“Physicists describe the two properties of physical laws—that they do not depend on when or where you use them—as symmetries of nature. By this usage physicists mean that nature treats every moment in time and every location in space identically—symmetrically—by ensuring that the same fundamental laws are in operation. Much in the same manner that they affect art and music, such symmetries are deeply satisfying; they highlight an order and coherence in the workings of nature. The elegance of rich, complex, and diverse phenomena emerging from a simple set of universal laws is at least part of what physicists mean when they invoke the term "beautiful."”

— Brian Greene , book The Elegant Universe

The Elegant Universe (1999) Ch. 7 The "Super" in Superstrings.

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Brian Greene 15

American physicist 1963

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“Hundreds of years ago, natural theologians tried to impress their readers with stories of the wondrous symmetries of Nature; now we see that, ironically, it is the departures from those symmetries that makes life possible. It is upon the flaws of Nature, not the laws of Nature, that the possibility of our existence hinges. …The laws and constants of Nature are features that enforce uniformity and simplicity, while initial conditions and symmetry breakings permit complexity and diversity.”

John D. Barrow (1952–2020) British scientist

The Artful Universe (1995)

“At the beginning of time the laws of Nature were probably very different from what they are now. Thus we should consider the laws of Nature as continually changing with the epoch, instead of as holding uniformly throughout space-time. This idea was first put forward by Milne, who worked it out on… assumptions… not very satisfying… we should expect them also to depend on position in space, in order to preserve the beautiful idea of the theory of relativity [that] there is fundamental similarity between space and time.”

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) theoretical physicist

The Relation between Mathematics and Physics http://www.damtp.cam.ac.uk/events/strings02/dirac/speach.html (Feb. 6, 1939) Proceedings of the Royal Society (Edinburgh) Vol. 59, 1938-39, Part II, pp. 122-129.

“[T]he most fundamental laws of physics are not restrictions on the behaviour of matter. Rather, they are restrictions on the way physicists may describe that behaviour.”

Victor J. Stenger book God: The Failed Hypothesis

Source: God: The Failed Hypothesis (2007), Chapter 4: 'Cosmic Evidence', p.129

“The good taste we speak of, which is that of literature, is not limited to what we call the sciences, but extends itself imperceptibly to other arts, such as architecture, painting, sculpture, and music. 'Tis the same discerning faculty which introduces universally the same elegance, the same symmetry, and the same order in the disposition of the parts; which inclines us to a noble simplicity, to natural beauties, and a judicious choice of ornaments. On the other hand, the depravation of taste in arts has been always a mark and consequence of the depravation of taste in literature. … The good taste of literature reaches also to public customs, and the manner of living. An habit of consulting the best rules upon one subject, naturally leads to the doing it also upon others.”

Charles Rollin (1661–1741) French historian

The Method of Teaching and Studying the Belles Lettres, Vol. I, The Third Edition (1742), Part II, Ch. 2: 'General Reflections upon what is called good Taste', pp. 45–46

“It seems to be one of the fundamental features of nature that fundamental physical laws are described in terms of a mathematical theory of great beauty and power”

Paul Dirac (1902–1984) theoretical physicist

The Evolution of the Physicist's Picture of Nature (1963)
Context: It seems to be one of the fundamental features of nature that fundamental physical laws are described in terms of a mathematical theory of great beauty and power, needing quite a high standard of mathematics for one to understand it. You may wonder: Why is nature constructed along these lines? One can only answer that our present knowledge seems to show that nature is so constructed. We simply have to accept it. One could perhaps describe the situation by saying that God is a mathematician of a very high order, and He used very advanced mathematics in constructing the universe. Our feeble attempts at mathematics enable us to understand a bit of the universe, and as we proceed to develop higher and higher mathematics we can hope to understand the universe better.

“The laws of thought are natural laws with which we have no power to interfere, and which are of course not to be in any way confused with the artificial laws of a country, which are invented by men and can be altered by them. Every science is occupied in detecting and describing the natural laws which are inflexibly observed by the objects treated in the Science.”

William Stanley Jevons (1835–1882) English economist and logician

Introduction, Lesson I: Definition and Sphere of the Science.
Elementary Lessons on Logic (1870)

“It is remarkable of physical laws, that we see them operating on every kind of scale as to magnitude, with the same regularity and perseverance.”

Robert Chambers (publisher, born 1802) book Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation

Source: Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation (1844), p. 24
Context: All, we see, is done by certain laws of matter, so that it becomes a question of extreme interest, what are such laws? All that can yet be said, in answer, is, that we see certain natural events proceeding in an invariable order under certain conditions, and thence infer the existence of some fundamental arrangement which, for the bringing about of these events, has a force and certainty of action similar to, but more precise and unerring than those arrangements which human society makes for its own benefit, and calls laws. It is remarkable of physical laws, that we see them operating on every kind of scale as to magnitude, with the same regularity and perseverance.

“By symmetry we mean the existence of different viewpoints from which the system appears the same. It is only slightly overstating the case to say that physics is the study of symmetry. The first demonstration of the power of this idea may have been by Newton, who may have asked himself the question: What if the matter here in my hand obeys the same laws as that up in the sky—that is, what if space and matter are homogeneous and isotropic?”

Philip Warren Anderson (1923) American physicist

Source: More Is Different (1972), p. 394

“Every physicist (naturally, this equally applies to other specialities, but I re- strict myself to physicists for definitiveness) should simultaneously know, apart from theoretical physics, a wealth of facts from different branches of physics and be familiar with the newest notable accomplishments.”

Vitaly Ginzburg (1916–2009) Russian Physicist

in his Nobel lecture http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/2003/ginzburg-lecture.html, December 8, 2003, at Aula Magna, Stockholm University.

“Further, as every law of nature implies the existence of an invariant, it follows that every law of nature is a constraint.”

W. Ross Ashby (1903–1972) British psychiatrist

Source: An Introduction to Cybernetics (1956), Part 2: Variety, p. 130

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