There are all different kinds of measures of elegance in science and mathematics – the shortest proof, the most all-encompassing theory, the equation that best fits the data, and so on. But there is another kind of elegance entirely, which is concerned with non-mathematicians and non-scientists – people outside the field.<\/p>\n
To whit: What is the scientific or mathematical theory that best converts a subject which had formerly been arcane, obscure, approachable only by the well-prepared priesthood, into something that is understandable by anybody, with only the simplest of explanations.<\/p>\n
This property of a theory might be called its “Popular elegance”.<\/p>\n
My vote for the theory that most possesses this propery is the Feynman diagram. I can’t think of anything else that caused a subject so arcane, in one fell swoop, to become so much more clear.<\/p>\n
Can anyone else think of worthy candidates?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
There are all different kinds of measures of elegance in science and mathematics – the shortest proof, the most all-encompassing theory, the equation that best fits the data, and so on. But there is another kind of elegance entirely, which is concerned with non-mathematicians and non-scientists – people outside the field. To whit: What is … Continue reading “Popular elegance”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=801"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":806,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/801\/revisions\/806"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.kenperlin.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}