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chriskanan · 74 days ago

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an_cap · 74 days ago

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Ma8ee · 74 days ago
I think this is the Royal Academy of Sciences way to admit that Physics as a research subject has ground to a halt. String theory suffocated theoretical high energy physics for nearly half a century with nothing to show for it, and a lot of other areas of fundamental physics are kind of done.

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openrisk · 74 days ago
This does indeed smell of desperation. Which is really, really sad. Advances in _real_ physics are central to the absolutely needed sustainability transition. In a sane society that values its self-preservation you would not need to grasp at second-order straws to justify the need for all sorts of both fundamental and applied physics research.

We need to think seriously whether our collective hallucinations (pun) have got us to some sort of tipping point, undermining our very ability to act according to our best long-term interests.

ps. not to imply anything negative about the worthiness of the awardees in general

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ecosystem · 74 days ago
Hopfield made substantial contributions (Nobel-contention work) in multiple fields, which is truly astonishing: Kinetic proofreading (biochemistry/biophysics), HopNets (ML), long distance electron transfer (physics), and much more.

Welcome news that he finally got there.