If Someone Says That He Can Think

Today The Network Of Relationships Linking The Human Race To Itself And To The Rest Of The Biosphere Is So Complex That All Aspects Affect All Others To An Extraordinary Degree. Someone Should Be Studying The Whole System, However Crudely That Has To Be Done, Because No Gluing Together Of Partial Studies Of A Complex Nonlinear System Can Give A Good Idea Of The Behavior Of The Whole.

What Is Especially Striking And Remarkable Is That In Fundamental Physics, A Beautiful Or Elegant Theory Is More Likely To Be Right Than A Theory That Is Inelegant. A Theory Appears To Be Beautiful Or Elegant (or Simple, If You Prefer) When It Can Be Expressed Concisely In Terms Of Mathematics We Already Have. Symmetry Exhibits The Simplicity. The Foundamental Law Is Such That The Different Skins Of The Onion Resemble One Another And Therefore The Math For One Skin Allows You To Express Beautifully And Simply The Phenomenon Of The Next Skin.

Three Principles - The Conformability Of Nature To Herself, The Applicability Of The Criterion Of Simplicity, And The Utility Of Certain Parts Of Mathematics In Describing Physical Reality - Are Thus Consequences Of The Underlying Law Of The Elementary Particles And Their Interactions. Those Three Principles Need Not Be Assumed As Separate Metaphysical Postulates. Instead, They Are Emergent Properties Of The Fundamental Laws Of Physics.

What Is Especially Striking And Remarkable Is That In Fundamental Physics A Beautiful Or Elegant Theory Is More Likely To Be Right Than A Theory That Is Inelegant.

As A Theoretical Physicist, I Feel At Once Proud And Humble At The Thought Of The Illustrious Figures That Have Preceded Me Here To Receive The Greatest Of All Honors In Science, The Nobel Prize.