Saved by Jay Matthews
Beauty as a Compass for Truth
The Nobel laureate particle physicist Frank Wilczek once said that beauty exists as a dance between opposite forces. First, he said, beauty benefits from symmetry, which he defined as “change without change.” If you rotate a circle, it remains a circle, just as reversing the sides of an equation still reveals a truth (2+2=4, and 4=2+2). But beauty ... See more
Derek Thompson • What Moneyball-for-Everything Has Done to American Culture
What is beauty?
Symmetry is beautiful, because life blooms in cycles rather than episodes.
Elegance is beautiful, because everything that matters can be described in a few math equations or observed between a few kindergartners.
Contrast is beautiful, because something that lacks an alternative also lacks meaning.
Connection is beautiful, because the s... See more
Symmetry is beautiful, because life blooms in cycles rather than episodes.
Elegance is beautiful, because everything that matters can be described in a few math equations or observed between a few kindergartners.
Contrast is beautiful, because something that lacks an alternative also lacks meaning.
Connection is beautiful, because the s... See more
Poetry and science—individually, but especially together—are instruments for knowing the world more intimately and loving it more deeply. We need science to help us meet reality on its own terms, and we need poetry to help us broaden and deepen the terms on which we meet ourselves and each other.
Maria Popova • The Universe in Verse: 15 Portals to Wonder through Science & Poetry
What's beautiful depends on who we are, what we've encountered, where we live, and when. Likewise, the art that opens us to the chaotic stream of reality-the art we find beautiful-changes with time and with us, as we evolve. Beauty, I'd come to think, doesn't have to have a physical form, and it certainly doesn't have to be something we agree on. B
... See more