There is an important difference between how physicists and mathematicians see beauty. It's the right combination between explaining empirical facts and using fundamental principles that makes a physical theory successful and beautiful."#573•
Chapter 10: Knowledge Is Power
Physicists aren't the only scientists who chase after beauty. James Watson, for example, recalls that Rosalind Franklin was convinced that DNA was structured as a double helix because it was "too pretty not to be true." Biologists preferentially study pretty animals. And the mathematician David Orrell has argued that climate scientists favor elegant models to the detriment of accuracy.#570•