From Einstein's Conceptual Realism to Modern Mathematical Abstraction

Modern physics has achieved extraordinary mathematical success.
The Standard Model predicts experimental results to unprecedented
precision. Quantum field theory has proven to be one of the most
empirically successful frameworks in the history of science. Yet
alongside these achievements, a methodological shift has occurred:
the field has moved, gradually but substantially, away from Einstein’s
discipline of physical mechanism and conceptual clarity toward a
culture that increasingly privileges mathematical elegance and
formal consistency. This analysis does not dispute the achievements.
It examines what may have been lost in the transition, and asks
whether the field’s current foundational difficulties — the
measurement problem, the incompatibility of general relativity and
quantum mechanics, the proliferation of untestable theoretical