> “Why should the laws of nature care about what I find beautiful?”
This article is a nice counterpoint to Paul Dirac's speech in favour of mathematical beauty in physical theories. [0]
Some quotes from Dirac:
> What makes the theory of relativity so acceptable to physicists in spite of its going against the principle of simplicity is its great mathematical beauty. [...] We now see that we have to change the principle of simplicity into a principle of mathematical beauty.
Interestingly, he also says:
> For example, only four-dimensional space is of importance in physics, while spaces with other numbers of dimensions are of about equal interest in mathematics.
> It may well be, however, that this discrepancy is due to the incompleteness of present-day knowledge, and that future developments will show four-dimensional space to be of far greater mathematical interest than all the others.
His prediction here was almost correct. Except it was physics that started to take an interest in a higher number of dimensions.
This article is a nice counterpoint to Paul Dirac's speech in favour of mathematical beauty in physical theories. [0]
Some quotes from Dirac:
> What makes the theory of relativity so acceptable to physicists in spite of its going against the principle of simplicity is its great mathematical beauty. [...] We now see that we have to change the principle of simplicity into a principle of mathematical beauty.
Interestingly, he also says:
> For example, only four-dimensional space is of importance in physics, while spaces with other numbers of dimensions are of about equal interest in mathematics.
> It may well be, however, that this discrepancy is due to the incompleteness of present-day knowledge, and that future developments will show four-dimensional space to be of far greater mathematical interest than all the others.
His prediction here was almost correct. Except it was physics that started to take an interest in a higher number of dimensions.
[0] http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/events/strings02/dirac/speach.htm...