I believe the alien scientists were depressed by the guaranteed collapse of their civilization, not the difficulty of certain differential equations. So it's more like a doctor getting weird results while working on a cure for a pandemic.

Edit: oops, see the reply below... and my grumpy response. I seriously forgot about that entire plot point.

The history of scientific revolutions does not support this view

Specially because only particle physics suddenly became inconsistent. I can see scientists fruitlessly obsessing with finding why the universe was toying with them, but suicide? OK, they were also seeing intent with individualized hallucinations, and computer interference, but IIRC those messages asked them to to stop particle physics, not to off themselves. They could change fields and live on.

They were getting inconsistent results, not just weird ones. However I agree that suicide probably wouldn't be where they would end up.

In the book they get different results on all tests they run, consistency is gone, that is something else.

well maybe depends how fundamental

if objects you put on a table started falling through the floor it would be a bit stressful

lol

but Dr. Becky gets really excited about all the various "crisis in cosmology" because she knows new science/knowledge will emerge from solving those questions

and you remind me there's another season coming up in that series, can't wait

"Is he still in the grandmother’s house? We would like to speak to him."

[dead]