Special Breakthrough Prize
awarded for Supergravity
Sabine Hossenfelder
The Breakthrough Prize is an initiative founded by billionaire
Yuri Milner, now funded by a group of rich people which includes, next to
Milner himself, Sergey Brin, Anne Wojcicki, and Mark Zuckerberg. The Prize is
awarded in three different categories, Mathematics, Fundamental Physics, and
Life Sciences. Today, a Special Breakthrough Prize in Fundamental Physics has
been awarded to Sergio Ferrara, Dan Freedman, and Peter van
Nieuwenhuizen for the invention of supergravity in 1976. The Prize of 3 million
US$ will be split among the winners.
Interest in supergravity arose in the 1970s when physicists began to search for a theory of everything that would combine all four known fundamental forces to one. By then, string theory had been shown to require supersymmetry, a hypothetical new symmetry which implies that all the already known particles have – so far undiscovered – partner particles. Supersymmetry, however, initially only worked for the three non-gravitational forces, that is the electromagnetic force and the strong and weak nuclear forces. With supergravity, gravity could be included too, thereby bringing physicists one step closer to their goal of unifying all the interactions.
In supergravity, the gravitational interaction is associated with a messenger particle – the graviton – and this graviton has a supersymmetric partner particle called the “gravitino”. There are several types of supergravitational theories, because there are different ways of realizing the symmetry. Supergravity in the context of string theory always requires additional dimensions of space, which have not been seen. The gravitational theory one obtains this way is also not the same as Einstein’s General Relativity, because one gets additional fields that can be difficult to bring into agreement with observation. (For more about the problems with string theory, please watch my video.)
To date, we have no evidence that supergravity is a correct description of nature. Supergravity may one day become useful to calculate properties of certain materials, but so far this research direction has not led to much.
The works by Ferrera, Freedman, and van Nieuwenhuizen have arguably been influential, if by influential you mean that papers have been written about it. Supergravity and supersymmetry are mathematically very fertile ideas. They lend themselves to calculations that otherwise would not be possible and that is how, in the past four decades, physicists have successfully built a beautiful, supersymmetric, math-castle on nothing but thin air.
Awarding a scientific prize, especially one accompanied by so much publicity, for an idea that has no evidence speaking for it, sends the message that in the foundations of physics contact to observation is no longer relevant. If you want to be successful in my research area, it seems, what matters is that a large number of people follow your footsteps, not that your work is useful to explain natural phenomena. This Special Prize doesn’t only signal to the public that the foundations of physics are no longer part of science, it also discourages people in the field from taking on the hard questions. Congratulations.
Interest in supergravity arose in the 1970s when physicists began to search for a theory of everything that would combine all four known fundamental forces to one. By then, string theory had been shown to require supersymmetry, a hypothetical new symmetry which implies that all the already known particles have – so far undiscovered – partner particles. Supersymmetry, however, initially only worked for the three non-gravitational forces, that is the electromagnetic force and the strong and weak nuclear forces. With supergravity, gravity could be included too, thereby bringing physicists one step closer to their goal of unifying all the interactions.
In supergravity, the gravitational interaction is associated with a messenger particle – the graviton – and this graviton has a supersymmetric partner particle called the “gravitino”. There are several types of supergravitational theories, because there are different ways of realizing the symmetry. Supergravity in the context of string theory always requires additional dimensions of space, which have not been seen. The gravitational theory one obtains this way is also not the same as Einstein’s General Relativity, because one gets additional fields that can be difficult to bring into agreement with observation. (For more about the problems with string theory, please watch my video.)
To date, we have no evidence that supergravity is a correct description of nature. Supergravity may one day become useful to calculate properties of certain materials, but so far this research direction has not led to much.
The works by Ferrera, Freedman, and van Nieuwenhuizen have arguably been influential, if by influential you mean that papers have been written about it. Supergravity and supersymmetry are mathematically very fertile ideas. They lend themselves to calculations that otherwise would not be possible and that is how, in the past four decades, physicists have successfully built a beautiful, supersymmetric, math-castle on nothing but thin air.
Awarding a scientific prize, especially one accompanied by so much publicity, for an idea that has no evidence speaking for it, sends the message that in the foundations of physics contact to observation is no longer relevant. If you want to be successful in my research area, it seems, what matters is that a large number of people follow your footsteps, not that your work is useful to explain natural phenomena. This Special Prize doesn’t only signal to the public that the foundations of physics are no longer part of science, it also discourages people in the field from taking on the hard questions. Congratulations.
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