Yet, with no obvious avenues to verify such speculations, physicists are left with little option but to repeat similar approaches and experiments – only bigger and at greater cost – in the hope that something new may be found. Seemingly beset with a sense of anxiety that nothing new will be found or that future experiments will reveal only further ignorance, the field of fundamental physics is incentivised to pursue ever more fanciful ideas.
I argue that the pursuit of unity and dominance of a more fundamental reality presents itself not as physicists’ unique prerogative, but instead as an impossible burden placed on their shoulders by the modern world. I suggest that we should embrace a more pluralist and nuanced understanding of what comprises the cosmos, an understanding that not only accepts but invites criticism from other practices, disciplines and realities into its current predicament.
My time spent in physics, both as an aspiring theoretical physicist and later as a sociologist studying the practices of fundamental physics, has left me to wonder to what extent narratives of unity and finality continue to serve the communities that proliferate them. And, further, to what extent does achieving greater fidelity towards what comprises existence, to what reality is, and to the constituents of the cosmos require that physics give up the mantle as reality’s primary purveyor? (MORE - missing details)