Does the universe embody beautiful ideas? Artists as well as scientists throughout human history have pondered this “beautiful question.†Quantum physicist and Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, PhD, Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and 2004 Nobel Laureate, has been inspired throughout his career by his intuition to look for a deeper order of beauty in nature, to assume that the universe embodies beautiful forms, whose hallmarks are symmetry—harmony, balance, proportion—and economy. In this December 8 lecture in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum, Professor Wilczek will share examples from Pythagoras, Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, from twentieth century physics to the edge of knowledge today to demonstrate how our ideas about beauty and art are intertwined with our scientific understanding of the cosmos. Fee: Free Arboretum members and students, $5 nonmember. Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.
