One of many interviews with Chiara Marletto in connection with her book on Constructor Theory (“The Science of Can and Can’t” which I started but didn’t finish yet – here again after I did finish it), this one by Sean Carroll, who I consider to be one of the more grounded theoretical physicists and science communicators.
Particularly interesting because as well as (obviously) trying to get to details of Constructor Theory and Marletto’s Counterfactual take on fundamental physics, he chooses to start from the angle of why would a young physicist embark on a new topic that overturns the whole of the most widely accepted aspects of modern physics? Isn’t that over-ambitious? Surely most critics and interlocutors must come at her with questions of – Where’s the problem? If it ain’t broke what are you trying to fix? – rather than taking any details of her (and Deutsch’s) alternative theory seriously.
Unabashed, Marletto is pretty clear – in paraphrase:
It will prove to be the case that “Quantum Theory is not up to the job” of describing all of nature.
As conceived by its originators “Quantum Theory was only ever a work in progress” never intended to describe everything.
Information-theoretic aspects of Quantum Theory will turn out to be fundamentally true
Philosophically, I’m already wedded to information-theoretic fundamentals, so I’m obviously willing her every success.
As someone old enough to be her granddad, I’m also glad such a young researcher has taken up the challenge.
[Beyond that it’s a very good interview by Carroll. Marletto responds to most of them with yes, that’s a good / fair / relevant question. Could learn a fair bit about Constructor Theory from the interview.]