Book Review: 'Existential Physics' by Sabine Hossenfelder

A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions

Mysteries of the universe - explained with no math!

Mathematicians can glance at a complex equation and understand it much as the rest of us would scan a sentence. (I knew an accountant once who insisted on writing letters in Excel because he was more comfortable with it.) Sabine Hossenfelder is a German mathematician who frets a lot about physics - particularly the big picture, astrophysics, and the tiniest stuff, quantum mechanics.

She is a self-professed agnostic, but she isn’t encouraging anyone to deny their beliefs in the metaphysical realm. Unlike some other practitioners of empirical studies, she simply states that questions science can’t answer plausibly are out of scope for her. And she goes on to say - admirably, I think - that scientists shouldn’t preach about things they don’t understand. She gives numerous examples of beliefs that may have consensus among scientists but, when you drill into the math, there is no verifiable evidence whatever for them.

Good thing I had a new pad of Post-It notes!