Sabine Hossenfelder

Sabine Karin Doris Hossenfelder (born 18 September 1976) is a German theoretical physicist whose research examines possible empirical signatures of quantum gravity. Outside academia she writes popular-science books and hosts the YouTube channel "Sabine Hossenfelder" (formerly known as "Science without the Gobbledygook.")^[8]

Sabine Hossenfelder
Hossenfelder in 2017
Born	(1976-09-18) 18 September 1976 (age 48) Frankfurt, West Germany
Alma mater	Goethe University Frankfurt (Diploma, 1997; Dr. phil. nat., 2003)[1]
Spouse	Stefan Scherer[2]
Scientific career
Fields	Quantum gravity
Institutions	GSI Helmholtz Centre, Darmstadt (post-doc)[1] University of Arizona (post-doc)[3] UC Santa Barbara (post-doc)[3] Perimeter Institute, Canada (post-doc)[3] NORDITA (assistant professor, 2009–2015)[3] FIAS (research fellow, 2015–2023)[4] LMU Munich, Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy (from 2023)[5]
Thesis	Schwarze Löcher in Extra-Dimensionen : Eigenschaften und Nachweis (2003)
Doctoral advisor	Horst Stöcker
YouTube information
Channel	Sabine Hossenfelder
Years active	2007–present
Genre	Science communication
Subscribers	1.7 million[6][7]
Views	293 million[6][7]
Creator Awards 100,000 subscribers 2020 1,000,000 subscribers 2023
Last updated: 27 April 2025

Early life and education

Hossenfelder was born in Frankfurt and earned a mathematics diploma from Goethe University Frankfurt in 1997.^[1] She stayed on to complete a doctorate in theoretical physics in 2003; her dissertation, supervised by Horst Stöcker, studied microscopic black-hole production in models with large extra dimensions.^[9]

Academic career

After post-doctoral posts at the GSI Helmholtz Centre, University of Arizona, UC Santa Barbara and Perimeter Institute in Canada,^[3] she joined NORDITA in Stockholm as an assistant professor in 2009. In 2015 she moved to the Frankfurt Institute for Advanced Studies, where she led the “Analog Systems for Gravity Duals’’ group and, in 2019, received the institute’s inaugural Award for Innovative Thinking.^[4] Since 2023 she has been based at LMU Munich Center for Mathematical Philosophy, researching the role of locality and fine-tuning in quantum-mechanical foundations.^[5]

Public engagement

Hossenfelder has written the popular-science blog ‘‘Backreaction’’ since 2006 and has contributed articles to Nature, New Scientist and Quanta Magazine.^[8] Her first trade book, Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray (Basic Books, 2018), argues that an aesthetic preference for “beautiful’’ theories has hindered progress in fundamental physics; reviewers in Nature called it “provocative”.^[10] Her follow-up, Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions, was published by Viking in 2022.^[11]

On YouTube, her channel reached 1.7 million subscribers and 293 million total views by April 2025, making it one of the largest physics channels on the platform.^[6]

Honours

• FIAS Award for Innovative Thinking (2019)^[4]

Selected publications

• Lost in Math: How Beauty Leads Physics Astray. Basic Books (2018). ISBN 978-0-465-09426-4.
• Existential Physics: A Scientist’s Guide to Life’s Biggest Questions. Viking (2022). ISBN 978-1-9848-7945-5.
• Hossenfelder, S.; Palmer, T. “Rethinking Superdeterminism.” Frontiers in Physics 8 (2020): 139. doi:10.3389/fphy.2020.00139.