Dirac's Beautiful Theory
Taking Paul Dirac's maxim too far: a physicist insists spacetime is a butterfly playing violin at sunset, because it's beautiful, data be damned.
Transcript
[Quote] "A theory with mathematical beauty is more likely to be correct than an ugly one that fits some experimental data" –Paul Dirac
"I've figured it out: spacetime is a Monarch butterfly playing violin at sunset." "That contradicts everything we know about space. And time. And butterflies." "I WILL NOT LET YOUR NARROW-MINDED EMPIRICISM CHOKE MY EXPERIENCE OF BEAUTY" "And violins."
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Free for classrooms, worksheets, slides and other non-commercial use under CC BY-NC 4.0, with credit to Ben Orlin.
Cartoon by Ben Orlin, Math with Bad Drawings. https://cartoons.mathwithbaddrawings.com/2018-11-07-dirac-s-beautiful-theory/ (CC BY-NC 4.0)