Conversation
Notices
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#toread lee smolin's 'the trouble with physics', overview of modern physics, dead ends and slow progress
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@clacke It is mostly an evisceration of string theory and the theorists that work on it. I don't disagree with some of his points - for instance, how funding is distributed among theoretical efforts - but it is also a bit dated now. Theorists move with the fashions - in a scientific sense, where the data lead - and today the Higgs Boson and its implications for near-term physics is all the rage... As it should be, because it exists.
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@steve Thanks for the review! Any counter-recommendation of a good read?
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@steve Is "Fashion, Faith, and Fantasy in the New Physics of the Universe" by Penrose something I might want to read/watch?
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@clacke How about "The 4% Universe"? And I am not just recommending it because my wife appears in the book. :-)
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@steve @clacke I read that, too. It's not bad, but ultimately unsatisfying because it boils down too 'we have no idea what dark matter and dark energy are'.
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@lambadalambda @steve Well. It's true, isn't it?
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@lambadalambda @steve Dark energy is a rounding error in the algorithm that runs the universe. It made things interesting so was left in.