Quantum mechanics contended investigation could get to the sub-atomic level by using a microscope beaming electrons rather than light to explore atomic structure. X-rays got them to the level of atoms and molecules.

Particle physicists see the job as digging down to the core structure of matter for a “theory of everything.” Early observers of the physical world relied on light waves and microscopes to provide high resolution measurements at the level of biological cells. The elementary particles are foundational because they are presumed to combine to produce the molecules, atoms, and proteins that make up the matter we can readily observe and measure directly. In quantum particle physics, scientists seek merely to detect interactions since sub-atomic particles themselves cannot be observed individually or directly. In the vast reaches of the cosmos, however, astronomic physicists postulate a Concordance Model where matter interacts according to General Relativity equation basics of space, gravity, and time. At the atomic level, particle physicists have advanced a Standard Model comprised of twenty-five sub-atomic particle elements that interact in ways described by mathematical equations from quantum mechanics. Physics is the master science that starts with matter assumed to be composed of fundamental elements-meaning matter that cannot be derived from anything simpler. Hossenfelder is a resident particle physics scholar at Germany’s prestigious Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, and begins her little masterpiece with a basic lesson in physics. Sabine Hossenfelder’s little book Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray asks the most important questions about scientific knowledge and deserves serious attention from anyone who wants to understand what we know, and what we do not, about science basics.ĭr. Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, by Sabine Hossenfelder (304 pages, Basic Books, 2018) Now, when the subatomic world and the cosmological universe seem to reveal some of the inconsistencies in modern theoretical physics, could the whole idea of a world sitting on fundamental elements be in question?

Hossenfelder lost in math