Saturday, June 10, 2006

Scientific Concept of Beauty, Part III

Continued from yesterday.
Brilliance is the third element in science's view of the beautiful. Augros and Stanciu explain that "a theory with this quality has great clarity in itself and sheds light on many other things, suggesting new experiments. Newton, for example, astounded the world by explaining falling bodies, the tides and the motions of the planets and the comets with three simple laws." George Thomason adds that "in physics, as in mathematics, it is a great beauty if a theory can bring together apparently different phenomena and show that they are closely connected; or even different aspects of the same thing." This is exactly what Einstein did with his theory of general relativity, and it helps to explain his religious attitude toward the universe, and why he marveled at its comprehensibility, namely, that the human intellects can make sense of it and understand it.
Tags: , Christianity

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