Fallible Animals Episode 10: Interview with Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder

Fallible Animals Episode 10: Interview with Physicist Sabine Hossenfelder

Author: Logan Chipkin November 30, 2019 Duration: 46:10

I interview physicist and science writer Sabine Hossenfelder. She is a Research Fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, where she leads the Analog Systems for Gravity Duals group and researches quantum gravity. We discuss ideas from her book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray, such as the role of philosophical ideas of beauty, naturalness, and elegance in fundamental physics and the sociological factors that affect scientific research. We also discuss often misunderstood ideas in fundamental physics, such as the difference between a Grand Unified Theory and a Theory of Everything, and the difference between time-invariance and time reversibility. 

Dr. Hossenfelder's Twitter - @skdh

Dr. Hossenfelder's book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray - https://www.amazon.com/Lost-Math-Beauty-Physics-Astray-ebook/dp/B0763L6YR7

Dr. Hossenfelder's website - http://sabinehossenfelder.com

Dr. Hossendelder's blog - http://backreaction.blogspot.com

My appearance on Christofer Lovgren's podcast, Do Explain - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/5-big-three-case-against-government-logan-chipkin/id1482313214?i=1000457352171

My recent article with Areo Magazine, People and the Cosmos: Constructor Theory - https://areomagazine.com/2019/11/25/people-and-the-cosmos-constructor-theory/

Patreon - https://www.patreon.com/Fallibleanimals

Twitter - https://twitter.com/ChipkinLogan

Articles - www.loganchipkin.com



Hosted by Logan Chipkin, Fallible Animals is a podcast built on the premise that our best ideas are always provisional, open to revision and improvement. Each episode is a deep, meandering conversation that connects dots across disciplines, from the foundational questions in physics and philosophy to the practical frameworks of economics and ethical reasoning. The discussions are less about delivering definitive answers and more about tracing the evolution of thought, examining how concepts have shifted over time and why that matters for understanding our world today. You’ll hear explorations of complex theories broken down with patience, focusing on the arguments themselves and the human tendency to get things wrong-and then, hopefully, less wrong. It’s an educational series that treats learning as an active, never-finished process. The aim is to create a space for thoughtful inquiry, where listening feels like participating in a sustained, collaborative investigation rather than passively receiving information. For those who find value in these long-form explorations, supporting the ongoing work through Chipkin’s Patreon page helps ensure the podcast and related writing projects continue.
Author: Language: English Episodes: 23

Fallible Animals
Podcast Episodes
Fallible Animals Episode 2: Intro to Critical Rationalism [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 16:35
We begin our discussion of the philosophy of knowledge called Critical Rationalism. We briefly review the intellectual climate in which it was created, and we discuss some of the core concepts, such as the conjectural na…
Fallible Animals Episode 1: Introduction [not-audio_url] [/not-audio_url]

Duration: 3:31
Introduction episode to the Fallible Animals podcast. I very briefly describe the philosophy of critical rationalism, and I hint at the worldview that will be the foundation of the show. More on both in future episodes,…