The Most Seductive Equation in Science: Beauty Equals Truth

The New York Times ^ | 26 March 2002 | Dennis Overbye

[tortoise]

We don't know that. We take it to be one of the axioms of science, but it can't be proven.

This is true, but Occam's razor would say that simplicity is the best hypothesis lacking any evidence to the contrary. Therefore, one could look at this "axiom" as being premise of choice given incomplete information. If the theory was unsound, I would expect that we would find evidence of it sooner than later in any case.

[SBeck]

Wait until the deployment of the new space telescope. I think the revelations that will undoubtedly come from the secrets it uncovers will be profound to say the least.

[headsonpikes]

"Whoops! My bad."

Don't let the 'Transcendentalists' intimidate you!

If irrational numbers were good enough for our grandfathers, they're good enough for us!

Just keep your eyes peeled for those 'Prime Number' fanatics; there's no accommodating them and their 'one nation indivisible' propaganda. ;^)

[Pearls Before Swine]

At least prime numbers aren't composites.

[js1138]

Hey! Some of my best friends are imaginary.

[Romulus]

This might be a good place to point out that the Greek word "cosmos" means not just "whaterver-there-is" but carries the additional sense of ordered, balanced, and rational beauty.

[NonZeroSum]

"We take it to be one of the axioms of science, but it can't be proven."

Yet.

Ever. It's unprovable. To prove it, you'd have to verify that it's true for every point in the universe, at all points in time. It's like trying to eat at all the restaurants in the country to find the "best" meal. Some of them go out of business before you can get to them. It will forever remain an axiomatic tenet of science.

[Leto]

They don't fall apart per se. At different ranges of time. space and mass some equations provide 99.99999% of what we observe. If I drop a rock, electro magnetism, the strong force, relatavistic gravatational and weak forces are acting, Newton's equations describe the event with a high degree of precision.

Such is not the case when describing the interaction of 2 particles at an atomic level, the effects of gravity are negligible.

But Einstein was and others are looking for a unified field theory which describles everything.

[monkey]

the physicist Dr. Eugene Wigner of Princeton once called the "unreasonable effectiveness of mathematics" in describing the world

We describe the world, to our satisfaction, using math, which we also created. The common element is the human mind. It's not that unreasonable, or even surprising.

[js1138]

a unified field theory which describles everything.

What a beautiful and appropriate typo.

[Cincinatus]

The Most Seductive Equation in Science: Beauty Equals Truth

Poetry too:

"Beauty is Truth, truth beauty," --
That is all
ye know on Earth, and all ye need to know.

John Keats, Ode on a Grecian Urn

[Pearls Before Swine]

Hey! Some of my best friends are imaginary.

Me, too. I have a rich fantasy life. :)

[Rudder]

"I am what I am." (Popeye, the Sailor Man)

[js1138]

We describe the world, to our satisfaction, using math, which we also created. The common element is the human mind. It's not that unreasonable, or even surprising.

This is a rather new idea. The old idea, expressed by Galileo is "Mathematics is the language with which God has written the universe".

No wonder folks were disturbed by irrationals, transcendentals, imaginaries, division by zero, Goedel, etc.

[MosesKnows]

I think the truth = beauty notion is b.s.

“Beauty is truth, truth beauty,”—that is all
Ye know on earth, and all ye need to know.

[KC Burke]

my favorite couplet on Beauty (that I love to quote to rationalists:

Beauty lives;
though Lilies die.

[tsomer]

Fair enough

[tsomer]

how romantic

[MosesKnows]

how romantic

I reckon, but lest there be any misunderstanding those are not my words but rather the words of John Keats, a young man who never grew old. The words just seemed fitting to me considering the very analytical responses I had read.