3
Truth and Beauty
“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when
we read the lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our
own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe
in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he
gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering
profound truths.” Miller [1].
3.1 A Journey to the Himalayas
Three things in life that most of us desire are love, money,
and an abundance of good food and drink. However, the three
things that we usually find are shattered illusions, obesity and
death. Nevertheless, some people manage to transcend their
peers and stand out for their higher aspirations.
Young Archibald was one of these few: his quest was for
Beauty, Truth and Wisdom. To those who warned him that it
was unrealistic to hope for all three, he would reply that actually
the three were just different facets of the same thing. Beauty is
perfection, and perfection cannot be flawed by the capital sin
of being false. “Just think of a snowflake,” he said. “The laws
of physics and geometry render each flake different, but they
are all endowed with the perfection of symmetry. What could
© The Author(s), under exclusive license
to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Barrett and P. P. Delsanto, Don’t Be Afraid of Physics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63409-4_3
39
Truth and Beauty
“Every day we slaughter our finest impulses. That is why we get a heartache when
we read the lines written by the hand of a master and recognize them as our
own, as the tender shoots which we stifled because we lacked the faith to believe
in our own powers, our own criterion of truth and beauty. Every man, when he
gets quiet, when he becomes desperately honest with himself, is capable of uttering
profound truths.” Miller [1].
3.1 A Journey to the Himalayas
Three things in life that most of us desire are love, money,
and an abundance of good food and drink. However, the three
things that we usually find are shattered illusions, obesity and
death. Nevertheless, some people manage to transcend their
peers and stand out for their higher aspirations.
Young Archibald was one of these few: his quest was for
Beauty, Truth and Wisdom. To those who warned him that it
was unrealistic to hope for all three, he would reply that actually
the three were just different facets of the same thing. Beauty is
perfection, and perfection cannot be flawed by the capital sin
of being false. “Just think of a snowflake,” he said. “The laws
of physics and geometry render each flake different, but they
are all endowed with the perfection of symmetry. What could
© The Author(s), under exclusive license
to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2021
R. Barrett and P. P. Delsanto, Don’t Be Afraid of Physics,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63409-4_3
39