Sabine Hossenfelder, John Ellis and Jim Baggott debate particle physics.

Watch the full debate at https://iai.tv/video/the-mystery-of-reality?utm_source=YouTube&utm_medium=description

At the heart of our understanding of reality is physics, the cornerstone of science. But it appears to be in all sorts of trouble. For decades it has been predicted that we would find 'supersymmetry' - a set of parallel particles for all those we currently understand to exist. It was the solution to many inconsistencies and deep puzzles in our current theory. 10,000 scientists collaborated to build The Large Hadron Collider to find the evidence. But year has followed year and no evidence of the predicted supersymmetric particles has been found. Is supersymmetry dead, and with it string theory, the theory of everything, and the life's work of many leading particle physicists? Is our underlying theory, the Standard Model, fundamentally mistaken? Must we conclude that the whole framework of contemporary physics might be wrong? And if so, where can we turn for an alternative?

#SabineHossenfelder #particlephysics #JohnEllis

Sabine Hossenfelder is a research fellow at the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, author of Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray and regular contributor to Forbes and the popular physics blog Backreaction.

Jim Baggott is a science writer, writing on science, philosophy and science history. He is a regular contributor to New Scientist and Nature. Baggott is the author of nine books, including Farewell to Reality: How Modern Physics Has Betrayed the Search for Scientific Truth, Higgs: The Invention and Discovery of the God Particle and The Quantum Story: A History in 40 Moments.

Clerk Maxwell Professor of Theoretical Physics at King’s College London who has worked extensively at CERN, and advocates the extension of the particle accelerator programme. His research focuses on phenomenological aspects of particle physics. Professor Ellis coined the term ‘theory of everything’, and in 1976 he coauthored the first paper on how to find the Higgs boson.

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