... the fight for credit goes on in every field, but in theoretical physics, it is almost a way of life, since ideas are by nature ethereal. And the … - Anthony Zee

Ah, group theory! The entire subject is amazing and amusing. Who would have expected that three Platonic solids—the cube, tetrahedron, and icosahedron—would pop up in constructing the Dynkin diagrams of the exceptional Lie algebras? Or that finite group theory could determine the remainder when 10¹⁰ is divided by 11?

Normally, the entropy of a system is extensive, that is, proportional to its volume. Somehow, a black hole has an entropy proportional to its surface rather than to its volume. This fact has led to the so-called holographic principle. Many fundamental physicists believe that this mysterious property of black holes holds the key to quantum gravity.

One reason I went to Princeton University as an undergraduate was that I had read about a Professor John Wheeler suggesting that the atomic nucleus might take on the form of a doughnut. When I got there, I learned that Wheeler was going to give a novel type of course for freshmen. A group of us were asked a few physics questions by Wheeler, and those who answered correctly were allowed into the course. The first homework assignment consisted of standing for 15 minutes in front of the house that Albert Einstein had lived in. It turned out that we were to learn physics from the top down: For example, we were taught “F = ma” as a limiting case of special relativity. If I remember correctly, the department did not allow Wheeler to teach the course again. But I learned a lot; in particular, I learned to “never calculate without first knowing the answer.”