added by Jay Matthews · updated 2y ago
The Universe According to Frank Wilczek - John Templeton Foundation
- On beauty in science: “He’s a very intuitive person,” says Niemi. “He sees the equations, but he sees beyond the equation. He thinks immediately, does this make sense in a wider context? … He smells the equation, if it smells good or not. Or if it has the beauty.”
from The Universe According to Frank Wilczek - John Templeton Foundation by Gabriel Popkin
Jay Matthews added 2y ago
- Physicists have long noted that their descriptions of the universe were not only accurate and precise, but also seemed to have an intrinsic, even surprising beauty. Wilczek aims to convince us that even if we cannot do physics, we can be amazed and inspired by this beauty, no differently from how we respond to works of art and music.
from The Universe According to Frank Wilczek - John Templeton Foundation by Gabriel Popkin
Jay Matthews added 2y ago
- “Frank is really collecting this kind of brainpower around him,” says Niemi. “He’s the attraction, the magnet who gets people to come together.”
from The Universe According to Frank Wilczek - John Templeton Foundation by Gabriel Popkin
Jay Matthews added 2y ago
- On early scientific discoveries: To peer into the nucleus and discover a new and important phenomenon that no one had ever glimpsed “was like the trembling of the veil that poets write about,” Wilczek says. “Something was stirring deep in the heart of nature.”
from The Universe According to Frank Wilczek - John Templeton Foundation by Gabriel Popkin
Jay Matthews added 2y ago
- Wilczek then takes this idea to another level: Can beauty be not just a byproduct of science, but a fundamental principle of how the world works? In other words, can physicists use it to guide themselves to new insights, the way they use mathematical intuition, experimentation and other things? Wilczek believes they can—and they have.
from The Universe According to Frank Wilczek - John Templeton Foundation by Gabriel Popkin
Jay Matthews added 2y ago
- [on Wilczek's current project]: weaving together threads from across the frontiers of knowledge, optimistically pushing ever deeper, never satisfied with an incomplete understanding of the universe and all the potential it holds for us. And having a great time doing it.
from The Universe According to Frank Wilczek - John Templeton Foundation by Gabriel Popkin
Jay Matthews added 2y ago
- On relationships with others in the field: “It’s a very important medium-term project to bring China into the international scientific community in a worthy way,” he says. “There’s a tremendous hunger for research and knowledge in science there. I wish it weren’t so politically fraught.”
from The Universe According to Frank Wilczek - John Templeton Foundation by Gabriel Popkin
Jay Matthews added 2y ago
- “Most people, if they do something that they feel is important, they want to keep at it, to maintain ownership. When I have an idea that’s successful and popular, that to me is a signal that my work is done. My style is to try to do something important and then abandon it and do something else.”
from The Universe According to Frank Wilczek - John Templeton Foundation by Gabriel Popkin
Jay Matthews added 2y ago
- On complementarity: Near the end of A Beautiful Question, Wilczek devotes a few pages to complementarity—the idea that no single description of a phenomenon can be complete. The great Danish physicist Niels Bohr introduced complementarity to resolve a problem bedeviling the developers of quantum mechanics in the 1920s: in some cases, it appeared to... See more
from The Universe According to Frank Wilczek - John Templeton Foundation by Gabriel Popkin
Jay Matthews added 2y ago