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Lost in Math Hardcover – 12 Jun 2018

by Sabine Hossenfelder (Author)

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In this "provocative" book (New York Times), a contrarian physicist argues that her field's modern obsession with beauty has given us wonderful math but bad science.
Whether pondering black holes or predicting discoveries at CERN, physicists believe the best theories are beautiful, natural, and elegant, and this standard separates popular theories from disposable ones. This is why, Sabine Hossenfelder argues, we have not seen a major breakthrough in the foundations of physics for more than four decades.
The belief in beauty has become so dogmatic that it now conflicts with scientific objectivity: observation has been unable to confirm mindboggling theories, like supersymmetry or grand unification, invented by physicists based on aesthetic criteria. Worse, these "too good to not be true" theories are actually untestable and they have left the field in a cul-de-sac. To escape, physicists must rethink their methods. Only by embracing reality as it is can science discover the truth.

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Product details

Hardcover: 304 pages
Publisher: Basic Books (12 June 2018)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0465094252
ISBN-13: 978-0465094257
Product Dimensions: 16.6 x 3.7 x 24.5 cm
Boxed-product Weight: 481 g
Customer Reviews: 1 customer review
Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 34,785 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
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Iain

Shows where high energy particle physics went wrong

Reviewed in Australia on 13 February 2020

Format: Hardcover

Dr Sabine Hossenfelder has written a very entertaining book, explaining how high energy particle physics went wrong. By using a very non-science approach, these physicists have developed models to predict particles with a very flimsy basis for existing, and want experimentalists to spend billions testing them. And many experimentalists are happy to do so, without asking if they should. This is supposed to be science, not hope for the best.

This has led to 30 years of wasted effort on String Theory, Supersymmetry, Eternal Inflation, and the Multiverse. If you see a book by a high profile physicist selling you these ideas, run.

My only criticism is her hope in philosophers helping right these wrongs. In my experience, they contribute nothing to science. They say a lot, but explain nothing.

Definitely a book you should read if you want to know the truth about the current state of high energy particle physics.

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Adam Carlton

Clear, intelligent and non-patronising tour of the crisis in fundamental physics

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 June 2018

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Sabine Hossenfelder is a quantum gravity phenomenologist - she links theories to experiments and observations - and she has a popular blog, Backreaction. She is also losing her faith in physics as it is presently conducted.

Here is the problem. The two great foundations of physics, quantum theory and relativity, are completely successful to the precision of existing experiments and observations. Yet they are mutually inconsistent. Attempts at unification (there are many, including string theory) are presently untestable, their verification beyond the limits of colliders and instruments. There are other conundrums too such as the nature of dark energy and dark matter. In the absence of experimental data, ungrounded theories abound - they are cheap, after all! - driven by aesthetics and groupthink.

Hossenfelder is not a superstar physics-populist with a major TV contract and a slew of pop-sci publications. 'Lost in Math' is not intended for that market. It's an extended meditation on the consequences of the absence of meaningful experimental feedback. The author interviews the world's leading physicists (Witten excepted) and is typically unimpressed by what she hears. Her reactions are ironic, sardonic and hilarious. Her text reports back as if talking to peers. How refreshing.

As a bonus you get an insider's view of the hot issues: what's really happening at the LHC, the role of dark matter in cosmology and the evolution of the universe .. as well as the failure of all attempts to characterise it, the problems with the flavours of multiverse, the measurement problem, the black hole firewall controversy.

There's no easy solution to the great stagnation in fundamental physics. The author is keen that the community should be more aware of its cognitive biases, its herd behaviour and groupthink but it seems difficult to identity the incentive to improve.

As for Sabine Hossenfelder herself, she may believe that publication of this book has killed any chance of tenure for ever, but probably it hasn't. One niche closes, another opens.

I had my doubts about buying this book. Would I really learn anything that I hadn't already picked up from many other popular science books and innumerable blog posts? And is the fragility of beauty, naturalness and elegance as criteria for theory acceptability really enough to sustain a whole volume? Yet Hossenfelder's work is wider and more profound than that. Her tour of the state of the art is a joy to read, discerning and intelligent insights sprinkled throughout. I was engrossed from beginning to end.

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Kevin Davis

Bit of a curates egg of a book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 17 July 2018

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

According to Sabine, most of current physics is a mathematical construct (not based on 'real' observations) that proposes 'particles' that are fortuitously (for those seeking research grants for big physics) just beyond what is detectable in currently available experiments. I have often mused that mathematics it just a bit too pretty for the mess that is our (and maybe the many) universe(s). Worth the read, some great explanatory analogies; at times Sabine explains the simple in depth while skimping over the more difficult concepts (perhaps the book needed better editing) .
It is an important book, that deserves to be read by those even mildly interested in science, those actually practising the dark 'arts' and those sifting through research proposals.

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Susan Stepney

This is a great book that will win Hossenfelder few friends in the subject

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 2 January 2019

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I have been reading Sabine Hossenfelder’s Backreaction blog for a while now, enjoying her “take no prisoners” style of explaining physics: clear and insightful on the science, blunt about the process. One of the things she is particularly blunt about is the lack of progress in fundamental particle physics, with its plethora of predictions over the last decades, accompanied by a paucity of experimental verification. So I was excited to hear she was writing a book about this aspect. And what a great book it is, both from a physics and a process perspective.

Particle physics has gone nowhere in the last 40-odd years. The Standard Model of the 1970s is still the best available, despite having known shortcomings. The most recent prediction to have been experimentally verified (the existence of the top and bottom quarks) is from 1973. (The Higgs boson was proposed in the previous decade.) Since the 1970s, experimental results have succeeded only in disconfirming attempts to improve on the Standard Model. Why this stunning lack of progress?

Hossenfelder, herself an accomplished theoretical physicist, argues it is because physicists are beguiled by the idea of (mathematical) “beauty”, and are being led astray in their work. Rather than being steered by real-world data, they are following beautiful theories, such as string theory, down mathematical rabbit holes, further and further from experimental checks, ending up in the bizarre place of having to redefine science itself to allow for the absence of even the possibility of experimental validation. The book weaves clear explanations of the problem with snippets of interviews with several of the physicists involved.

Her argument has two main components. Firstly, theoretical beauty is not a reliable guide. There are past examples of a beautiful theory having to give way to a less beautiful one when confronted with disconfirming experimental data. And many times the “beauty” of a theory becomes appreciated, or possibly learned, only after the theory has been accepted and established. Secondly, physics absolutely has to be grounded in experimental validation. Mathematics is the language used to express the theories, and like any language, you can say many different things in it. The only way to discover which, if any, of these is right, is to look to the real world.

This is a great book that will win Hossenfelder few friends in the subject. It cuts deep to the heart of the problem, in a very accessible manner, and exposes the groupthink lying at the heart of today’s fundamental physics.

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Robert

Lateral thinking for inquiring minds. Valuable insight into the physics 'industry'.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 20 November 2019

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This is not just another book on particle physics, the origin or the destiny of the universe but an unconventional narrative on those very subjects by an unconventional thinker.

It would probably appeal to readers who remain unsatisfied or unfulfilled by the vast literature on what, for shorthand, I will describe as simply 'the universe'. Dr Hossenfelder will not provide you with any answers, but will explain why we may be asking the wrong questions or, perhaps, asking the same old questions over and over again in some kind of inquiry cul-de-sac.

Unlike previous generations, or the deeper historical past, inquiring into the meaning of everything has not been inhibited by superstition, ignorance or religion and those who do so are no longer threatened by being ostracised, ridiculed or even worse. On the contrary, vast armies of people and huge budgets are occupied in the quest for the meaning of everything. But still it seems the more we find out the less we know. The best way I can describe what I mean by this is with the book 'We Have No Idea', which explains that we truly do have no idea about what makes up, what we think, is 95% of the known universe, let alone any unknown one. I sincerely hope Dr Hossenfelder is not put out by that parallel.

Sabine Hossenfelder does not attack Math directly but I can identify her meaning when I think of books where the writer cannot but start a sentence without launching into half a page or more of equations. If Math provided the answers then why are we still asking the questions? Perhaps Math only applies after the universe gets underway; before that, it is something else.

But it is not just 'lost in math'. As someone who has bought no end of popular and academic books on the universe it seems they are equally lost in words and lost in concepts. Put simply, there is a global industry in theories, which translates into a global industry in publishing and a global industry in research grants. An economy all of its own. But I don't knock this state of affairs; better that than Galileo being silenced by the church. But I do think the physics industry should be more open and brief about the meaning of everything and that such meaning continues to elude the human species.

So do read this book for a new perspective on the current inquiry by our species into the universe, but only if you already have deeply inquiring mind and are thus far unsatisfied. It is an excellent pause for thought and assessment of mankind's search for answers. Dr Hossenfelder's command of language is astonishing and she has a subtle and incisive humour, with a use of irony that maybe provides a clue to the origins of her thought process: only those with humour can truly question the world and the universe.

My theory? I think we are trying to burrow into the smaller and smaller when we should be looking 'top down'. For what it's worth I don't think there is anything solid in the universe at all; it is all simply a manifestation of force, or energy. To be more precise, two forces. For me, dark energy and dark matter are just fundamental energy (negative) and fundamental energy (positive). Like a spinning top they produce what we think is mass and solidity. But it is all an illusion. Not an illusion to us because we too are part of the illusion. When the imbalance of these two fundamental energies or forces equalises the universe simply no longer exists: not so much dust to dust but nothing to nothing. But what the fundamental energies are, well, we have no idea.

Perhaps this theory may also explain why math seems to explain everything but also explain nothing. Take Pi. It can't be distilled into 'one', however many decimal places are added; because in nature there is no 'one'. 'One' works after the universe comes into existence; not before.

The amount of knowledge already gained by humanity is already beyond anything imaginable a century or more ago. Long may it continue but as with any search there comes a time when simplification and reassessment is vital. Dr Hossenfelder's book may well assist.

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Dr. T.

Und ... alle Fragen offen?

Reviewed in Germany on 16 July 2018

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Sabine Hossenfelder ist Theoretische Physikerin, nach verschiedenen Posdoc Stellen in den USA und Kanada, war sie Assistenz Professor am Nordic Institute for Theoretical Physics in Stockholm, seit 2015 arbeitet sie als Research Fellow am Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, sie forscht auf den Gebieten der Teilchenphysik jenseits des Standardmodells und der Quantengravitation; außerdem betreibt sie einen Science Blog Backreaction und verfasst Beiträge für Quanta Magazine, Scientific American, Physics Today und die Forbes Kolumne 'Starts with a Bang'. Sie gehört zu einer Generation von Physikern, die ihre wissenschaftliche Karriere zu einer Zeit begannen, da die fundamentalen Physik von einer Überfülle von Theorie bestimmt wird, die einem Defizit an testbaren Fakten gegenübersteht.

Hossenfelders nun vorliegendes Buch ist diesem Phänomen gewidmet, es reflektiert aber auch ein Stück der ganz persönlichen Geschichte der Autorin – gerade neigt sich ihre Anstellung in Stockholm dem Ende entgegen, immer noch liefern die Experimente am LHC keinen der erhofften Nachweise für ein Teilchenphysik jenseits des Standardmodells – etwa durch die Entdeckung von Partnerteilchen, die die Supersymmetrie postuliert – sie steht den Methoden, Theorie lediglich auf Grund formaler Kriterien, wie innere Geschlossenheit, Schönheit und Natürlichkeit, zu beurteilen, zunehmend kritischer gegenüber. Um sich über ihre Ansichten auszutauschen, nimmt sie im Dezember 2015 an der Konferenz 'Why Trust a Theory?' in München teil, die von Richard Dawid organisiert wurde, der mit These der nicht empirischen Begründungen von Theorien, die er in seinem Buch String Theory and the Scientific Method darlegte, Kontroversen hervorrief; u.a äußerten sich die Mitorganisatoren Joe Silk und George Ellis dazu kritisch in ihrem Nature Artikel 'Defent the integrity of physics' (vol. 216, 2014).

Um die Basis dieser Diskussionen zur Grundlegung physikalischer Theorie zu verbreitern, führt die Autorin zahlreiche Interviews mit Kollegen, darunter mit Steven Weinberg, Frank Wilczek und Gerard t'Hooft, die wesentliche Beiträge zum Standardmodell geleistet haben, und mit der Verwendung von Symmetrie als Ordnungsprinzip in der Theorie der Elementarteichen großen Erfolg hatten, aber auch Interviews mit Stringtheoretiker Joe Polchinski, mit Garrett Lissi, der seine akademische Laufbahn aufgab, um sich auf Maui anzusiedeln und seiner Forschung unbelastet von Zwängen weiterzuführen, und schließlich mit dem Kosmologen George Ellis.

Die zahlreichen Ansichten ihrer Kollegen, geben der Autorin reichlich Gelegenheit, die verschieden Aspekte zur Beurteilung physikalischer Theorien, ausführlich zu diskutieren. Sowohl Weinberg mit 'To explain the world' als auch Wilczek mit 'A beautiful question', haben selbst Bücher über die Entwicklung der modernen Physik geschrieben, in denen sie auch Fragen nachgehen, inwiefern Schönheit und Eleganz bei der Theoriebildung eine Rolle spielten. Aber eine 'post empirischen Physik' lehnt Wllczek rigoros ab: würde es auch nur ein Bit aussagekräftiger experimenteller Daten dazu geben, würde sich niemand um post empirische Begründungen einen Deut scheren.

Auch Bedingungen wie die Natürlichkeit (naturalness) von Theorie, wie sie etwa G. T'Hooft betrachtet hat, die im technischen Sinne von einer Theorie fordert, dass sie nur Konstanten in Größenordnung von 1 enthält, also Kriterien, die ja immerhin quantifizierbar sind, bieten keinen sicheren Grund; denn damit kann man etwa – wie die Autorin anmerkt – das heliozentrische Weltmodel von Kopernikus 'ausschließen': kreist die Erde um die Sonne, so müssen die Sterne Parallaxen zeigen, oder sehr weit entfernt sein – viel weiter, als das zu Kopernikus Zeiten übliche Ptolemäische Weltbild, für natürlich hielt.

Schließlich sind auch die Ideen von Dawid nicht von vornherein zu verdammen, tatsächlich bietet sich in der zweiten Hälfte der 20. Jahrhunderts zum ersten mal die Gelegenheit, die gesamte fundamentale Physik einheitlichen zu betrachten; dabei verkennt Dawid durchaus nicht die Tatsache, dass sich diese Theorien, für die die Stringtheorie exemplarisch steht, immer weiter von ihrer faktischen Grundlegung entfernen; aber er argumentiert weiter, dass nicht empirische Begründungen immer schon zur Theoriebildung der Physik dazugehörten, es also lohnend sei, die besonderen Bedingen der Theoriebildung zu Beginn des 21. Jahrhunderts näher zu analysieren und zu bewerten.

Tatsächlich fanden die Experimentatoren nach der wesentlichen Fertigstellung des Standardmodells, Ende der 1970iger Jahre, 'nur' noch einige fehlenden Puzzlestücke: das Top Quark, die genaueren Eigenschaften der W und Z Bosonen, und schließlich 2012 das Higgs. Aber fast alle Theoretiker waren der Ansicht, dass dieses Modell nur eine 'Vernunftehe' von elektromagnetischer, schwacher und starker Wechselwirkung darstellt – sollte es nicht eine einfachere, elegantere Theorie für die fundamentalen Bausteine der Materie geben? Also suchten sie weiter – Symmetrie waren bereits ein zentrales Leitmotiv bei der Aufstellung des Standardmodells gewesen – man untersuchte andere Gruppen, in der Hoffnung eine funktionierende Grand Unified Theory (GUT) zu finden; auch die Supersymmetrie (SUSY), die Bosonen und Fermionen zueinander in Beziehung setzt, galt als vielversprechend. Weiterhin auf sich selbst gestellt, versuchten die Theoretiker bewährte Prinzipien zu extrapolieren. Mathematische Eleganz und Schönheit galten bereits Dirac und Schrödinger als starke Indikatoren beim Aufstellen ihrer Theorie zur Quantenmechanik – nur hatten sie dabei den Vorteil, dass die Entstehung der Quantenmechanik von zahllosen experimentellen Daten flankiert wurde – etwa aus der genauen Vermessung von Atomspektren unter verschiedenen Einflüssen. Nun haben sich offenbar diese Prinzipien verselbstständigt.

Das Buch bietet auf jeden Fall einen exzellenten Überblick zu den hier aufgeworfenen Fragen, die Autorin hat die Interviews mit Charme und intelligent geführt, mit Hintergrundgeschichten aufgelockert und gelegentlich humorvoll kommentiert, kommt sie jedoch auf die Diskussion der nicht empirischen Kriterien zurück, gerät der Text mit unter unnötig repetitiv. Versucht man nach der fulminanten Lektüre aber ein Fazit zu ziehen, so drängt sich das Brecht Zitat, dessen sich Marcel Reich-Ranicki als Schlusssatz seiner Literarischen Quartett Sendungen bediente, auf – und so sehen wir betroffen, ... alle Fragen offen. Für die theoretischen Physiker scheint weiterhin kein Ausweg aus ihrem Dilemma in Sicht, vielleicht bringt ein noch größerer Beschleuniger, dessen Möglichkeit etwa Nima Arkani-Hamed untersucht, die erhofften Daten, oder es fehlt doch noch eine wesentliches Element zu einer wirklich fundamentalen Theorie.

Ein umfangreicher Index und ein ausführliches Verzeichnis mit Anmerkungen zum Text und Quellenangaben, erleichtern die Suche nach weiterführender Literatur, leider wurde auf eine gesonderte Bibliographie verzichtet.

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Bertie

Excellent book

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 14 October 2018

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

For people like me, working on solid state physics, the issues addressed in this book were a recurrent subject to talk over lunch for at least the last decade. "Someone has to write such a book" we used to say, necessarily had to be someone from inside this community. I am glad that Dr. Hossenfelder did it. A theory can be beautiful, or not, but to use mathematical beauty or "naturalness" as a guide does not make any sense. This book should be mandatory reading for young students.

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snake de plume

An opinionated but interesting read

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 11 April 2019

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

There is lots of leads into topics on Physics here, and I agree with the point she is raising - I think she is correct in her opinions about misleading human concepts of 'beauty' polluting physics research (my words, not the authors) but her writing style can be wearing at times - its certainly not unbiased.

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BookReader

Much needed

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 28 January 2020

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

This work is exactly what the Quantum research establishment needs to prevent them going up blind alleys with such as unsubstantiated multiverse theories.

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Gavin Cawley

Dissapointingly superficial treatment of an interesting topic

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 6 May 2019

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Defends a rather narrow definition of science, but doesn't really get to grips with the philosophy of science, which is really they key issue, but only gets a couple of pages towards the back of the book. Rather unpleasant towards Steve Weingberg, I thought!

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paracelsus

The limits of physics

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 13 January 2019

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I'm not a physic but i love this book is easy to read and the point is the same in all natural sciences: we have more interrogations than efective knowledge and there are some pundits with a lot of arrogance saying bullshit with total impunity and call themselves evangelists of science...

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jimmyjam

Really good book.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom on 26 April 2019

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Great read.

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Herwig Huener

Sind nicht-endliche Theorien "schön"? Oder gar wahr?

Reviewed in Germany on 10 December 2018

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

Die Idee, dass die Schönheit einer Theorie ein zusätzliches Indiz für ihre Richtigkeit sein kann, kommt mir eigentlich nicht zu weit hergeholt vor. KnackPunkt ist natürlich, ob es widerlegende Experimente gibt, und natürlich, dass die Theorie in Mathematik formuliert ist. Wenn eine Theorie aber unschön ist in dem Sinne, dass die zu umfangreich ist, als dass ein Mensch überhaupt die Übersicht drüber behalten kann - auch Physiker leben nur endlich lange - ist sie dann noch für irgendwas tauglich?

Formulieren einer Theorie ist zu nicht unwesentlichem Teil eine neurologische Tätigkeit. Man baut sich Begriffe und ZwischenBegriffe als LeiterSprossen des Verständnisses - und je besser das gelingt, umso "schöner" (= überhaupt kapierbar) ist die Theorie. Die Schönheit einer Theorie ist eine Eigenschaft des Aufwandes, den man in deren Formulierung hineingesteckt hat. Hier ist, wie überall, Schönheit im Auge des Betrachters.

Übrigens gilt das auch für mathematische Beweise - ein Beweis, dessen intellektuelles Nachvollziehen mehr kostet als die RestLebensZeit dessen, der den Beweis verstehen möchte, ist kein Beweis.

Und: Wer keine Mathematik mag, hat vielleicht Schwierigkeiten, irgendwo in einer Theorie Schönheit zu sehen.

Stellenweise wird in dem Buch an der VielWeltenInterpretation der QuantenPhysik und an der Tegmark'schen MUH herumkritisiert. KnackPunkt ist deren fehlende Widerlegbarkeit. Aber das ist BlödSinn: Sowohl für die QM als auch die ART gibt es eine ganze Menge experimenteller Beweise und noch keine GegenBeweise - und zufällig auch einige Dinge, die wir nie nachprüfen können: Die RaumZeitGeometrie unter dem EreignisHorizont eines Schwarzen Loches zum Beispiel, oder eben die Everett'schen ParallelUniversen. Ich würde das nicht als GrundProblem ansehen, sondern mich eher wundern, wenn tatsächlich jedes denkbare Experiment zum Widerlegen einer Theorie wenigstens theoretisch möglich wäre.

Ausserdem *gibt* es Experimente, die man machen kann: den QuantenSelbstMord für den Nachweis der Everett'schen ParallelUniversen, und das tatsächliche Eindringen eines Physikers in ein Schwarzes Loch, um die RaumZeitStruktur darin zu vermessen. Das Pech ist dann einfach dieses, dass man dieses Experiment nicht unbedingt überlebt und etwas darüber veröffentlichen kann.

Ich weiss immer noch nicht, was ich mit dem Buch anfangen kann. Aber ein paar Abschnitte habe ich noch nicht gelesen. Vielleicht kommt mir noch die Erleuchtung.

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A. Fedor

This author has guts...

Reviewed in Canada on 3 June 2019

Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase

I am not a physicist, but I do have a passing interest with high energy physics.

I found this book to be a bit of a choppy read, probably because of my lack of knowledge or maybe the book was originally written in German and then translated into English.

Having said that, my first impressions with the early chapters was that the author was just complaining too much because it is a very difficult and competitive career to get into and make a decent living. As you get further into the book, you start to realize that the author is very passionate about theoretical physics. She is very sincere and concerned with scientific research methodology being compromised, the general acceptance and biases towards not testable theories, and just the overall politics for obtaining research funding.

The author has some great suggestions how how to improve the current situation. I hope that she will come up with a sequel book where she can elaborate to the more general public on the incompleteness of our laws of nature, and how and why we went wrong with the more popular multiverse, susy and string theories...

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Guillermo Pussetto

... that 'modern physicists' obsession with beauty has given us wonderful math but bad science'

Reviewed in Canada on 17 June 2018

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I couldn't agree more with the book main argument that 'modern physicists' obsession with beauty has given us wonderful math but bad science'. In fact it has been my personal fight in the social media during the last years. There is no known law in nature that says that the universe must comply with fundamental physicists notions of mathematical beauty. There is the need to put hard science back on track by supporting mathematical models with falsifiable experiments. Fundamental physicists are lost in math and have forgotten the the main goal of science is to understand nature and not to have fun with math. I been following Sabines' blog' backreaction' for some time. She is a reliable researcher that fights bad science and her book is a pleasure to read.

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G. Zauner

Clear, profound and full of wit

Reviewed in Germany on 7 July 2018

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Sabine Hossenfelder, currently research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, has written an informative account of the developments in particle physics (high energy physics) and cosmology in the last decades. It includes interviews with some leading theoretical physicists of this period of time. And she presents firm, critical views on it.

For those who take enthusiastic fire when they read about multiverses, wormholes, and the like: this book is possibly not for you (it may feel like a painful, cold rain shower that extinguishes the fire). But those, who like critical questioning, cool-headed, clear analysis, and blunt (often witty) arguments, they will enjoy this book a lot.

You may not agree with all her points of view: You may e.g. disagree on her sniffy judgement on „ugly“ Quantum Theory, of which she writes that „nobody likes it“ (some humbly do) .

And, despite the title of this book, you may (as presumably many theoretical physicists) still keep adherence to the beauty of math, especially of symmetries, as potential guideline for research.
The book contains some historic examples of how keeping hold of very specific symmetries can be misleading, as e.g. with the perfectly symmetric structure of cycles ruling the sky and consequently the notorious epicycles in medieval astronomy.
As she points out, the same might e.g. also be true with the concept of supersymmetry in particle physics (… or maybe not?).
One might speculate that even - as a more general example - the (for nearly a century so fruitful) bond of group theory and quantum theory may have reached its limits.
Mathematics is multifaceted. Beauty in physics - as in life - is likely a concept that always changes and eventually undergoes revolutions.

Besides the challenge of beauty and symmetry also other popular, but even more ambivalent concepts in what by some is called „non-empirical theory assessment“ as naturalness and the related idea of fine-tuning are deconstructed in this book.

But most important of course is, that non-empirical evaluation of theories by beauty, symmetry, naturalness, etc. can’t just replace experiments. She is definitely right, when she criticizes theoretical reasoning solely along these lines, which is beyond any reasonable timeline or perspective of experimental verification. She hits some sore spots where current research directions in theoretical physics go astray.

And she shows, how the always present cognitive biases (even physicists are humans), and certain social aspects of the academic community fuel these undesirable trends.

Read this book: it is thought-provoking and fun.
And take every now and then a look at the her magnificent blog named „Backreaction“.

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