Sabine Hossenfelder on How Beauty Leads Physics Astray

On July 14, 2022, we held an interdisciplinary conversation at Magdalen College, University of Oxford, on the role of aesthetics in science, including data from the world’s first international survey on the topic.The event was sponsored by the Calleva Centre at Magdalen College and Templeton Religion Trust.

Dr. Sabine Hossenfelder is Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies. She is the author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray (Basic Books, 2018) and Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions (Viking and Atlantic Books, 2022) and creative director of the YouTube channel “Science without the gobbledygook.”

To learn more about Dr. Hossenfelder's work, visit:

#beauty #science #beautyinscience #philosophyofscience #physics #biology #sabinehossenfelder

Support us on Patreon:

[jnbfrancisco]

I think Sabine might be on to something here. I love to see long held wrong ideas squashed and explained why they were thought to be correct. When I was an instructor, I used to ask my students to let me know if they think I'm teaching something wrong because I found a few times when I couldn't understand something it was because it was wrong and was not understandable.

[mogourmetzulu]

Oh this is a beautiful talk. But what I want to know is what is “beautiful” in the context of physics ? does the word beautiful have a different connotation in physics ?

[fh]

Perhaps the need for beauty in physics is related to a need for God? Or maybe a substitute for God? Both are ways of simplifying the world. Both are appeals to a higher authority. Neither has any objective proof. Both are taken on faith.

And beauty is always in the eye of the beholder.

[randyzeitman]

Does Noether theory mean that all science is actually symmetrical?