Finding beauty in science is timeless. But we shouldn't let it blind us. [View in browser]( [Join Nautilus]( Did a friend forward this? [Subscribe here.]( This Thursday, your free member newsletter includes one article, below, by science writer Philip Ball. After that, be sure to check out this weekâs Facts So Romantic. HISTORY What Is a Beautiful Experiment? Finding beauty in science is timeless. But we shouldn't let it blind us. BY PHILIP BALL It might surprise many people to discover that âbeautyâ is a word more likely to be spoken today by scientists than by artists. There is almost a sense among contemporary artists and art theorists that the word is unseemly, perhaps even untrustworthy. Scientists, meanwhile, wax lyrical about âbeautiful theoriesââand beautiful experiments, too. Many claim that this aesthetic reaction is no different to that elicited by art, but it is hard to pin down exactly what it consists of or how it is evoked. Some scientists associate beauty with symmetryâa feature central to modern physicsâbut they would struggle in vain to reconcile this idea with aesthetic theories in art. It is challenged, for example, by Immanuel Kantâs claim that âAll stiff regularity (such as approximates to mathematical regularity) has something in it repugnant to tasteâ: we quickly weary of its simplicity. And while some scientists assert that their notion of beauty is timeless and universal, few would claim the same for art. Some philosophers have argued that âbeautyâ in science merely stands as a proxy for truth: what is true is then necessarily beautiful. If that is so, such allegedly aesthetic judgments seem a little shallow, and also perilous: we might be tempted to place undue trust in an idea simply because we deem it beautiful.
Some scientists have, however, defended that position. The British physicist Paul Dirac, for example, claimed that it is more important that a theory be beautiful than that it conform with experiment, while Einstein stated that âthe only physical theories that we are willing to accept are the beautiful ones.â Others are skeptical that perceptions of beauty are any guide to validity: the zoologist Thomas Henry Huxley said that the âgreat tragedy of scienceâ is âthe slaying of a beautiful hypothesis by an ugly fact.â We might be tempted to place undue trust in an idea simply because we deem it beautiful. One argument for why beauty is a valid descriptor in supposedly objective science is that the aesthetic response in scientists seems to involve the same neural pathways as those stimulated by reactions to art. But this doesnât prove as much as it seems. After all, the same reward circuits of the brain are activated by sex, food, and musicâbut this hardly implies that they are all essentially the same activity or that one may substitute for the other. There is no evidence that our brains possess some kind of innate neural âbeauty circuit.â In contrast to notions of âbeautiful theoriesâ (an assessment commonly applied, for example, to Einsteinâs theory of general relativity), itâs less obvious that beauty pronounces at all on the outcome of an experiment. Rather, that tends to be a judgment applied before the outcome is known, and is made more on the grounds of the design and logic embodied in the procedure. As French physicist and philosopher of science Pierre Duhem said, experiments may be seen as embodied hypothesesâand thereâs an attraction to an experiment that performs the translation efficiently and unambiguously, as, for example, in Ernest Rutherfordâs study of the alpha particle. All the same, thereâs likely to be some post-hoc justification in those experiments commonly designated as beautiful. There are probably many beautifully planned and executed experiments that have been forgotten because they didnât work, or not well enough, or not in a way that could be easily interpreted. THE ARTIST AT WORK: New Zealand physicist Ernest Rutherfordâs discovery of the alpha particle came from experiments that have an enduring beauty of efficiency. Credit: Wikimedia Commons With that proviso, the beauty awarded to an experiment lies more in its execution than in its outcome. It has something in common with the (expert) appreciation of a game of chess, arising from the aptness of the moves, the elegance of the strategy, and the choices that force the opponentâs hand. While Francis Bacon in the 17th century notoriously implied that experiments subject nature to a degree of coercion, an elegant experiment can look more like a collaboration of the experimenter with nature to uncover âsomething deeply hidden,â as Einstein put it. A beautiful experiment marshals the available resources to disclose what casual inspection will not. What leads many biologists to consider the MeselsohnâStahl experiment, which revealed the replication mechanism of DNA, the most beautiful in their discipline was how a seemingly impossible puzzleâto distinguish between possibilities whose outcomes look identicalâwas turned into a soluble one. Beauty as a means of learning and exploring In experiments there are many potential ingredients of aesthetics: beauty of concept, beauty (especially economy) of instrumental design, the aptness and economy with which the two are aligned, and beauty of reasoning in interpreting the results. These are qualities that require creativity and imaginationâthere is no prescription for them. Some scientists seem to have a talent for aesthetically pleasing experimental design, and none more so than Rutherford. Such virtues are perhaps easier to spot in an experiment than in a theory, for they donât tend to require recondite knowledge and are, as it were, explicitly built in. Physics Nobel laureate [Frank Wilczek]( author of the 2015 book A Beautiful Question: Finding Natureâs Deep Design, has suggested that beauty in a scientific idea becomes manifest when âyou get out more than you put inâ: the idea delivers something new and unexpected, revealing more than anticipated. Itâs an intriguing thought when applied to experiments, for in comparison to theories the âdeliverablesâ of experiments are more explicit: often a simple yes/no or this/that answer. Yet one can find examples of such bountiful excess in an experimentâs answers. Consider, for instance, the crystallographic studies that guided James Watson and Francis Crick to solving the molecular structure of the DNA molecule in 1953. That double-helical structure is widely considered beautiful in its own rightâboth Crick and Watson used the word, although convention forbade it in printâbut it also, as the pair famously mentioned rather archly in their discovery paper, showed how DNA might be replicated when cells divide. No one expected the structure to so obviously present a solution to that question too. An elegant experiment can look more like a collaboration of the experimenter with nature. Perhaps we shouldnât try too hard to pin down notions of beauty in science: attempts to make it a parameter that we can quantify and measure are liable to kill it as surely as vivisection kills the unfortunate lab animal. At any rate, the beautiful experiment, like the beautiful theory, probably gains in persuasive power: why, of course nature is like that! Thereâs a danger thereâwe shouldnât be blinded by beauty. But beautiful experiments tend almost by definition to be good experiments: they have clarity, they are unambiguous, and they deploy the available means in a logical and well-ordered fashion. This is surely how experimenters should aspire to work: beauty here serves a pedagogical function too. All science must be of its time, and good science can and does produce answers that are later revised and replaced. What makes for a good experiment? Science has always been plagued by false or unverified experimental claims. For example, in 1988 scientists led by French immunologist Jacques Benveniste reported that chemical solutions of a biological agent continued to show biological activity even when diluted well beyond the point where a single active molecule remained. Benveniste believed this showed water has a âmemoryââretaining an imprint of molecules dissolved within it. Although reported in good faith, the results could never be replicated and are now regarded as an example of what American chemist Irving Langmuir called âpathological science.â It is arguably better to regard the results as poor experiments. The way they were designed precluded the likelihood of an unambiguous outcome. There were too many uncontrolled factors that might influence the results. The art of scientific experimentation consists largely in making it discerning: finding a scheme through which your hypothesis can be probed stringently and potentially ruled out decisively. Scientists often assert that their practice is governed by the âscientific method,â in which one formulates a hypothesis that makes predictions and then devises an experiment to put them to the test. But this is a modern view, codified in particular by the âpragmatistâ philosophers of the early 20th century like John Dewey and Charles Sanders Peirce. Later philosophers of science such as Paul Feyerabend question whether science has ever been so formulaic and argue that its ideas depend as much on rhetorical skill and persuasion as on logic and demonstration. That unsettles some scientists, who insist on âexperienceââobservation and experimentâas the ultimate arbiter of truth. But although in the long run a theory that repeatedly conflicts with experimental observation can't survive, in the short term theorists may be right to stick to their guns in the face of apparent contradiction. More often, supporters of rival theories might argue about the interpretation of an experiment. One party may triumph not because their interpretation is right but because they're better at presenting their case. Or a scientist may reach the wrong conclusions from a correct and even elegant experiment just because they posed the wrong question. All this makes the scientific enterprise complicated, ambiguous, and socially contingent, but also richer, more creative, and more gloriously human. Philip Ball is a freelance writer. His latest book is [Beautiful Experiments: An Illustrated History of Experimental Science](. Reprinted with permission from Beautiful Experiments: An Illustrated History of Experimental Science by Philip Ball, published by The University of Chicago Press. © 2023 by Quarto Publishing plc. All rights reserved. Lead image: Uthai pr / Shutterstock More from Nautilus: ⢠[What separates highly creative people]( ⢠[What an artist sees in the deep sea]( Experience the endless possibilities and deep human connections that science offers [JOIN TODAY]( FACTS SO ROMANTIC
The Best Things We Learned Today Eminently creative people have brains that talk across the left and right hemispheres much more compared to creative people who are merely successful. Nautilus Many biologists consider the MeselsohnâStahl experiment, which revealed the replication mechanism of DNA, to be the most beautiful experiment in their discipline. Nautilus Without dung beetles and their waste removal labor, Gorongosa National Park would sink under layers of dung produced by thousands of mammalian grazers and browsers. Nautilus Wormsâ actions could eventually bury entire ancient buildings and monuments. Nautilus The Dorado Outcrop is a 9,800-foot deep seamount gently warmed by hydrothermal vents where mother octopuses brood. Nautilus A precursor to amino acids, the basic building blocks of proteins, was found near the center of our galaxy. Nautilus P.S. The astrophysicist John Bahcall died on this day in 2005. We released a rare, previously unseen 1997 [interview excerpt]( in which Bahcall, 62 years old at the time, shares his finely tuned understandings of Hubble Space Telescopeâs science and its human challenge. Todayâs newsletter was written by Brian Gallagher BECOME A MEMBER Join Nautilus and $10 Goes to the Gorongosa Restoration Project Illegal poaching and the 15-year-long Mozambican Civil War almost entirely destroyed one of Africaâs greatest treasures, Gorongosa National Park, reducing its large mammal population by as much as 95%. But there is hope. Hailed as Africaâs most exceptional wildlife restoration initiative, the [Gorongosa Restoration Project]( is a 20-year public-private partnership to restore the parkâs habitat, protect its wildlife, and support local communities. Nautilus is proud to [tell the story of Gorongosaâs extraordinary comeback]( the people fighting to protect it, and the flora and fauna that call it home. Our coverage spotlights the comeback of a peculiar beast almost [poached to the edge of extinction]( why scientists are using Gorongosa to understand how an ecosystem [heals from the depredations of war]( and how researchers are charting the [extraordinary web of life]( in one of the most biodiverse regions of the planet. You can now do your part to support Gorongosaâs guardians and protect its rich wildlife and landscapes. Join Nautilus, and we will donate $10 of all new one-year digital and print + digital subscriptions to support the Gorongosa Restoration Project. Read about Gorongosaâs remarkable resurgence while supporting the people who made this possible. [JOIN TO DONATE $10]( Thanks for reading. [Tell us](mailto:brian.gallagher@nautil.us?subject=&body=) your thoughts on todayâs note. Plus, [browse our archive]( of past print issues, and inspire a friend to sign up for [the Nautilus newsletter](. [Facebook]( [Twitter]( [Instagram]( Copyright © 2023 NautilusNext, All rights reserved.You were subscribed to the newsletter from [nautil.us](.
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