April 8 (Bloomberg) -- Mathematics can be beguilingly
elegant. It can also be dangerous when people mistake its
elegance for truth.
Albert Einstein’s theory of general relativity might be the
best example of elegant math, capturing a wide range of subtle
and surprising phenomena with remarkable simplicity. Step toward
the practical, though, and physics moves quickly away from
elegance to makeshift usefulness. There’s no pretty expression
for the operation of a nuclear reactor, or for how air flows
past the swept wings of an aircraft. Understanding demands ugly
approximations, or brute-force simulation on a large computer.
