Think How Hard Physics Would Be If

Niels Bohr Brainwashed A Whole Generation Of Theorists Into Thinking That The Job (interpreting Quantum Theory) Was Done 50 Years Ago.

My Colleagues In Elementary Particle Theory In Many Lands [and I] Are Driven By The Usual Insatiable Curiosity Of The Scientist, And Our Work Is A Delightful Game. I Am Frequently Astonished That It So Often Results In Correct Predictions Of Experimental Results. How Can It Be That Writing Down A Few Simple And Elegant Formulae, Like Short Poems Governed By Strict Rules Such As Those Of The Sonnet Or The Waka, Can Predict Universal Regularities Of Nature?

Sustainability Is Living On Nature's Income Rather Than Living On Its Capital.

In Our Work, We Are Always Between Scylla And Charybdis; We May Fail To Abstract Enough, And Miss Important Physics, Or We May Abstract Too Much And End Up With Fictitious Objects In Our Models Turning Into Real Monsters That Devour Us.

What Is Especially Striking And Remarkable Is That In Fundamental Physics, A Beautiful Or Elegant Theory Is More Likely To Be Right Than A Theory That Is Inelegant. A Theory Appears To Be Beautiful Or Elegant (or Simple, If You Prefer) When It Can Be Expressed Concisely In Terms Of Mathematics We Already Have. Symmetry Exhibits The Simplicity. The Foundamental Law Is Such That The Different Skins Of The Onion Resemble One Another And Therefore The Math For One Skin Allows You To Express Beautifully And Simply The Phenomenon Of The Next Skin.