Existential Physics
On Sabine Hossenfelder
[Disclosure: One of the perks of being a featured writer (Psychology and Cosmology for all to Read) for a popular online magazine, medium.com, is that I get latitude as to when and what I choose to write.]
Another perk, as an insider is that I get to see who is hot and who is not, Sabine Hossenfelder, a German researcher into the foundations of physics, is hot. She’s already published over 50 papers in professional journals within her field. She is about to publish her second book, Existential Physics. Her first book, Lost in Math- How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, (which I reviewed positively), was a solid success. Peter Woit, author of Not Even Wrong, and John Horgan, author of the international bestseller; The End of Science, are on record as praising her for being a fearless thinker. Lawrence Krauss, the author of Star Trek Physics, says, “part Gonzo-Journalism, curious child, part teacher, and part accomplished researcher; Sabine Hossenfelder is a unique writing talent and a unique popularizer. Her blog, Backreaction, which she started a number of years ago is one of the most popular in the world.
As if this were not enough, she single-handedly writes, directs, sings, and performs in her own music-based physics videos which, according to John Horgan, are internet sensations (seen by millions).
She considers the standard model of particle physics, which has not discovered a new particle other than the Higgs Boson, predicted some 40 years ago by Nobelist, Peter Higgs — as an embarrassment.
As a professional Psychotherapist, for the past 35 years, in addition to being a writer, I especially admire her candor when it comes to self-assessment; in spite of winning an award for being the “best young German researcher to come along in quite a while, “ she refers to herself as a mediocre thinker. Her mission, as she sees it, is a purgative one; she wants to expose self-important theoreticians who make extravagant claims for unproven theories purporting to be on the cutting edge of answering the big questions. She refuses anything less than the gold standard of experimental physics; five-sigma certainty ( 1 in 3.5 million chances of being wrong.)
She believes physicists will hate her writing because it is against building a bigger LHC (with a $12 Billion price tag.) She’s tired of pursuing dead ends.
Several years ago, she made a rare US appearance at an event held in the NYU School of Journalism — Mind Blowing Physics- A Conversation between Sabine Hossenfelder and Natalie Wolchover. To attend was an offer I could not refuse: everyone and anyone could attend for free!
Just before she was about to mount the stage there was a brief meet and greet in the audience. I was counting on the fact that in order to ignore me, once I’d introduced myself, she’d have to spend enough time to realize I was not too big to offend.
She’s a slight figure (approximately five feet tall, give or take an inch or two) but as they say in boxing, “she punches above her weight class.” I waited until I literally found myself inches from her body (thus — I hope- there was plausible deniability, whether it was the chaotic jostling of the crowd and not my own pushiness that was bringing us face to face.
At the last moment, I introduced myself and presented my credentials. No response. I told her I’d been following her blog, Backreaction, for a number of years now, and how much I enjoyed it (which was exactly true). Again, no reaction. She was giving me nothing.
I told her how impressed I was that she spoke and wrote in the columns in her second language as well as she did. No response. And that was that. I had had about as much of her contrariness as I could take. Something in me rose up; I would not be shooed away so easily. I would counter her rock-solid negativity with my rhino stubbornness, I would make her work to get rid of me. “I’m looking forward to your new book,” I told her. She says to me, “why?!” “I’ve heard some nice things about it in advance, “ I said. She looked at me like, “What? Who?” Without batting an eyelash when I mentioned a notable name, she snapped, “He’s not a physicist!” “Ok, well how about….” and I mentioned another even more famous author who was also in attendance at the event. She said, “He’s a journalist!” I mentioned a third name, a world-famous physicist who’d written her a review. To this, she said, “he’s a friend,” as though this fact prevented his being an admirer. I mentioned that Fabian, her husband, was a fan of her work. “He hasn’t even read it!”
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Now I remembered why I had been struck by her brutally honest self-description. She’d spoken in her blog on how stubborn and ungovernable she’d been as a child, how her teachers would refer her for behavioral therapy, how she wound up with a long list of DSM classifiers, but how she’d also been someone who never gave an (obscenity) about what other people thought and was proud of it. When she was asked to pick a vocation, she was advised not to pick science, communication, or anything involving interacting with people, but the only thing that interested her were those subjects that she pursued anyway, despite her advisors. So long as she was left to her work she was alright.
Competence was not the problem. She was more than a good student, she was a bold, original, brilliant young thinker. The problem was people: she just didn’t seem to understand people and she was fond of saying this. So I nodded my goodbye. “It’s been an honor meeting you,” I said. She looked at me and said nothing. On a sudden impulse, before I took my leave, I told her: “I like your singing.” She bent over as if she were having a visceral reaction to what I’d just said. “Ho, ho, ha, haha…he likes my music.” My best guess as to what this gesture might’ve meant was: “this guy, does he really think he can butter me up by praising my music?!”
You’ve Come a Long Way
Twenty-five years ago, Sabine Hossenfelder, a young, German, Post-Graduate, science researcher, won a prize for being the best young scientist to come along in years. Her specialty was the foundations of physics. As a dedicated experimentalist, she was painfully aware that the next generation of the cyclotron (at a cost of over $12 billion) was hopelessly out of reach. But she was never a quitter and always a fighter. For 20 years she plunged into the heart of darkness (except for the Higgs Boson, which has been the fate of the so-called Standard Model of particle physics: no new particles discovered for the past 40 years.
Understandably she seemed bitter when I caught my first and only glance of her at the NYU event- Mind Blowing Physics- A Conversation between Sabine Hossenfelder and Natalie Wolchover.
It seemed pretty obvious she was considering leaving the field. But to do what? Go where?
One of the most vivid parts of her first book (Lost in Math) is her description of herself sitting on the floor among still unopened boxes of books. Will it be renewed?
Rumors swirled. We may be seeing the last of the inscrutable but charismatic Sabine Hossenfelder. Then, as they say, life intervened. She published her first long-awaited book (Lost in Math): this is her takeaway — “her takeoff and takedown of what it was like to be an award-winning and vibrant researcher in an unpopular and esoteric field of particle physics. She summed it up in a single word: “embarrassing.” How? What changed? Everything!
On just about every level the book is a resounding success. In the world of science writing, communications, related blogging, and interviews she is everywhere. She finds herself benefiting from new streams of income that she didn’t think possible. Thousands of fans have texted their appreciation and millions now follow her music. Now, surprisingly, her philosophy changed. She is still an experimentalist in the sense that the theories must be connected to the real world and these must make new predictions, and survive the rigors of experimental testing. She’s still a contrarian, a skeptic when it comes to visionary theories such as the Multiverse, which are utterly beyond most cutting-edge technology at present.
But her second book nonetheless brings us a softer, kinder Sabine Hossenfelder. In the book, she talks about how much her writing means to her. In the acknowledgment she thanks her husband, Fabian. “Existential Physics is dedicated to my husband Stefan, who has suffered through more than his fair share of long-distance relationships. Over the past 20 years, we have known each other, he has endured dozens of twists and turns in my whatabouts and whereabouts, yet we somehow managed to get married, to stay married, and raise two reasonably normal children. For all that time Stefan has been unswerving in his support and for so much more.”
The book is enlivened with four in-person interviews of eminent figures as David Deutsch, Roger Penrose, Zeeya Merali, and Tim Palmer.
I especially enjoyed her interview with David Deutsch. He’s a known genius, prolific pioneer, and recipient of a long list of honors and awards. I know almost nothing about Quantum Computing and have relatively minimal interest in the subject but have a great deal of admiration for his creativity. I like the respect with which Deutsch treated Sabine, as well as the affection and charismatic relationship they have with one another.
Sabrina Hossenfelder has brought her A-game to her second book. Who is this book for? You don’t have to be an Existentialist to like this book; you just have to be someone who’s curious- about how the world, with its layers of marketing moonshine peeled away, really is.
Gerald Alper is the author of Portrait of Artist as a Young Patient (Psychodynamic Studies of the Creative Personality), and his most recent book: God and Therapy (What We Believe When No One is Watching).
