February 5, 2003
Wednesday - 4:00 pm in Swain West 119
Speaker: Professor Douglas Hofstadter, Computer Science, Indiana University
Title: Analogy as the Central Motor of Discovery in Physics

Abstract:
Physicists all know that some important ideas in physics have come from analogies to older ideas in physics. For instance, the abstract notion of "isospin" (or isotopic spin) originated in the prior concept of "spin" (quantized angular momentum); likewise, the concept of "phonon" (quantum of sound, or quantized collective excitation of a crystal) was based on the prior concept of "photon" (quantum of light, or quantized element of the electromagnetic field). I suggest that these two examples (which are transparent analogies, as is revealed by the very words chosen to describe the new phenomena) are not exceptions, but in fact represent the bread and butter of inventive thinking in physics (or at least theoretical physics). The main purpose of this talk is to reveal to physicists themselves just how pervasive this kind of semi-irrational, wholly intuitive type of thinking is, in the mental activity known as "doing physics", in stark contrast to the more conventional picture whereby "doing physics" consists of careful reasoning with the aid of mathematical machinery. Some psychologists and cognitive scientists believe that by becoming more aware of the mechanisms of thought, one becomes more able to use one's mind effectively; if this is true, then learning about how analogies have helped previous generations of physicists might well help contemporary physicists to discover ideas they would not have thought of otherwise.