Special Lecture

(1) My lecture revolves around a question: Does the world embody beautiful ideas? That is a question that people have thought about for a long time. Pythagoras and Plato intuited that the world should embody beautiful ideas; Newton and Maxwell demonstrated how the world could embody beautiful ideas, in specific impressive cases. Finally in the 20th century in modern physics, and especially in quantum physics, we find a definitive answer: Yes! -- The world does embody beautiful ideas. I’ll present the intellectual history, bringing in relevant artistic images, and discuss how esthetic considerations continue to guide our search for ultimate physical laws.