@Asaf These days a lot of people would have ways to access PDF copies of such a classic textbook.

I was going to mention quantum gravity but you beat me to it!

Thanks for your observations, I am slightly busy at the moment with other things but I will think about this and get back to you.

@EnhaoLan Great, I look forward to this discussion.

@EnhaoLan Hi Enhao, did you maybe want to send me an email as might be easier to explain there.

I don’t think anyone is saying they are incompatible. For example, Fermi’s theory of beta decay does “explain” beta decay, but it is now seen as an effective theory of the weak interaction which is valid at low energies.

An example is Popper’s “falsifiability criterion” which was created by a philosopher but does not really work in practice.

The distinction is interesting but I might point out that physicists themselves are usually not aware of philosophical approaches to physics and model building and prefer to figure out how things work by getting their hands dirty (they are the ones that know where the shoe bites because they wear it, to paraphrase something Weinberg said).

@KonstantinosKanakoglou The second link in your answer is a dead link by the way.

@NateRiver I think I probably spend something close to 50/50 as well but I mostly read papers rather than books. My main criterion for reading a book or an entire set of lecture notes is that it should really grab me how coherent and well-written it is and how much material it covers (perhaps even how inspiring it is).

This question must be clarified.

''I suppose one may ask how "concrete" quantum mechanics is'' Incredibly is the answer.

I think to always review an article within a couple of weeks would be fair in physics, but not totally sure about pure mathematics.

The quote by Fourier is specific imo: he is saying that the deepest mathematical insights always come from studying physical problems.

This does not answer the very specific question asked by the OP (actually, what Atiyah is saying here is quite different to what was requested by the OP).