A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design.

Wilczek, Frank.

ISBN 10: 1846147018 / ISBN 13: 9781846147012

Published by Allen Lane, 2015

About this Item

Hardback in illustrated boards, in Fine condition, dustwrapper in Fine condition, in a clear protective archival wrapper. First edition, pp430 colour and b&w illustrations, diagrams and index. In this 'long meditation on a single question', Nobel Prize-winning physicist Wilczek considers how ideas about beauty and art have always been intertwined with our scientific understanding of the cosmos. Taking as his starting-point Pythagoras' credo that 'all things are number', he follows the quest of figures such as Newton and Einstein who contributed to our present-day understanding of the equations and symmetries that reveal the fundamental purity, order and harmony of the entire universe.

Seller Inventory # 010588

Bibliographic Details

• Title: A Beautiful Question: Finding Nature's Deep Design.
• Publisher: Allen Lane
• Publication Date: 2015
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1846147018
• ISBN 13: 9781846147012
• Binding: Hardcover
• Illustrator: Well-illustrated
• Edition: 1st Edition
• Condition: Fine
• Dust Jacket Condition: Fine
• Seller catalogs:
  • Natural History

About this title

Synopsis

In this scientific tour de force, world-class physicist Frank Wilczek argues that beauty is at the heart of the logic of the universe, a principle that has guided his pioneering work in quantum physics. As this book demonstrates, the human quest to find the beauty embodied in the universe connects all scientific pursuit from Pythagoras and Plato on to Galileo and Newton, Maxwell and Einstein. Indeed, Wilczek shows us just how deeply intertwined our ideas about beauty and art are with our scientific understanding of the cosmos. Gorgeously illustrated, A Beautiful Question is the culmination of Wilczek's life work and a mind-expanding book that combines the age-old human quest for beauty and the age-old human quest for truth.

About the Author

Born in New York, Frank Wilczek studied at the University of Chicago and gained his Ph.D. in physics at Princeton University. Frank won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 2004 for work he did as a twenty-one-year-old graduate student. His writing has featured twice in Best American Science Writing and his exposition of modern physics, Longing for the Harmonies was named New York Times Notable Book of the Year. Frank is currently Herman Feshbach Professorship of Physics at MIT. He lives in Massachusetts, with his wife, Betsy Devine.