Richard P. Feynman Quote
So our problem is to explain where symmetry comes from. Why is nature so nearly symmetrical? No one has any idea why. The only thing we might suggest is something like this: There is a gate inJapan, a gate in Neiko, which is sometimes called by the Japanesethe most beautiful gate in all Japan; it was built in a time whenthere was great influence from Chinese art. This gate is very elaborate,with lots of gables and beautiful carving and lots of columnsand dragon heads and princes carved into the pillars, and so on.But when one looks closely he sees that in the elaborate and complexdesign along one of the pillars, one of the small design elementsis carved upside down; otherwise the thing is completelysymmetrical. If one asks why this is, the story is that it was carvedupside down so that the gods will not be jealous of the perfectionof man. So they purposely put an error in there, so that the godswould not be jealous and get angry with human beings.We might like to turn the idea around and think that the trueexplanation of the near symmetry of nature is this: that God madethe laws only nearly symmetrical so that we should not be jealousof His perfection!
So our problem is to explain where symmetry comes from. Why is nature so nearly symmetrical? No one has any idea why. The only thing we might suggest is something like this: There is a gate inJapan, a gate in Neiko, which is sometimes called by the Japanesethe most beautiful gate in all Japan; it was built in a time whenthere was great influence from Chinese art. This gate is very elaborate,with lots of gables and beautiful carving and lots of columnsand dragon heads and princes carved into the pillars, and so on.But when one looks closely he sees that in the elaborate and complexdesign along one of the pillars, one of the small design elementsis carved upside down; otherwise the thing is completelysymmetrical. If one asks why this is, the story is that it was carvedupside down so that the gods will not be jealous of the perfectionof man. So they purposely put an error in there, so that the godswould not be jealous and get angry with human beings.We might like to turn the idea around and think that the trueexplanation of the near symmetry of nature is this: that God madethe laws only nearly symmetrical so that we should not be jealousof His perfection!
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About Richard P. Feynman
Feynman developed a pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions describing the behavior of subatomic particles, which later became known as Feynman diagrams and is widely used. During his lifetime, Feynman became one of the best-known scientists in the world. In a 1999 poll of 130 leading physicists worldwide by the British journal Physics World, he was ranked the seventh-greatest physicist of all time.
He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb during World War II and became known to the wider public in the 1980s as a member of the Rogers Commission, the panel that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. Along with his work in theoretical physics, Feynman has been credited with having pioneered the field of quantum computing and introducing the concept of nanotechnology. He held the Richard C. Tolman professorship in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology.
Feynman was a keen popularizer of physics through both books and lectures, including a talk on top-down nanotechnology, "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" (1959) and the three-volumes of his undergraduate lectures, The Feynman Lectures on Physics (1961–1964). He delivered lectures for lay audiences, recorded in The Character of Physical Law (1965) and QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter (1985). Feynman also became known through his autobiographical books Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (1985) and What Do You Care What Other People Think? (1988), and books written about him such as Tuva or Bust! by Ralph Leighton and the biography Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick.