Physicists describe the two properties of physical laws-that they do not depend on when or where you use them-as symmetries of nature. By this usage physicists mean that nature treats every moment in time and every location in space identically-symmetrically-by ensuring that the same fundamental laws are in operation. Much in the same manner that they affect art and music, such symmetries are deeply satisfying; they highlight an order and coherence in the workings of nature. The elegance of rich, complex, and diverse phenomena emerging from a simple set of universal laws is at least part of what physicists mean when they invoke the term "beautiful."
Brian GreeneRelated topics
affect art beautiful coherence complex elegance emerging fundamental least location manner mean moment music nature operation order phenomenon physical rich set simple space term time universal usage use laws highlight workingsRelated quotes
Many fields use patterns in various ways: In music and literature, a pattern is the coherent structure or design of a song or book. In art, a pattern is the composition or plan of a work of graphic or plastic art. In architecture, a pattern is an architectural design or style. In psychology, a pattern is a thinking mechanism that is basic to the brain's operation, helping one to perceive things quickly. In archeology, a pattern is a group of phases having several distinguishing and fundamental features in common. In linguistics, a pattern is the manner in which smaller units of language are grouped into larger units...
Peter Coad
If we study the history of science we see happen two inverse phenomena... Sometimes simplicity hides under complex appearances; sometimes it is the simplicity which is apparent, and which disguises extremely complicated realities.
...No doubt, if our means of investigation should become more and more penetrating, we should discover the simple under the complex, then the complex under the simple, then again the simple under the complex, and so on, without our being able to foresee what will be the last term. We must stop somewhere, and that science may be possible, we must stop when we have found simplicity. This is the only ground on which we can rear the edifice of our generalizations.
Henri Poincaré
The concepts which now prove to be fundamental to our understanding of nature-a space which is finite; a space which is empty, so that one point [of our 'material' world] differs from another solely in the properties of space itself; four-dimensional, seven- and more dimensional spaces; a space which for ever expands; a sequence of events which follows the laws of probability instead of the law of causation-or alternatively, a sequence of events which can only be fully and consistently described by going outside of space and time-all these concepts seem to my mind to be structures of pure thought, incapable of realisation in any sense which would properly be described as material.
James Jeans
We do not mean that its supporters are necessarily materialists in the vulgar, and merely anti-theological, sense of the term, but that they do not base their socialism upon any interpretation of the language or meaning of scripture, nor upon the real or supposed intentions of a beneficent Deity. They as a party neither affirm or deny those things, but leave it to the individual conscience of each member to determine what beliefs on such questions they shall hold. As a political party they wisely prefer to take their stand upon the actual phenomena of social life as they can be observed in operation amongst us to-day, or as they can be traced in the recorded facts of history.
James Connolly
The Cubists, to be objective, restrict themselves to considering things by turning around them, to produce their geometric writing. So they remain at a stage of intelligence which sees everything and feels nothing, which brings everything to a standstill in order to describe everything. We Futurists are trying, on the contrary, with the power of intuition, to place ourselves at the very center of things, in such a way that our ego forms with their own uniqueness a single complex. We thus give plastic planes a plastic expansion in space, obtaining this feeling of something in perpetual motion which is peculiar to everything living.
Carlo Carrà
