Dirac Lecture 2011 - Beauty and truth:their intersection in mathematics and science
Lord Robert M. May
Zoology Department, Oxford University
Supported by the Royal Society of NSW & Australian Institute of Physics
In the mists of prehistory, it seems clear that our ancestors sought to make sense of their world through myth and magic, memorably associated with evocative cave paintings, stone circles, and the like. The Greeks attempt to understand the motions of heavenly bodies were constrained by essentially aesthetic ideas about the perfection of circles. Did the advent of the experimental method overturn this conjunction of truth with beauty? Dirac’s equation speaks eloquently and amazingly to a contrary view. My talk will cover this general ground in an opinionated way.
Date: Friday 29 April 2011
Time: 11am
Location: Leighton Hall, Scientia Building UNSW
Robert McCredie May, Baron May of Oxford, OM, AC, FRS is an Australian scientist who has been Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government, President of the Royal Society, and a Professor at Sydney and Princeton. He now holds joint professorships at Oxford, and Imperial College London.
Watch the full lecture (76:16)
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