Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Academic Blogs -> Jurisdynamics

Academic

: Jurisdynamics

Beauty and truth in physics

By Jim Chen

Herewith an extension to The quark, the jaguar, and the laws of Jurisdynamics:

Murray Gell-Mann: Beauty and truth in physics

Wielding laypeople's terms and a sense of humor, Nobel Prize winner Murray Gell-Mann drops some knowledge about particle physics, asking questions like, Are elegant equations more likely to be right than inelegant ones? Can the fundamental law, the so-called "theory of everything," really explain everything? His answers will surprise you.

Murray Gell-Mann brings visibility to a crucial aspect of our existence that we can't actually see: elemental particles. He won the Nobel Prize in Physics for introducing quarks, one of two fundamental ingredients for all matter in the universe.

The upshot? Gell-Mann's short answers:

• Beauty matters
• Math matters
• Symmetry matters

Beautiful theories are likelier to be correct, and true theories are likelier to be beautiful. Sweet.

Full post as published by Jurisdynamics on April 17, 2008 (boomark / email).