Is it science?

Some time ago, one of my cousins asked me whether he should pursue a PhD in Physics. After some reflection, I told him that if I had to chose again, it would not be physics. All the groundbreaking work seemed to have happened more than 75 years ago and life of most PhD students consisted of doing specialist work in a small domain. Unless you were very gifted, it would be difficult to work on the big questions of science. If I were in his shoes, I would choose neuroscience instead - not because it is necessarily simpler but because there was more ground to cover and therefore more opportunity.

Over the past 30 year, the big project in the foundations of physics has been string theory, a candidate for a Theory of Everything. I don’t really understand string theory as the mathematics required is beyond my reach as an experimental scientist. My intuition though is that we are stuck, or, if we are not stuck, that progress has become less meaningful. If we can’t decide from observation whether string theory is better than what we have today, it doesn’t penetrate our reality and all we are left with is telling stories.

Despite the mathematical elegance and depth of string theory, we may need a reset: ask different questions, generate new ideas or pursue fresh paths of inquiry. Why did the universe start in such a low entropy state, why does the universe give rise to structure and increasing functional complexity, including life and consciousness? What does the end look like? And maybe while we are at it: what makes the wave function collapse?

My cousin decided to pursue Physics