Gabe Jee

“When asked to judge the promise of a newly invented but untested theory, physicist draw on the concepts of naturalness simplicity or elegance and beauty. These hidden rules are ubiquitous in the foundations of physics. They are invaluable. And in utter conflic with the scientific mandate of objectivity.”
― Sabine Hossenfelder, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray

“If historicism were consistent, it would have to concede the right of history to every historical being, and therefore it must not stick anywhere, precisely because it should stick everywhere. As a world view, it makes the lack of principles a principle....”
― Heinrich Rickert

“It took twenty-five years from the prediction of the neutrino to its detection, almost fifty years to confirm the Higgs boson, a hundred years to directly detect gravitational waves. Now the time it takes to test a new fundamental law of nature can be longer than a scientist’s full career. This forces theorists to draw upon criteria other than empirical adequacy to decide which research avenues to pursue. Aesthetic appeal is one of them. In our search for new ideas, beauty plays many roles. It’s a guide, a reward, a motivation. It is also a systematic bias.”
― Sabine Hossenfelder, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray