A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design

A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design

Does the universe embody beautiful ideas?

Artists as well as scientists throughout humanÂ history have pondered this â€œbeautiful question.â€Â With Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek as your guide,Â embark on a voyage of related discoveries, fromÂ Plato and Pythagoras up to the present. Wilczekâ€™sÂ groundbreaking work in quantum physics wasÂ inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper orderÂ of beauty in nature. In fact, every major advanceÂ in his career came from this intuition: to assumeÂ that the universe embodies beautiful forms, formsÂ whose hallmarks are symmetryâ€”harmony,Â balance, proportionâ€”and economy. There areÂ other meanings of â€œbeauty,â€ but this is the deepÂ logic of the universeâ€”and it is no accident thatÂ it is also at the heart of what we find aestheticallyÂ pleasing and inspiring.

Wilczek is hardly alone among great scientistsÂ in charting his course using beauty as his compass.Â As he reveals in A Beautiful Question, this has beenÂ the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras, theÂ ancient Greek who was the first to argue that â€œallÂ things are number,â€ to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell,Â Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentiethcenturyÂ physics. Though the ancients werenâ€™tÂ right about everything, their ardent belief in theÂ music of the spheres has proved true down to theÂ quantum level. Indeed, Wilczek explores just howÂ intertwined our ideas about beauty and art are withÂ our scientific understanding of the cosmos.

Wilczek brings us right to the edge of knowledgeÂ today, where the core insights of even the craziestÂ quantum ideas apply principles we all understand.Â The equations for atoms and light are almostÂ literally the same equations that govern musicalÂ instruments and sound; the subatomic particlesÂ that are responsible for most of our mass areÂ determined by simple geometric symmetries. TheÂ universe itself, suggests Wilczek, seems to want toÂ embody beautiful and elegant forms. Perhaps thisÂ force is the pure elegance of numbers, perhaps theÂ work of a higher being, or somewhere between.Â Either way, we donâ€™t depart from the infinite andÂ infinitesimal after all; weâ€™re profoundly connectedÂ to them, and we connect them. When we find thatÂ our sense of beauty is realized in the physical world,Â we are discovering something about the world, butÂ also something about ourselves.

Gorgeously illustrated, A Beautiful Question is aÂ mind-shifting book that braids the age-old questÂ for beauty and the age-old quest for truth into aÂ thrilling synthesis. It is a dazzling and importantÂ work from one of our best thinkers, whose humorÂ and infectious sense of wonder animate every page.Â Yes: The world is a work of art, and its deepestÂ truths are ones we already feel, as if they wereÂ somehow written in our souls.
Country USA
Manufacturer Penguin Books
Binding Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate 2015-07-14
Format Kindle eBook

Country	USA
Manufacturer	Penguin Books
Binding	Kindle Edition
ReleaseDate	2015-07-14
Format	Kindle eBook

A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design

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