“The confidence placed in physical theory owes much to its possessing the same kind of excellence from which pure geometry and pure mathematics in general derive their interest, and for the sake of which they are cultivated. … We cannot truly account for our acceptance of such theories without endorsing our acknowledgement of a beauty that exhilarates and a profundity that entrances us.”

Source: Personal Knowledge (1958), p. 15

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Michael Polanyi15

Hungarian-British polymath 1891–1976

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Michael Polanyi15

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