James Drogan

Surfing the Universe is a fascinating article from July 21, 2008 issue of The New Yorker.  Only the abstract of the article is, at the time of this posting, available online.

'Physicists have long looked to higher math for insights into the workings of the universe.  "If a figure is so beautiful and intricate and clear, you figure is must not exist for itself alone," John Baez, professor of mathematics at the University of California at Riverside, said.  "It must correspond to something in real world."  This instinct -- the assumption that beauty will stand for truth -- has become a habit.  Some physicists now worry that string theory's mathematics has grown permanently unmoored from the real world -- an exercise in its own complexity.  And so modern theoretical physics has become, in part, an argument about aesthetics.'

Hence, the fact versus fancy portion of the title of this post.

I'm reminded here of the words of Paul Samuelson.

“There is no substitute for paying attention to the empirical facts of life, and no substitute for systematic reasoning about them.”

I'm no physicist and am not taking stand against string theory, apparently the most widely (and wildly?) accepted approach to developing the Theory of Everything.  But I am taking a stand against becoming "...unmoored from the real world..." regardless of the subject under consideration.

The other thing that comes to me from the article is the close-mindedness of people.  There is progress to made on a number of fronts -- finding the Theory of Everything may not be amongst the most urgent issues that need to be tackled -- and that progress is likely not to be what is required if thinkers become insular.

"If stated reasons don't sit well with your conscience or stand the test of logic, look for deeper motivations."

Docent Glax Othn in Dune: The Butlerian Jihad.