Theoretical physicists aren't doing physics

Sabine Hossenfelder believes that physics is stuck in a black hole.

We’ve let them spend billions of our dollars chasing empirical detection of well-theorised particles like the Top Quark and the Higgs Boson. I’ll grant the validity of the scientody. But frankly, these physicists could have waited. I ask, what of all this research can we use on Earth or in space. Better radiation shielding? Tunneling methods?

This is why I’ve been doing this series. I want that we reorient our scientists toward the lower-energy sciences of engineering and chemistry. The papers which Einstein published in 1905 were sufficient for that. Space, carbon-dioxide atmospheres, and gravity are sufficient challenges for our generation. In mathematics, I’d point to P ?= NP and Navier-Stokes existence.

At this point I’m up for challenging any physicist who tells us he’s working on particle-physics. “Why aren’t you putting your maths to work on turbulence,” I’d ask him. “And if you’re now doing ‘postempiric science’ then when are you applying for a move to your theology department.”

(In this blog’s context, that is not an insult; it is a serious question.)