In 2015, physicist Frank Wilczek published A Beautiful Question, a delight everyone should read, which he described as a meditation on the question, “Does the world embody beautiful ideas?” Some three hundred pages after propounding the question, he reaches “yes” as the answer.

Then, in 2018, physicist Sabine Hossenfelder published Lost in Math, a nicely readable tour de force in which she claims that progress in quantum physics in our time has hit a brick wall because its researchers are questing for beauty instead of experimental fact.

No one can define the term “beauty” to the satisfaction of all. But a most salient feature of beauty is the universal human appreciation of it. Is there a human anywhere who does not admire a view of mountains, lakes, forests, seascapes, or butterflies? We disagree among ourselves on so much; why are we in such agreement on beauty?

The logical path for Wilczek to prove his thesis would be to define beauty, show that the natural world embodies an idea, and then prove that the idea embodied is beautiful. Wilczek’s choice of path was to assume the natural world is the embodiment of an idea, which he confirmed in 300 pages of examples. Then, in those same 300 pages, he skillfully appealed to the universal human concurrence on beauty to show that the embodiment is beautiful and, from that, to infer that the idea embodied itself is beautiful.

Image by wirestock.

There is a shorter route available to the same conclusion in many fewer pages. In the Torah’s Book of Bereishis, known to some as the Bible’s Book of Genesis, we are told that God created the world in ten utterances of “God said,” all ten of which are found in Genesis chapter 1, verses 3, 6, 9, 11, 4, 20, 24, 26, 28, and 29. There, scripture tells us that God created the world by speaking. And what is speaking? Speaking is the projection of words. And what is a word? A word is a parcel of thought. Thus, scripture tells us that God created the world by projecting thought. Hence, we and all beings are thought-created. We and all beings are hence indeed the embodiment of an idea.

Is the idea beautiful? The father of science, Galileo Galilei, is said to have stated, “Mathematics is the language in which God has written the universe,” or, as that quote is more often presented, “Mathematics is the language of science.” This sentiment, with which all scientists today whole-heartedly agree, leaves us to wonder: “What is mathematics?” The answer to this question is simple, direct, and profound: Mathematics is logic applied to axiom systems.

There are many axiom systems. The one most familiar to everyone is the Real Number System. Other axiom systems also of everyday application to science include the complex number system, vector spaces, and matrix spaces, just to name a few.

Is mathematics beautiful? Well, as we have seen above, mathematics is a branch of logic, and the beauty of logic lies in its form. This form is referenced by Proverbs 3:19 as the wisdom of the Creator and is a feature of the very divine thought of which creation consists.

So, yes, the idea embodied in the natural world is beautiful!

Disputes among physicists can indeed be refreshing.