A Beautiful Question

Finding Nature's Deep Design

De: Frank Wilczek

Narrado por: Frank Wilczek

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. In fact, every major advance in his career came from this intuition: to assume that the universe embodies beautiful forms, forms whose hallmarks are symmetry—harmony, balance, proportion—and economy. There are other meanings of “beauty,” but 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, the ancient Greek who was the first to argue that “all things are number,” to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentiethcentury physics. Though the ancients weren’t right about everything, their ardent belief in the music of the spheres has proved true down to the quantum level. Indeed, Wilczek explores just how intertwined our ideas about beauty and art are with our scientific understanding of the cosmos.

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 literally the same equations that govern musical instruments and sound; the subatomic particles that are responsible for most of our mass are determined by simple geometric symmetries. The universe itself, suggests Wilczek, seems to want to embody beautiful and elegant forms. Perhaps this force is the pure elegance of numbers, perhaps the work of a higher being, or somewhere between. Either way, we don’t depart from the infinite and infinitesimal after all; we’re profoundly connected to them, and we connect them. When we find that our sense of beauty is realized in the physical world, we are discovering something about the world, but also something about ourselves.

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.



**Includes Bonus PDF with timelines, notes, and recommended reading

A Wonderful Listen for This Quantum Physics Buff

As a lay person in the study of Quantum Physics, I have found this audiobook to be a beacon amongst the menagerie of readily available information.

I liked it the first time through, and each time since, for a running total of 5. it's perfect for driving and bedtime listening, .and I'm grateful to have it.

As a self trained physicist in optical thin film!

What made the experience of listening to A Beautiful Question the most enjoyable?

After 45 years in the field of Vacuum deposited thin films he has made pythagoras come to life , and my lack of math skill come to life in Quantization of simple symmetry to supersymmetry in a simple math of x times y =y times x. but the quantum formula minus x times y= minus y time x and the square of that = 0 (excuse my math skills only high school algebra)After studying polarization for nearly 40 years, the use of ion beams and Rf power sources, high energy electron beams and the physics of these practices.,From schroeder cat in optics that has been proved to the simple wave front interferance on a plane surface.,I understood and related to every word.

What did you like best about this story?

In one of those life time experiences I was involved in the manufacture of the thin films and optics for a small optical table that was submerged in a atomic underground test.I received a call ,as I had guaranteed I would use no materials that would have atomic absorption capacity, but yet we had( gamma decay, not sure on this) or as is known as a hot element that had reacted to the atomic reaction. Thus my optical table was not able to brought to the surface for some period of calculated time based on our analysis and hypothesis and the resulting decay time resultsMy job and the engineer I did the work for was to figure out what the material was I used that caused this reaction. Low and behold I had used argon gas in the Ion beam sputtering process and the atoms had been implanted in the dielectric films. But we are talking 10 to the minus 6 mbar background gas with a partial preasure of 2,5 times ten minus 4 mbar background of argon flow through the Ion Beam gun. in practice under high energy with a packing density on the order of 10 to the minus eight in the film packing density I found this highly intriguing, That only a few molecules of argon gas could create this challenge.

What about Frank Wilczek’s performance did you like?

He ecsplicite going over information, and my 30 sec rewind allowed me to absorb 99 % of the info in space and time.

Was there a moment in the book that particularly moved you?

A a newly spiritual person in his 60,s and I have just heard Frank mention meta in the book, and as all good physicists keep up on his trade and dreams for those Meta Materials on my radar , and as a participant in build a detector for High Frequency gravitational waves, the use use of all three cores to listen for HFGW,s bring our idea close to home

Any additional comments?

His analogy to music and physics fascinates me , as Light waves in a metamaterial of the right frequency and wavelength funny enough create sound wave.

Fascinating book.

Mr. Wilczek has the brain of a genius and the soul of a poet. His book is always fascinating. While it sometimes went over my head, its core message that the universe embodies beautiful ideas is impossible to miss.

physics that a non-physicist can understand

Frank Wilczek is a Nobel Laureate who, in addition to his research and teaching, writes physics books for non-physicists. He is highly skilled at explaining complex physics theories and concepts with clarity and simplicity. Additionally, he is amazingly generous with his time to write these books for those of us who will never study for a science PhD. I hope his books and lectures inspire young people to pursue science careers, and contribute to solving the hard problems of the planet and humanity.

Beauty and this book requires time to appreciate.

The body of the book benefits from the excellent glossary and notes, I especially liked the discussion of property spaces and local symmetry. "the physical world doesn't repeat itself but it does rhyme'. I will read it again. Also very well performed.