Mario Livio
Head of the Science Division
Space Telescope Science Institute
What do Shakespeare, Cezanne, and Keats have in common with the big bang? Like good writing, art, or philosophy, scientific ideas too must be beautiful to be successful. I will define "beauty" in physics and cosmology and show that beauty is an essential ingredient in fundamental theories of the universe. I will examine this "cosmological aesthetic principle" in the light of the recent discovery that the expansion of our universe may be accelerating. These ideas form the basis for my popular book "The Accelerating Universe" which has just appeared (John Wiley & Sons, March 2000).