Bruno Mansoulie - Physics In Crisis: From Multiverses To Fake News

PHYSICS
IN CRISIS
From Multiverses to
Fake News

PHYSICS
IN CRISIS

From Multiverses to
Fake News

Bruno Mansouli

Universit Paris-Saclay, CEA, France

Translated from the French by Nanette McGuinness

Published by

World Scientific Publishing Europe Ltd.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Names: Mansoulie, Bruno, author.

Title: Physics in crisis : from multiverses to fake news / Bruno Mansoulie,
Universite Paris-Saclay, CEA, France ; translated from the French by Nanette McGuinness.

Other titles: Physique en crises. English

Description: New Jersey : World Scientific, [2023] | Includes index.

Identifiers: LCCN 2022006839 | ISBN 9781800612341 (hardcover) |
ISBN 9781800612358 (ebook for institutions) | ISBN 9781800612365 (ebook for individuals)

Subjects: LCSH: Physics--Philosophy.

Classification: LCC QC6 .M329513 2023 | DDC 530.01--dc23/eng20220422

LC record available at https://lccn.loc.gov/2022006839

British Library Cataloguing-in-Publication Data

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.

Copyright 2023 by World Scientific Publishing Europe Ltd.

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S cience and technology have never been a larger part of daily life than they are today. All over the planet, even in the most remote areas, people carry smartphones incredible amalgamations of the latest scientific advances that incorporate electronics (which are based on Quantum Theory) and GPS systems (which communicate with satellites and contain a correction from General Relativity). Technology has, indeed, become ubiquitous in modern society. However, this amazing effectiveness cannot hide the fact that science, particularly physics, is facing three major crises.

The first crisis affects all of science and is social in nature. The problem? The gap between science and the public has never been as wide as it is now. At a minimum, people take science for granted and pay little attention to the progress made or questions asked. Or people are concerned about its negative implications, rightfully questioning the risks and impact of technology on their way of life. At worst, people reject science and embrace all kinds of beliefs and fake facts, such as the flat Earth hypothesis, to only name one.

The second is specific to fundamental physics. We have long known that our understanding of physics is flawed, or at least incomplete. Observations of the cosmos at very large distances show that something exists (so-called dark matter and dark energy) something not described by our current theories. In terms of pure theory, we are facing several major problems, of which the most blatant is that our two most foundational theories Quantum Theory and General Relativity are incompatible.

Despite this incompatibility, physics remains an effective means of exploring our environment and the universe from the smallest scale (particles) to the largest (cosmology). Still, these problems have now been with us for quite a while; numerous attempts to solve them (such as the well-known Superstring Theory) have failed, and experiments have not yielded any clues toward a possible solution.

Are we, therefore, stuck with this impasse?

Perhaps or perhaps not. One recent development and also the third crisis is neither an advance in theory nor an unexpected observation: rather it is the rise of artificial intelligence, in particular, machine learning and big data. AI is already a game-changer in all of our lives, and it could soon be one for the way we do science as well. This could lead to a serious crisis if it forces us to abandon our cherished theories for black box algorithms.

Yet the seeds of a solution to the first two crises may lie in this third one: AI could also lead to an answer or part of one. As people become more and more accustomed to algorithms and their not-so-obscure operations, the gap between the public and science may well narrow. Maybe the public will even find AI easier to comprehend than Quantum Theory and General Relativity!

As for the internal crisis in physics, AI algorithms may provide the missing link between our theories and observations. This link would not necessarily be a large Aha! advance, such as those made by Newton or Einstein. But who says that we will always solve the problems in physics with an Aha theory?

Before we address such deep, thorny questions, it might be good to start with much simpler ones: how do we represent the world around us? What is a theory in physics, and further, what is a good theory?

Using simple language and insightful examples, Physics in Crisis begins with these basic questions and then turns to the more complex ones. The author ends with his own, personal viewpoint, a call to: reinstate the values of Enlightenment; take advantage of these crises to reconcile the public with science; foster a renewed appreciation of the beauty of science; and espouse a rationalist spirituality!

Bruno Mansouli is a senior scientist at the Particle Physics Division of the Commissariat lEnergie Atomique et aux Energies Alternatives, CEA (Alternative Energies and Atomic Energy Commission in France), which he has led for five years. He contributed to the hunt and discovery of the Higgs boson at the Large Hadron Collider (LHC), the worlds largest particle collider, which is operated by/at CERN (the European Laboratory for Particle Physics). He enjoys reaching out to science enthusiasts during conferences and through various popular media.

Photo by Russ Fischella

Award-winning opera singer Nanette McGuinness is the translator of 80 books and graphic novels for adults and children from French, Italian, and German into English. Her translation of Luisa: Now and Then was a 2019 Stonewall Honor Book.