"Scientific progress is serendipitous," Ooguri says. "It often happens in a way that you don't expect. That kind of development is still very hard to achieve by remote exchange. Yes, nowadays it's easier with e-mails and video conferences," he continues, "but when you write an e-mail you have to have something to write about. When someone is in the same building, I can walk across the hallway and ask silly questions."

These silly questions are key to progress in fundamental sciences. Unlike other fields, such as applied science where researchers work towards a specific goal, the first question or idea a theoretical physicist comes up with is usually not the right one, Ooguri says. But, through discussion, other researchers ask questions derived from their curiosity, taking the research in a new direction ...

Hirosi Ooguri, is the director of the Kavli Institute for the Physics and Mathematics of the Universe in Tokyo, and also a professor at the California Institute of Technology

https://phys.org/news/2020-01-gravity-wrong.html

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