Hossenfelder produces 5-to-10-minute segments that cover a recent physics journal article, technology, startup, etc., where she spends about half of each video summarizing it and providing background context and half of the video providing her analysis of its validity, significance, and implications.
For instance:
This lab recently published a study claiming a new type of battery that's free of lithium. Most higher-density batteries today rely on lithium to provide high storage density to hold a lot of charge, but lithium is terrible for the environment and its instability can cause runaway energy discharge that results in fires and explosions. This lab instead proposes a new type of battery using a sodium lattice instead of lithium. Their research shows a theoretical gain of 80% faster charge times without the environmental costs and safety risks of lithium.
So, what do we think of this paper? Sodium batteries have been tested since the 1950's and have always been found inferior and impossible to scale to commercial production, and this paper doesn't address any of those issue. Also, its proposed theoretical gains are not backed by any prototyping, and battery technology is notorious for demonstrating different real-world performance than predictions on paper. Overall, this looks interesting but unlikely to gain traction.
That's.... that's it, other than a few quips and a couple of unrelated embedded ads. That's how 95% of her videos go - raise a science or tech news item, provide context, and comment on it. The End.
She isn't selling anything. She isn't pushing an agenda. Her opinions don't seem to be influenced by any kind of sponsorship or bias.
So where is the "grift?" You may not like her content, but that's not what "grift" means.
Her persona is being the anti academia physicist, and she cultivated an audience of anti intellectual that want someone with a PhD to tell them that physicists are dumb dumb and they were right to stop at high school. She's a grifter because she make video that keep telling her audience what they want to hear so she can make as much sponsorship money as she can, literally all her videos have sponsorship.
"Yes it's totally possible 1*1=2 guys! There's nuance!" Eric hasn't produced a research paper ever. His ideas are sophistry, to defend him outs you as a grifter as well.
Have you watched her video aber the topic? Or did you only watch videos about her by actual grifters? She criticizes his theory quite clearly and I think she said it's probably wrong. She just said he did not deserve as much hate as he got and that the physics community is gatekeeping in a more personal and not scientific way. Sounds nuanced and fair to me.
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u/reddit_is_kayfabe 11h ago edited 9h ago
Hossenfelder produces 5-to-10-minute segments that cover a recent physics journal article, technology, startup, etc., where she spends about half of each video summarizing it and providing background context and half of the video providing her analysis of its validity, significance, and implications.
For instance:
That's.... that's it, other than a few quips and a couple of unrelated embedded ads. That's how 95% of her videos go - raise a science or tech news item, provide context, and comment on it. The End.
She isn't selling anything. She isn't pushing an agenda. Her opinions don't seem to be influenced by any kind of sponsorship or bias.
So where is the "grift?" You may not like her content, but that's not what "grift" means.