A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design

Product Description Does the universe embody beautiful ideas?   Artists as well as scientists throughout human history have pondered this “beautiful question.” With Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek as your guide, embark on a voyage of related discoveries, from Plato and Pythagoras up to the present. Wilczek’s groundbreaking work in quantum physics was inspired by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature. This is the deep logic of the universe—and it is no accident that it is also at the heart of what we find aesthetically pleasing and inspiring.   Wilczek is hardly alone among great scientists in charting his course using beauty as his compass. As he reveals in A Beautiful Question, this has been the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras and the ancient belief in the music of the spheres to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentieth-century physics. Wilczek brings us right to the edge of knowledge today, where the core insights of even the craziest quantum ideas apply principles we all understand. The equations for atoms and light are almost the same ones that govern musical instruments and sound; the subatomic particles that are responsible for most of our mass are determined by simple geometric symmetries.   Gorgeously illustrated, A Beautiful Question is a mind-shifting book that braids the age-old quest for beauty and the age-old quest for truth into a thrilling synthesis. It is a dazzling and important work from one of our best thinkers, whose humor and infectious sense of wonder animate every page. Yes: The world is a work of art, and its deepest truths are ones we already feel, as if they were somehow written in our souls. Review “An expertly curated tour across 2,500 years of philosophy and physics. . . One of the great pleasures of Mr. Wilczek’s book is his wide-ranging interest in the way the beauty he finds in symmetry appears across human experience. . . . He has accomplished a rare feat: Writing a book of profound humanity based on questions aimed directly at the eternal.” —The Wall Street Journal   “Inspiring and remarkably accessible . . . Wilczek’s language is lyrical and almost mystical . . . whatever the answer Nature will ultimately give us, we have the pleasure of engaging with an enlightened and humble mind.” —The Chronicle of Higher Education “The beauty of [nature’s] equations merges with the beauty of literature in Wilczek’s book. It’s a work of art.” — Science News“Relentlessly engaging…not only names but also wisely reframes a lot of basic concepts in modern physics. . . . Wilczek’s fearless reframing comes as a pleasant relief.” —Los Angeles Review of Books   “[A] deep, challenging, and marvelous book.” —Library Journal "[A] skillfully written reflection...unique in the genre of popular works...contains something for every reader, from the physicist who wants to learn how a Nobel Prize winner thinks of the connection between ideas and reality to the layman who wants to know more about the structure of fundamental laws. A Beautiful Question reminds us of the many ways that science connects to the arts, and it invites us to marvel at the success our species has had in unraveling the mysteries of nature." —Physics Today " A Beautiful Question is both a brilliant exploration of largely uncharted territories and a refreshingly idiosyncratic guide to developments in particle physics." —Nature  "A commendable investigation of the nature of reality.” —Kirkus  “In this delightful book, we are given a rare opportunity to enter the mind of one of the world’s most creative and insightful scientists. Frank Wilczek’s dazzling meditation on reality reveals the exquisite fusion of truth, beauty and the deep laws of the universe.”  —Brian Greene, author of The Elegant Universe  “ A Beautiful Question is a compelling introduction to the triumphs and challenges of modern physics, presented as a meditation on the role of aesthetics in the search fo