Got fifteen minutes? Murray Gell-Mann spoke at TED this year. For a fifteen minute talk, he really crammed in the essentials, and with good humour too. His subject? What we do in the search for the fundamental laws of nature, why we do it, and some of the key things that make it possible: Symmetry and beauty, and nature’s tendency to re-use a good idea again and again.
Insiders, outsiders, newcomers alike, I recommend having a look at the video. While I think he overemphasizes the beauty-over-experiment point a little bit at the beginning in a way that might be a bit misleading (Einstein and some others can get away with it, but not most of us), it’s a gem of a talk - great to see one of the legendary masters in action, at a widely accessible level:
The talk may be seen here*.
“You don’t need something more to get something more”. Nice.
Enjoy!
-cvj
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*Thanks Ilaria!
On this day on Asymptotia...
- Categorically Not! - Beginnings - 2007
- BattleSimpsons - 2006
My problem with symmetry as a foundation for physics is that symmetry / beauty is the first thing that humans notice about anything. So how can we distinguish between symmetry, as seen inside our heads, and symmetry as existing in nature?
Well, as I understand, what Prof. Gell-Mann was saying is that whether or not we (humans) see this “beauty”, it always exhists in the nature as a fundamental law.