Physicists I met
AJ Leggett - academic tree
... where progress typically comes through conceptual innovation at the intermediate level, that is, through the invention of new ‘ways of seeing things’ which are neither derivable from the current microscopic theory nor (usually) directly challenge it, but coexist amicably with it
compare conceptual innovation at the intermediate level by AJLeggett with the search for secrets of Peter Thiel. See also Paul Romer about physics versus math as well as the map is not the territory/terrain
.... to anyone actually working in theoretical condensed matter physics they would seem glaringly obvious. Indeed, I have always regarded “emergence” as a rather common-sensical idea; I have been rather bemused by the fuss it seems to have engendered in the past few years (cf. 10) and irritated by the widespread and pleonastic4 use of the corresponding adjective as a buzzword.
The Problems of Physics (Oxford Classic Texts in the Physical Sciences)
by Anthony Leggett
As a Martian might see us: subversive reflections on the practice of physics