I discuss the role of beauty in physics. Physicists are sometimes described as platonists for their conviction that the fundamental laws are elegant and aesthetic arguments represent an important epistemic tool. After a review of the ideas of Plato and some of the leading figures of modern physics, which suggest that this is indeed the case, I present a list of current aesthetic criteria. I focus on symmetry and unity and demonstrate their increasing relevance in an array of experimentally verified (...) theories. I also deal with an open issue of naturalness as the third criterion. The laws of nature appear increasingly beautiful as we uncover them, and it is important to see if the trend continues in the future. (shrink)

: Some of the great physicists' belief in the existence of a connection between the aesthetical features of a theory (such as beauty and simplicity) and its truth is still one of the most intriguing issues in the aesthetics of science. In this paper I explore the philosophical credibility of a version of this thesis, focusing on the connection between the mathematical beauty and simplicity of a theory and its truth. I discuss a heuristic interpretation of this thesis, attempting to (...) clarify where the appeal of this Pythagorean view comes from and what are the arguments favoring its acceptance or rejection. Along the way, I sketch the historical context in which this heuristic interpretation gained credibility (the quantum crisis in physics in the 1920s), as well as the more general implications of this thesis for physicists' metaphysical outlook. (shrink)

This paper engages with the aesthetics of knowl-edge, both in its sense as the connection between knowledge and ‘aesthetic’ judgements of beauty, or ugliness, and of the many ‘aesthetic’ – that is to say sensually perceivable – dimensions of knowledge, which are always to be seen to be constituting an epistemic factor in its production and consumption. On the one hand I analyse how in recent decades the connection between beauty and truth has been systematically employed to both inspire and (...) guide research in high-energy physics; at the same time I also show how this use of aesthetic judgement only reveals its constitutive role in physics research when paying attention to the broad range of aesthetic strategies employed for expressing scientific knowledge. (shrink)