The Universe According to Frank Wilczek - John Templeton Foundation

[on Wilczek's current project]: weaving together threads from across the frontiers of knowledge, optimistically pushing ever deeper, never satisfied with an incomplete understanding of the universe and all the potential it holds for us. And having a great time doing it.

On complementarity: Near the end of A Beautiful Question, Wilczek devotes a few pages to complementarity—the idea that no single description of a phenomenon can be complete. The great Danish physicist Niels Bohr introduced complementarity to resolve a problem bedeviling the developers of quantum mechanics in the 1920s: in some cases, it appeared to... See more

“Most or all of what I do takes off from looking at the description of the world we have… like an art critic—saying, how could this have been better? And then trying to improve the equations …to explain things that don’t seem to fit,” he says. “Aesthetic guidance has been very crucial in trying to formulate new laws—and sometimes it’s worked.”

Wilczek then takes this idea to another level: Can beauty be not just a byproduct of science, but a fundamental principle of how the world works? In other words, can physicists use it to guide themselves to new insights, the way they use mathematical intuition, experimentation and other things? Wilczek believes they can—and they have.

Physicists have long noted that their descriptions of the universe were not only accurate and precise, but also seemed to have an intrinsic, even surprising beauty. Wilczek aims to convince us that even if we cannot do physics, we can be amazed and inspired by this beauty, no differently from how we respond to works of art and music.

On beauty in science: “He’s a very intuitive person,” says Niemi. “He sees the equations, but he sees beyond the equation. He thinks immediately, does this make sense in a wider context? … He smells the equation, if it smells good or not. Or if it has the beauty.”

“Frank is really collecting this kind of brainpower around him,” says Niemi. “He’s the attraction, the magnet who gets people to come together.”

On relationships with others in the field: “It’s a very important medium-term project to bring China into the international scientific community in a worthy way,” he says. “There’s a tremendous hunger for research and knowledge in science there. I wish it weren’t so politically fraught.”

“Most people, if they do something that they feel is important, they want to keep at it, to maintain ownership. When I have an idea that’s successful and popular, that to me is a signal that my work is done. My style is to try to do something important and then abandon it and do something else.”