Adam Brown

Really?

Well...

in the narrow domain of high-energy theoretical physics.

I mean, there's many more physicists than that if you include people more generally, but they're sufficiently specialized.

I mean, that's partly part of the reason, is that it's a much more specialized field.

So in a very specialized field, the number of people who would actually write that paper is a much smaller number.

Yeah, we look back on the golden era of physics, you know, from the 1900 through 1970s or something, you know, as a period when things happened.

I do think there is a low-hanging fruit aspect to it.

I mean, we already talked about how the Standard Model is so successful in terms of particle colliders that it's just hard to make rapid progress thereafter.

So I don't really see it as a dysfunction of the field so much as being a victim of our own success.

Having said that, does physics have fads?

Does physics have fashions?

Does physics have any of these other things?

Absolutely it does.

But quite how much counterfactual progress we'd make if that weren't true, I don't know.

It doesn't necessarily pay to be well calibrated.

And that incentive structure is perhaps reflected in the poor calibration of many of the best physicists.

First of all, because physics is a sufficiently mature field, all the good ideas that look like good ideas have already been had, or many of them.

Where we're at now is the good ideas that look like bad ideas.

So in order to motivate yourself to get over the hump of get over the barrier and actually explore them, you need a little bit of