The Overuse of Elegant Mathematics

In the new magazine Nautilus, I have an article where I discuss the human tendency to desire elegant mathematical explanations of the world around us, even when these might be overly simple and incorrect:

It is good to dream of the simple and the powerfully explanatory. But we are finding out that not all of the world is as easily describable as we might have thought. This is not surprising, as the most easily described features of our universe must necessarily be the simplest. These are then, perhaps, the low-hanging fruit of elegance. We are now left with the more difficult-to-reach fruit, which can only be grasped through a certain amount of complexity and messiness.

From our tendency to find the golden ratio everywhere, to a discussion of the Netflix Prize, computational linguistics, and even Johannes Kepler, this piece is a fun little romp through the world of mathematical explanation.

Read the full article here.

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