12 Issues for the Future
239
Some readers would say that such questions belong in the fields of philosophy, metaphysics and/or religion, because it is impossible to ever explore
these issues with the methodology of science, as no observations of the early
days of the universe are possible. Since the time of Galileo, theory and experiment (or observation) have progressed together in a symbiotic relationship
that has produced our modern technological world. However, there are many
who believe almost religiously (as did Dirac) that beauty is a better guide to
the veracity of a theory than experiment or observation. In part, this attitude
has been forced upon cosmologists by the difficulty (or even impossibility)
of obtaining observations in the regions of space-time now of critical interest
(e.g. near the big bang singularity).
Fundamental Particle physicists are also faced with difficulties, albeit of a
somewhat different nature. In their case, following the triumphant discovery
of the Higgs boson in 2012, the pickings from Cern’s Large Hadron Collider
have been meagre indeed. Most of the particles predicted by the various
extant theories have steadfastly refused to make an appearance, and theorists have attributed this reluctance to insufficient energies in the collider
beam. They have registered their desire for a more energetic accelerator, but
such devices, with their billion dollar price tags, must compete in priority
with feeding the starving masses, solving the climate change problem, curing
cancer, and other more urgent issues.
As a consequence of the difficulty in obtaining appropriate data in the
two fields that lay at the vanguard of modern physics, we now appear to
have entered an era of post-empiricism, where the beauty of the mathematical
equations is used in selecting which areas to pursue. But beauty according to
whom? Without the constraining hand of experiment to guide us, beauty is
now given a license it has never had since the time of Galileo. The lauding of
beauty (aka symmetry) in the Twentieth Century resulted in some stunning
successes, for instance, in Quantum Electrodynamics and the Standard Model
of Particle Physics. However, if a theory did not pass the test of experiment,
beauty was not of itself a sufficient criterion for its acceptance.
For many astronomers, the Steady State Theory of the universe was more
“beautiful” than the currently accepted theory, with its ugly Big Bang singularity at the origin of space-time. However, the Steady State Theory was
discarded without compunction when sufficient observational evidence had
accumulated against it. To further complicate the issue, beauty is as subjective in mathematical equations as it is in art galleries. Some researchers show
a very human tendency to find beauty in their own equations, and ugliness
in those of their colleagues. In any case, as Sabine Hossenfelder asks in Lost
in Math: “Why should the laws of nature care what I find beautiful [4]?”
239
Some readers would say that such questions belong in the fields of philosophy, metaphysics and/or religion, because it is impossible to ever explore
these issues with the methodology of science, as no observations of the early
days of the universe are possible. Since the time of Galileo, theory and experiment (or observation) have progressed together in a symbiotic relationship
that has produced our modern technological world. However, there are many
who believe almost religiously (as did Dirac) that beauty is a better guide to
the veracity of a theory than experiment or observation. In part, this attitude
has been forced upon cosmologists by the difficulty (or even impossibility)
of obtaining observations in the regions of space-time now of critical interest
(e.g. near the big bang singularity).
Fundamental Particle physicists are also faced with difficulties, albeit of a
somewhat different nature. In their case, following the triumphant discovery
of the Higgs boson in 2012, the pickings from Cern’s Large Hadron Collider
have been meagre indeed. Most of the particles predicted by the various
extant theories have steadfastly refused to make an appearance, and theorists have attributed this reluctance to insufficient energies in the collider
beam. They have registered their desire for a more energetic accelerator, but
such devices, with their billion dollar price tags, must compete in priority
with feeding the starving masses, solving the climate change problem, curing
cancer, and other more urgent issues.
As a consequence of the difficulty in obtaining appropriate data in the
two fields that lay at the vanguard of modern physics, we now appear to
have entered an era of post-empiricism, where the beauty of the mathematical
equations is used in selecting which areas to pursue. But beauty according to
whom? Without the constraining hand of experiment to guide us, beauty is
now given a license it has never had since the time of Galileo. The lauding of
beauty (aka symmetry) in the Twentieth Century resulted in some stunning
successes, for instance, in Quantum Electrodynamics and the Standard Model
of Particle Physics. However, if a theory did not pass the test of experiment,
beauty was not of itself a sufficient criterion for its acceptance.
For many astronomers, the Steady State Theory of the universe was more
“beautiful” than the currently accepted theory, with its ugly Big Bang singularity at the origin of space-time. However, the Steady State Theory was
discarded without compunction when sufficient observational evidence had
accumulated against it. To further complicate the issue, beauty is as subjective in mathematical equations as it is in art galleries. Some researchers show
a very human tendency to find beauty in their own equations, and ugliness
in those of their colleagues. In any case, as Sabine Hossenfelder asks in Lost
in Math: “Why should the laws of nature care what I find beautiful [4]?”