Equations in poetry and science

Equations are the cornerstone on which the edifice of science rests. Yet, argues Graham Farmelo, they can be as exquisite as the finest poetry.

Saturday January 26, 2002
The Guardian

During a radio interview given by Philip Larkin in May 1974 to promote his High Windows collection, he pointed out that a good poem is like an onion. On the outside, both are pleasingly smooth and intriguing, and they become more and more so as their successive layers of meaning are revealed. His aim was to write the perfect onion.

The poetry of science is in some sense embodied in its great equations, and these equations can also be peeled. But their layers represent their attributes and consequences, not their meanings.

This is an edited extract from Graham Farmelo’s introduction to the collection of essays, It Must Be Beautiful: Great Equations Of Modern Science (published next month by Granta, Ł20).