4
" Mythic Background
Describing his approach to science, Einstein said something that sounds distinctly prescientific, and hearkens back to those ancient Greeks he admired:
What really interests me is whether God had any choice in the creation of the world.
Einstein's suggestion that God-or a world-making Artisan-might not have choices would have scandalized Newton or Maxwell. It fits very well, however, with the Pythagorean search for universal harmony, or with Plato's concept of a changeless Ideal.
If the Artisan had no choice: Why not? What might constrain a world-making Artisan?
One possibility arises if the Artisan is at heart an artist. Then the constraint is desire for beauty. I'd like to (and do) infer that Einstein thought along the line of our Question-Does the world embody beautiful ideas?-and put his faith in the answer "yes!"
Beauty is a vague concept. But so, to begin with, were concepts like "force" and "energy." Through dialogue with Nature, scientists learned to refine the meaning of "force" and "energy," to bring their use into line with important aspects of reality.
So too, by studying the Artisan's handiwork, we evolve refined concepts of "symmetry," and ultimately of "beauty"-concepts that reflect important aspects of reality, while remaining true to the spirit of their use in common language. "
― Frank Wilczek , A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design
6
" Thus far our meditation on quantum reality has revealed that the world of everyday matter, when properly understood, embodies concepts of extraordinary beauty. Indeed, ordinary matter is built up from atoms that are, in a rich and precise sense, tiny musical instruments. In their interplay with light, they realize a mathematical Music of the Spheres that surpasses the visions of Pythagoras, Plato, and Kepler. In molecules and ordered materials, those atomic instruments play together as harmonious ensembles and synchronized orchestras. "
― Frank Wilczek , A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design
8
" Dynamical beauty transcends specific objects and phenomena, and invites us to imagine the expanse of possibilities. For example, the sizes and shapes of actual planetary orbits are not simple. They are neither the (compounded) circles of Aristotle, Ptolemy, and Nicolaus Copernicus, nor even the more nearly accurate ellipses of Kepler, but rather curves that must be calculated numerically, as functions of time, evolving in complicated ways that depend on the positions and masses of the Sun and the other planets. There is great beauty and simplicity here, but it is only fully evident when we understand the deep design. The appearance of particular objects does not exhaust the beauty of the laws. "
― Frank Wilczek , A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design
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" Yet many creative spirits have found inspiration in the idea that the Creator might be, among other things, an artist whose esthetic motivations we can appreciate and share-or even, in daring speculation, that the Creator is primarily a creative artist. Such spirits have engaged our Question, in varied and evolving forms, across many centuries. Thus inspired, they have produced deep philosophy, great science, compelling literature, and striking imagery. Some have produced works that combine several, or all, of those features. These works are a vein of gold running back through our civilization. "
― Frank Wilczek , A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design
19
" Different kinds of gases (e.g., gases based on different chemical elements) absorb different spectral colors. So if one has a gas of unknown composition, one can deduce what it's made of by seeing what light it absorbs! In the language of our generalized chemistry, the message of Fraunhofer's dark lines, as interpreted by Bunsen and Kirchhoff, is that a given atom of substance will combine with-that is, absorb-only specific elements of light-that is, spectral colors-while ignoring others. There is also a converse effect, that heated gas will emit light in preferential colors, creating bright lines in the spectrum. Altogether, these dark and bright lines are like fingerprints identifying the responsible substances. "
― Frank Wilczek , A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design
