
Lost in Math
How Beauty Leads Physics Astray
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Narrated by:
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Laura Jennings
About this listen
A contrarian argues that modern physicists' 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.
©2018 Sabine Hossenfelder (P)2018 Brilliance Publishing, Inc., all rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Laurie Zaleski never aspired to run an animal rescue; that was her mother Annie’s dream. But from girlhood, Laurie was determined to make the dream come true. Thirty years later as a successful businesswoman, she did it, buying a 15-acre farm deep in the Pinelands of South Jersey. She was planning to relocate Annie and her caravan of ragtag rescues - horses and goats, dogs and cats, chickens and pigs - when Annie died, just two weeks before moving day. In her heartbreak, Laurie resolved to make her mother’s dream her own.
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Heartwarming
- By Petfan on 04-13-22
By: Laurie Zaleski
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When Einstein Walked with Gödel
- Excursions to the Edge of Thought
- By: Jim Holt
- Narrated by: David Stifel
- Length: 15 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Does time exist? What is infinity? Why do mirrors reverse left and right but not up and down? In this scintillating collection, Holt explores the human mind, the cosmos, and the thinkers who’ve tried to encompass the latter with the former. With his trademark clarity and humor, Holt probes the mysteries of quantum mechanics, the quest for the foundations of mathematics, and the nature of logic and truth. Along the way, he offers intimate biographical sketches of celebrated and neglected thinkers, from the physicist Emmy Noether to the computing pioneer Alan Turing and the discoverer of fractals, Benoit Mandelbrot.
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A good overview of scientific theory
- By MJ Walters on 09-11-18
By: Jim Holt
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The Disordered Cosmos
- A Journey into Dark Matter, Spacetime, and Dreams Deferred
- By: Chanda Prescod-Weinstein
- Narrated by: Joniece Abbott-Pratt
- Length: 10 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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One of the leading physicists of her generation, Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein is also one of fewer than one hundred Black American women to earn a PhD from a department of physics. Her vision of the cosmos is vibrant, buoyantly nontraditional, and grounded in Black and queer feminist lineages. Dr. Prescod-Weinstein urges us to recognize how science, like most fields, is rife with racism, misogyny, and other forms of oppression. She lays out a bold new approach to science and society, beginning with the belief that we all have a fundamental right to know and love the night sky.
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Stunning
- By Amazon Customer on 04-05-21
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Around the World in Eighty Games
- From Tarot to Tic-Tac-Toe, Catan to Chutes and Ladders, a Mathematician Unlocks the Secrets of the World's Greatest Games
- By: Marcus du Sautoy
- Narrated by: Mark Elstob
- Length: 12 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Spanning millennia, oceans and continents, countries and cultures, Around the World in Eighty Games gleefully explores how mathematics and games have always been deeply intertwined. Renowned mathematician Marcus du Sautoy investigates how games provided the first opportunities for deep mathematical insight into the world, how understanding math can help us play games better, and how both math and games are integral to human psychology and culture.
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a very interesting one
- By Francisco on 06-09-24
By: Marcus du Sautoy
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The River of Consciousness
- By: Oliver Sacks
- Narrated by: Dan Woren, Kate Edgar
- Length: 5 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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A collection of essays that displays Oliver Sacks' passionate engagement with the most compelling and seminal ideas of human endeavor: evolution, creativity, memory, time, consciousness, and experience. The River of Consciousness is one of two books Sacks was working on up to his death, and it reveals his ability to make unexpected connections, his sheer joy in knowledge, and his unceasing, timeless project to understand what makes us human.
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Important but Less Interesting
- By Michael on 11-16-17
By: Oliver Sacks
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The Craft
- How the Freemasons Made the Modern World
- By: John Dickie
- Narrated by: Simon Slater
- Length: 16 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Founded in London in 1717 as a way of binding men in fellowship, Freemasonry proved so addictive that within two decades it had spread across the globe. Masonic influence became pervasive. Under George Washington, the Craft became a creed for the new American nation. Masonic networks held the British empire together. Under Napoleon, the Craft became a tool of authoritarianism and then a cover for revolutionary conspiracy. Both the Mormon Church and the Sicilian mafia owe their origins to Freemasonry.
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The best book about Freemasonry out there.
- By Isaac Pea on 02-19-21
By: John Dickie
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Descent into Darkness
- Pearl Harbor, 1941, A Navy Diver's Memoir
- By: Edward C. Raymer
- Narrated by: Peter Johnson
- Length: 7 hrs and 24 mins
- Unabridged
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On December 7, 1941, as the great battleships Arizona, Oklahoma, and Utah lie paralyzed and burning in the aftermath of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. A crack team of U.S. Navy salvage divers headed by Edward C. Raymer are hurriedly flown to Oahu from the mainland. Their two-part orders are direct and straightforward: (1) rescue as many trapped sailors and Marines as possible, and (2) resurrect what remains of America's once mighty pacific fleet. Descent Into Darkness tells their story.
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A Massive Disappointment
- By Matthew on 10-14-15
By: Edward C. Raymer
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Index, a History of The
- A Bookish Adventure from Medieval Manuscripts to the Digital Age
- By: Dennis Duncan
- Narrated by: Neil Gardner
- Length: 8 hrs and 9 mins
- Unabridged
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Most of us give little thought to the back of the book - it's just where you go to look things up. But as Dennis Duncan reveals in this delightful and witty history, hiding in plain sight is an unlikely realm of ambition and obsession, sparring and politicking, pleasure and play. In the pages of the index, we might find "Butchers, to be avoided", or "Cows that shite Fire", or even catch "Calvin in his chamber with a Nonne". Here, for the first time, is the secret world of the index: an unsung but extraordinary everyday tool, with an illustrious but little-known past.
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Maybe a book that should be read rather than listened to
- By Amazon Customer on 11-09-22
By: Dennis Duncan
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The Treeline
- The Last Forest and the Future of Life on Earth
- By: Ben Rawlence
- Narrated by: Jamie Parker
- Length: 11 hrs and 59 mins
- Unabridged
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For the last 50 years, the trees of the boreal forest have been moving north. The Treeline takes us along this critical frontier of our warming planet from Norway to Siberia, Alaska to Greenland, to meet the scientists, residents, and trees confronting huge geological changes.
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A surprising find
- By BearheartRaven on 02-23-22
By: Ben Rawlence
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The Devil Finds Work
- An Essay
- By: James Baldwin
- Narrated by: Dion Graham
- Length: 3 hrs and 41 mins
- Unabridged
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Baldwin's personal reflections on movies gathered here in a book-length essay are also a probing appraisal of American racial politics. Offering an incisive look at racism in American movies and a vision of America's self-delusions and deceptions, Baldwin challenges the underlying assumptions in such films as In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who's Coming to Dinner, and The Exorcist.
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A Critical Masterpiece.
- By Ramon McGee on 05-10-18
By: James Baldwin
What listeners say about Lost in Math
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- Oliver
- 01-06-19
A timely critique
In the era of the reproducibility crisis, scientists from diverse disciplines often aspire to the standards of physics, where experimental results are orders of magnitude more reliable than elsewhere. Hossenfelder and Jennings point out that there is another problem eating away at many scientific disciplines, and specifically affecting theoretical particle physics: an overweening reliance on aesthetic judgements such as 'naturalness' and elegance. The authors offer a timely critique of this growing problem with detailed examples and compelling interviews -- while remaining circumspect about making philosophical assertions that generalize out of their area of expertise. I recommend this book to any practicing scientist or philosopher of science.
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25 people found this helpful
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- See Reverse
- 03-15-19
An Explanation of How the Physics Community Works
If you were curious about how the science of physics progresses - this is a fascinating read. The interconnection of theoretical physics, experimental physics, and mathematics is currently struggling through a period of difficult, high-cost experiments in order to progress to a better understanding of material reality. In the absence of new experiments, theoretical physics is favoring mathematical theories, like Super-Symmetry and String Theory which have "beautiful" ramifications for physics, but a continued lack of empirical support. In this book, Hossenfelder confronts the current state and bias of physics with an aim toward grounding physics in the physical world - a common-held belief that is now wavering in some pockets of the physics world.
Although this book focuses primarily on the system of people involved in advancing physics in the world today, it does address concerns of modernity: the busy, multi-tasked roles of physicists today is not improving the quality or advancement of the discipline. Where cutting edge physics experiments are expensive, putting a few string theorists on staff to draw attention to your department is cheap. Hossenfelder also provides a strong critique of economics... something like "economists are not advancing mathematics - even though string theory hasn't yet proved itself as a physical theory, at least it advances mathematics."
What a great listen - if you're at all interested in physics!
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22 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 05-19-23
A message from the trenches
At first I thought the book was too long for the simple thesis it’s presenting, namely that physicists have become obsessed with beauty as a criterion for truth. However, as the author developed and reiterated her point, the book never became boring. As a scientist at that precarious interface between dependence and independence, I appreciate her voice critical of the establishment but also constructive. Appendix C is worthy of becoming a manifesto. There are eloquent gems scattered throughout, for example, “it smelled of science - coffee”.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Anand
- 01-02-19
Problems in fundamental physics research today
Great book on the problems facing fundamental physics research today. The author does a great job of talking about the past successes of theoretical physics and how those approaches aren't working leading to questionable practices within the community. The book is written for audiences, both with or without a scientific background. I would strongly recommend it for anyone that is interested.
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64 people found this helpful
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- Jean
- 08-13-19
Excellent
Hossenfelder is a theoretical physicist. This is her first book written for the lay audience. The author is a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies in Germany. The book is about the abuse of mathematics while pretending to do science. The book is a series of interviews with well-known physicists. She builds a case of how science fails to self-correct itself and set about proving a theory. Hossenfelder does some critical thinking that she outlines in the book. I understand the politics of science and Hossenfelder put her career on the line by writing this book. If you are interested in science/physics, this is a worthwhile book to read.
The book is eight hours and forty minutes. Laura Jennings does a good job narrating the book. Jennings is a voice actor and full-time audiobook narrator.
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12 people found this helpful
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- @CyberSpaceSA
- 08-07-19
Lost in Humanity - A Story of Greed and Power
As a listener of many physics books, and in particular books related to general relativity and quantum mechanics, my opinion is that this is the best physics books I have listened to in over a year.
Sabine Hossenfelder has done an outstanding and courageous job of speaking truth-to-power in the high dollar game of physics research. Instead of taking the easy "me too" and "beauty and social acceptance" route, Sabine Hossenfelder simply tells us the truth.
This proves that, in every generation, society is dominated by trendy concepts of beauty, aesthetics, and herd mentality. The rise and dominance of social media has only made things worse.
I agree completely with Sabine Hossenfelder that there are serious problems is society and in physics research. I have had the same experience in cyber security.
When I wrote my paper where I coined the phrase "cyberspace situational awareness", at the time, the dominance of the herd mentality rejected my work. Then, decades later after the masses accepted my notion of CSA, then the herd mentality spins off into another "wrong direction".
Dominated by corporate greed, the funding game, clubbiness in the review of research papers, a culture of celebrity worship and ego; physics research has spun off into the land of beauty and herd mentality far from reality.
Sabine Hossenfelder had done an outstanding job as a truth-teller in a world where truth is not really appreciated as much as beauty and group think.
Highly Recommended.
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- Bill in CT
- 02-24-20
Important Course-Correction for Physics
Dr. Hossenfelder, a theoretical physicist, builds a compelling case against science done for the sake of beauty, naturalness, or occupational survival/justification/acceptance and how the popularity of some theories drives more science effort than results (or lack thereof). She argues convincingly that progress is inhibited by the sociology and psychology of physicists, limiting the questions they ask, the assumptions they make, and results they accept.
Physics, and all of the branches stemming therefrom, is in a crisis. This is not simply the fault of the scientists, but an inevitable result of the systems of science that are internationally used today. Skepticism is often replaced by the need to get the next grant, publish the next paper, or even just validating one's position in academia. Social bias (within the scientific community) and intuitive conceptions of beauty and naturalness conspire to suppress scientific skepticism.
Hossenfelder makes a case for recruiting philosophy to guide physics through the maze of questions that can be well served by scientific method and those that cannot. More than that, she decries invisible assumptions of elegance, symmetry, beauty, or naturalness that skew investments in experiments and investigations.
This book is an important call for changing the status quo and should be read by scientists across all fields and the nonscientists who fund their research.
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- Mark
- 01-04-20
Like reading Crichton for the first time, but true
A very even-handed and careful review of the philosophical problems corrupting modern physics, and science in general, and academia, and society.
Told as a review of conversations this physicist has had over the years, and published arguments and historical narratives, the author lasts out the thinking-problems that threaten to undermine the ivory tower.
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- eduardo flores
- 07-27-20
The state of the union of physics
I enjoyed the interviews with prominent scientist, and Sabine's views on scientist inability to let go theory's that have failed predictions. Or theory's that can't be tested. The narrator was good. I sped it up a little bit.
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- Thomas Legro
- 06-05-24
Great Insight Into the World of Theoretical Math
The author shows us what is going on in theoretical math and how at that level it’s just a bunch of people guessing about the makeup of nature. Few to which are willing to accept the obvious answer to the origin of everything. God
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