The
Elastic Fractal – digital image by Noel Giffin. Fractals are generated
with statistical rules for “self similarity”.
Many quotations remind us of Dirac's ideas about the beauty of fundamental physical laws. For example, on a blackboard at the University of Moscow where visitors are asked to write a short statement for posterity, Dirac wrote: “A physical law must possess mathematical beauty.” Elsewhere he wrote: “A great deal of my work is just playing with equations and seeing what they give.” And finally there is the famous statement: “It is more important for our equations to be beautiful than to have them fit experiment.” This last statement is more extreme than I can accept. Nevertheless, as theoretical physicists we have been privileged to encounter in our education and in our research equations which have simplicity and beauty and also the power to describe the real world. It is this privilege that makes scientific life worth living
Some Beautiful Equations of Mathematical Physics, Daniel Z. Freedman
