"Does the universe embody beautiful ideas? Artists as well as scientists throughout history have pondered this "beautiful question." With Nobel laureate Frank Wilczek, embark on a voyage of related discoveries, from Plato and Pythagoras up to the present. Wilczek is hardly alone among great scientists in charting his course using beauty as his compass. As he reveals, this has been the heart of scientific pursuit from Pythagoras, the ancient Greek who was the first to argue that "all things are number," to Galileo, Newton, Maxwell, Einstein, and into the deep waters of twentiethcentury physics. The universe itself, suggests Wilczek, seems to want to embody beautiful and elegant forms. Perhaps this force is the pure elegance of numbers, perhaps the work of a higher being, or somewhere between"--Provided by publisher.

The question -- Pythagoras I : thought and object -- Pythagoras II : number and harmony -- Plato I : structure from symmetry : Platonic solids -- Plato II : escaping the cave -- Newton I : method and madness -- Newton II : color -- Newton III : dynamic beauty -- Maxwell I : God's esthetics -- Maxwell II : the doors of perception -- Prelude to symmetry -- Quantum beauty I : music of the spheres -- Symmetry I : Einstein's two-step -- Quantum beauty II : exuberance -- Symmetry II : local color -- Quantum beauty III : beauty at the core of nature -- Symmetry III : Emmy Noether : time, energy, and sanity -- Quantum beauty IV : in beauty we trust -- A beautiful answer?.