Fundamental physics is dying? [video]

Those mathematical advances weren't developed in a vacuum, but made to solve some very specific problems which came from better measurements. So even Newtonian mechanics originated in solving problems trying to explain measurements, not that someone sat in their chamber and dreamed up cool math that happened to be very useful.

I partly agree. A conceptual breakthrough always rests on a foundation to which many contributed. All of whom, in some sense, contributed. But my reading of history says that the reconceptualization that leads to intellectual breakthroughs themselves usually only involve small numbers of people.

If you've read The Structure of Scientific Revolutions, what I'm saying is that new paradigms are usually created by very small numbers of people. But they have both a foundation and their further success from the contributions of many.

I'm very much not offering an opinion on a great man theory of history in fields outside of science. Your example of the American Revolution is entirely off topic.

I'm also very much not saying that who will contribute what is in any way predictable. At best, the necessary collision of circumstances to make the breakthrough possible is chaotic, and therefore cannot be predicted. Nor did anyone else. The original point a few posts up was that, even if though there might be a haystack of clearly wasted effort, there may still be a needle powerful enough to make up for the rest.

Well, if you want a simple argument from authority, John Carlos Baez's confirmation that she's right is pretty good. If you want a better one, she very rarely gets any of her facts wrong.

Now let's go point by point.

Is Carlo Rovelli fine with it not being testable, in that he is fine with research continuing even though it can not be tested with up coming experimental set ups? He is arguing for a version of the theory that can't be tested, is continuing to do research on it, and presumably thinks that he is doing science.

If Sabine was going to expose howe much money was going to these topics and where it could be better spent that would be worth watching. Discussing how these things wind up getting funded would be a very different video. And would not likely be interesting to most of her audience.

Or is Carlo Rovelli ok with the theory being unfalsifiable in the sense that that he is ok with the research not being science? Presumably he thinks that he is doing science. Sabine's opinion clearly is that this isn't really science. However she only claims her opinion as her opinion, not established fact.

Ok what percentage and total amount of founding is going to this? Again, that would be a very different video. In 10 minutes for a general audience, you have to make decisions about what you will and will not cover. It's not a valid criticism of her that she made a choice. Particularly in a video that she disclaims as a personal rant.

Arguments saying loop quantum gravity require space to be quantized, but they can not be lorentz invariant without having the quantization go to zero volume, according to Sabine, and no one has done that and extracted back out loop quantum gravity. This is not according to her, this is according to an argument that comes from Lee Smolin. A region of space that has a specific amount of area will, according to special relativity, have a smaller area according to an observer that is traveling fast enough. By having the velocity as close as you want to C, you can make the area arbitrarily small. So your choice is to violate Lorentz invariance, or have arbitrarily small areas. If you violate Lorentz invariance, the speed for light will depend on the wavelength.

As her previous video at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZlHvW6k2bcM said, this prediction of Lee Smolin has been tested to extremely high precision, and the predicted effect was not seen. That version of LQG has been falsified. The alternative supported by Carlo Rovelli is that you need to average out over quantum areas in all reference frames. This is a neat idea, but in several decades, nobody has made it work. Until someone can make it work, LQG can't produce any testable predictions.

Please note that John Baez, who worked on LQG for 10 years, specifically complimented her presentation of this particular issue. Her description of where research stands is accurate.

I am experimentalist and this is not my area. I would want to see a link to a paper/book etc. Rants generally do not come with properly cited references. That said, the previous video that this refers back to is based on https://arxiv.org/abs/2402.06009?utm_source=substack&utm_med..., which is one of the experimental tests showing that Lee Smolin's prediction is false.

The analogy to the angular momentum operator comes off as a good place to start investigation/research but is treated dismissively, anologies like this often do not apply in the end but can still be useful. It was a good place to start. After 20 years of research that has failed to turn that idea into anything workable, most people would conclude that this is an analogy that will not apply in the end. But apparently Rovelli gets mad at anyone who doubts that it will work out. One of the triggers for this rant was whatever Rovelli said to her in private. Personally, I excuse her for being human here in her reaction.

Ok that does not seem like the gottcha that it is laid out to be. Interesting stuff happens where their are apparent contradictions in physics. No, it really is the gotcha it claims to be. It's directly inside of the math. This demonstration is no different than, say, proving that sqrt(2) is irrational by proving that if you start with the smallest fraction that equals it, you can find a smaller one.

The conclusion of that gotcha is exactly what she said: if there's a minimal area then you can't have Lorentz invariance. And conversely, if you have Lorentz invariance, then you can't have a minimal area. Experimentally, we have tested for the Lorentz invariance to be expected from a minimum area based on the Planck length. It does not exist. And therefore there isn't Lorentz invariance.

Why did Sabine talk about it being a mathematical contradiction if you can make the theory work, but it leads to physical phenomenon that we do not observe? Her previous video (that triggered the nasty emails)_made this point more clearly. She's saying that there is a mathematical contradiction between having minimal areas and Lorentz invariance. This forces us to choose to have one or the other. Minimal areas leads to a testable and now falsified theory. Lorentz invariance has yet to lead to a theory that doesn't blow up with unnormalizable infinities, let alone one which can produce a testable prediction.

I can not make those two arguments jive in to a cohesive whole. Not that it can not happen, but I can not from this video and that is the conclusion, or similar, I normally reach when watching Sabine's videos and why I do not watch or recommend them generally. Is that Sabine's fault, or yours? This video is much lower quality than her normal ones. And yet absolutely none of what you think are flaws, do I think is one. Every one of your objections has an answer that jives. And the conclusion is agreed with by John Baez, whose background on this specific topic is much stronger than yours.

Perhaps, rather than looking for things to complain, you should try figuring out what she actually said. In my experience it is logically internally consistent. Even though it skewers some sacred cows.

Wofram was a child prodigy but he quit physics.

It's not like you can stop doing something as a young person and be relevant or be competent just because you are smart. "A New Kind of Science" is not very deep book. It's graphically beautiful, but it contains lots of hand waving.

He has gradually descended into crackpot regime.

she said some outlandish stuff in one video - I don't remember which. I refuse to watch any more of her videos.