Not long ago, I wrote a post about the beauty of imperfection.
Do I believe imperfection is beautiful? Yes.
Do I believe that perfection is beautiful? Yes.
I feel like I need to explain myself. I absolutely LOVE the approach taken by the Greeks as they developed geometry. Furthermore, I LOVE the mathematical models that physicists have created to describe reality!
The fields of geometry and physics flirt with perfection. They both involve the study of idealizations.
In the real world, there’s no such thing as a perfect circle or a perfect triangle. These are abstract idealizations. Our minds can comprehend these mathematical models; however, they are never actualized in the physical world.
Earth is NOT a sphere. It’s not even an oblate spheroid if we’re going to be completely honest. It’s approximately spherical if you ignore the mountains and valleys and all of the critters roaming its surface.
I LOVE the idea of what a spherical Earth allows you to calculate!
AND I love the mountains and valleys that are so inspiring when I find time to escape the suburbs.
There’s no contradiction here. Physics is NOT the study of reality. It’s the study of how well our models approximate reality. It’s about choosing the models that provide valuable insights into the true nature of our world. It’s about predicting the outcomes of well-designed experiments.
Simplifying idealizations are powerful.
The complexity inherent in nature is awe-inspiring!
I love the imperfections found in nature AND the perfection found in our models of nature.
Life is subtle.
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