Questions and answers with Frank Wilczek

Art, music, and fundamental physics come together in Frank Wilczek’s new book, A Beautiful Question. In it, Wilczek “highlights the success of symmetries in physics and goes on to answer the question of whether ‘the world embodies beautiful ideas’ with an emphatic ‘Yes,’” writes Sabine Hossenfelder, whose review appears in this month’s issue of Physics Today.

Frank Wilczek

Wilczek is the Herman Feshbach Professor of Physics at MIT in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2004, with David Gross and Hugh David Politzer, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for the discovery of asymptotic freedom in the theory of the strong interaction. Before A Beautiful Question, he wrote The Lightness of Being: Mass, Ether, and the Unification of Forces (Basic Books, 2008).

Physics Today recently caught up with Wilczek to discuss his new book.

PT: You’ve written several books before this one. What’s different about this book, and this topic?

WILCZEK: This one is both more personal and more exploratory. The adventure began in 2010 when Darwin College, at the University of Cambridge, invited me to lecture on “quantum beauty.” After a brief hesitation, because I thought the subject seemed outlandish, I accepted. As I prepared, I got back to the sorts of philosophical and—I’ll say it—spiritual issues that obsessed me as a teenager, when I was a big fan of Bertrand Russell and Olaf Stapledon as well as of Albert Einstein and Richard Feynman. My questions got me to engage with the history of ideas and of art, and the science of perception. I found many surprises, and the experience has changed my view of the world.

I’ve also been fortunate to work with excellent editors and a publisher who allowed me to include many important, attractive images and produced a physically beautiful product.

PT: For those who haven’t yet read the book, what is the beautiful question and why do, or should, we ask it?

WILCZEK: The question is “Does the world embody beautiful ideas?” It is a version of “What does it all mean?” that I think is especially fruitful.

Physicists often talk of the beauty of their picture of the world. I certainly do. Are we kidding ourselves? What does this kind of “beauty” have to do with everyday use of the word, or with its use in art and music? And if we truly identify beauty in the fundamental laws of nature, Why? What does it mean?

Exploring those questions is, to me, an important step toward seeing the world whole.

PT: Do you agree with the statement in the review that “the inevitable subjectivity in our sense of aesthetic appeal” could turn out to be “a curse,” misleading fundamental researchers as to where the answers lie?

WILCZEK: Yes, that’s certainly logically possible, and it has occurred in the past, as I discuss in the book. It would be disappointing, though. Fortunately, recent history is mostly encouraging. In any case, it won’t hurt to give beauty a chance, as long as we respect Nature’s verdict. Even if we find that it fails, we will have discovered something interesting.

PT: What’s your next project?

WILCZEK: I’ve got several. The most clearly defined is The Princeton Companion to Physics, for which I will serve as editor-in-chief. I’m also getting back to my long-planned mystery novel. A recent visit to Stockholm got me some new ideas and a lot of local color I can use. I’ve also been working on practical devices to expand (more or less) everyday perception of light, getting beyond trichromacy and the visible band. And of course I haven’t abandoned more conventional research in theoretical physics.

PT: What books are you currently reading?

WILCZEK: I’m well into Steven Weinberg’s To Explain the World , which I’m enjoying. Also, though it’s not exactly a book, recently I’ve been tapping into the archives of the fascinating blog Wait But Why every morning.