About the Author

S. Chandrasekhar has received many awards in his career, including the Nobel Prize for Physics, the National Medal of Science (U.S.), and the Copley Medal of the Royal Society (London). He is the Morton D. Hull Distinguished Service Professor Emeritus in the Department of Astronomy and Astrophysics, the Department of Physics, and the Enrico Fermi Institute at the University of Chicago.

Reviews

Mathematicians often use the term elegant to describe a particularly creative theorem or proof. In these seven lectures originally presented between 1946 and 1985, a Nobel laureate in physics examines the creative process in science and shows how a sense of the beautiful is a key element. Comparing Shakespeare, Beethoven, and Newton, Chandrasekhar points out similarities and differences in artistic and scientific creativity; and in pieces on Edward Arthur Milne and Arthur Stanley Eddington, shows how the aesthetic sense guided each man's work. Recommended for all collections in the history and philosophy of science.Terry Skeats, Bishop's Univ., Lennoxville, Quebec