“What’s wrong with Physics” is an interview with a relatively unknown quantum optics professor Chris Search. Horgan, the author and conductor of the interview, is more than credible for this interview. He has written multiple books on different topics and problems regarding science and directs the Center for Science Writings at the Stevens Institute of Technology. The questions he asks in this interview are mostly hard hitting and without fluff showing that he’s actually attempting to get some tangible response from Chris. Throughout the interview Horgan asks Chris about multiple disparaging problems going on in the Physics community. One such important and hotly debated topic is diversity within the Physics department of which Chris strongly believes there should be more but that there is relatively no change throughout the years as to its increase. The target audience of this interview is mostly students, faculty, researchers that are interested in science and physics and possibly even avid readers of scientific american. That is why the Horgan asks questions that would be known to people that are students or avid readers of scientific american such as, “If you were Physics Czar, would you pull the plug on any projects? Increase funding for any?” The point of this text is to get a high level physicists opinion on pressing matters happening within the community. However I think it is more telling of what Chris doesn’t say. He doesn’t talk about the problem of putting a paywall behind information which has plagued the scientific community for the past 20 years and instead says “war is good for physics”. He doesn’t talk about why there is such a lack of diversity in the field of Physics when asked about it. He doesn’t even make a case for the clear need for theoretical physics if we are to find a tangible way of measuring these so-called “immeasurable questions” as he refers to them. I think this instead points to the broader problem that because his life’s work is tied to an institution giving him funding he either cannot say much about things he really feels or refuses to feel them in the first place. The genre is an interview but it feels relatively one-sided. I think Horgan tried his best to get something interesting and something that would add to the conversation (or lack thereof for while trying to find articles on diversity in physics I could find relatively nothing) but is met with a brick wall or in this case a fat wallet. The questions he asked were hard hitting and necessary questions to ask, now more than ever, but I don’t know if the old dogs are the ones we should be hearing opinions from. 

Source: https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/cross-check/whats-wrong-with-physics/#

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