A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design

A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design

Does the universe embody beautiful ideas?
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Artists as well as scientists throughout human history have pondered this â€œbeautiful question.â€ With Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek as your guide, embark on a voyage of related discoveries, from Plato and Pythagoras up to the present. Wilczekâ€™s groundbreaking work in quantum physics was inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature. This is the deep logic of the universeâ€”and it is no accident that it is also at the heart of what we find aesthetically pleasing and inspiring.
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Wilczek is hardly alone among great scientists in charting his course using beauty as his compass. As he reveals in A Beautiful Question, this has been the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras and the ancient belief in the music of the spheres to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentieth-century physics. Wilczek brings us right to the edge of knowledge today, where the core insights of even the craziest quantum ideas apply principles we all understand. The equations for atoms and light are almost the same ones that govern musical instruments and sound; the subatomic particles that are responsible for most of our mass are determined by simple geometric symmetries.
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Gorgeously illustrated, A Beautiful Question is a mind-shifting book that braids the age-old quest for beauty and the age-old quest for truth into a thrilling synthesis. It is a dazzling and important work from one of our best thinkers, whose humor and infectious sense of wonder animate every page. Yes: The world is a work of art, and its deepest truths are ones we already feel, as if they were somehow written in our souls.
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Praise for A Beautiful Question:

â€œAn expertly curated tour across 2,500 years of philosophy and physics . . . [Frank Wilczek] has accomplished a rare feat: Writing a book of profound humanity based on questions aimed directly at the eternal.â€ â€”The Wall Street Journal
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â€œBoth a brilliant exploration of largely uncharted territories and a refreshingly idiosyncratic guide to developments in particle physics.â€ â€”Nature
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â€œInspiring and remarkably accessible . . . Wilczekâ€™s language is lyrical and almost mystical. . . . Whatever the answer Nature will ultimately give us, we have the pleasure of engaging with an enlightened and humble mind.â€ â€”The Chronicle of Higher Education
Country USA
Brand Penguin Books
Manufacturer Penguin Books
Binding Paperback
ItemPartNumber 44025953
Color White
ReleaseDate 2016-07-12
UnitCount 1
EANs 9780143109365

Country	USA
Brand	Penguin Books
Manufacturer	Penguin Books
Binding	Paperback
ItemPartNumber	44025953
Color	White
ReleaseDate	2016-07-12
UnitCount	1
EANs	9780143109365

A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design

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