[mikorym]

> the theoretical physicist Sabine Hossenfelder asserts that mathematical elegance led physics astray

I feel the other way around: Applied mathematicians and physicists led the pure mathematicians astray. But I say this for a different reason. I feel that physics has become convoluted with a plethora of theories where this same beauty is interpreted wildly differently by different people. In other words, people all have different ways of thinking, different notions of beauty, and ultimately, this manifests into different (competing) notions in physics. These may even be equivalent notions and they may embody the desired perspective on beauty, but instead of consolidation there is extended differentiation.

My point is that physics has become ugly exactly because of physicists' ignorance towards mathematical elegance in favour of personal beauty. I don't think physics can become consolidated without exactly a stark appreciation for elegance.

IMO this is why category theory took so long to start appearing in physics: The physicists are caught up in their own idea of beauty rather than the mathematical tradition of finding the minimal sufficient proofs and theories (which I call elegance).