Thought for the Day

Energy and beauty are deeply linked in contemporary physics. At the highest energies, like those immediately after the Big Bang, perfect symmetry prevails, and all the forces of nature merge into one. As the universe cooled down, this symmetry was broken in various ways, so the world we see around us is, as Nobel laureate physicist Steven Weinberg has put it, "only an imperfect reflection of a deeper and more beautiful reality."

--Jim Holt, New York Times Review, 1/14/07