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Sabine Hossenfelder - Five Way Interview

Image © Joerg Steinmetz
Sabine Hossenfelder grew up in Frankfurt, Germany. She has a PhD in physics and is presently a Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies. Her current work is mostly in the foundation of physics. She has written over 80 research papers on topics ranging from quantum gravity to particle physics, cosmology, astrophysics, statistical mechanics, and quantum foundations. 

Sabine is creator of the popular YouTube channel Science without the gobbledygook. Her first book Lost in Math was published by Basic Books in June 2018. Her writing has been published, amongst others, in Scientific American, New Scientist, The Guardian, Aeon, Nautilus, and the New York Times. Her latest book is Existential Physics: A Scientist's Guide to Life's Biggest Questions.

Why Science?

Because I’m a curious person and science constantly teaches me new things. 

Why this book?

Physics taught us some deep lessons about the nature of time and reality and the limits of science that I think physicists don’t talk about enough. I wanted to tell people what we have learned, but also tell them where physics crosses over into pure speculation. So my book basically demarks the boundary between physics and religion and philosophy.

Why is the distinction between unscientific and ascientific important?

It’s like the distinction between atheist and agnostic. An atheist does not believe that god exists, an agnostic has no opinion about whether god exists or not – it’s a neutral position. We call something unscientific when it does not follow scientific methodology. By ascientific I mean something that science says nothing about. For example, planning your day based on what the horoscope says is unscientific. The idea that other universes exist that we cannot interact with is ascientific. Science can’t tell us whether they exist, but it also can’t tell us that they don’t exist. It’s not unscientific to believe in those other universes.

The distinction matters to me because ascientific ideas I think should have a place in our lives, and brains, and hearts. They should not be thrown out with those ideas that go against science just because our vocabulary doesn’t distinguish the two. 

What's next?

I am planning to have a weekly “Science News” show on my YouTube channel “Science Without the Gobbledygook”. As you can probably guess, I spend a lot of time reading science news, but not everyone has the time. So, once a week, I want to summarize the biggest science news for busy people, and hopefully have some interesting conversations about them! We’ll start this in a 10 week trial in early October. 

What's exciting you at the moment?

Like all astrophysicists, I am excited about the results from the Webb telescope. The data from early galaxies could really shake things up, and finally convince the community that the dark matter hypothesis has severe shortcomings. 

Interview by Brian Clegg - See all of Brian's online articles or subscribe to a digest free here

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