The theory of theories goes like this: A theory will be accepted by a scientific community if it explains better (or more of) what is known, fits at its fringes with what is known in other parts of our universe, and makes verifiable, preferably risky, predictions. Sometimes it does go like that. So the theory that made my name (and added to the already recognized greatness of the man with whom I collaborated, the synthetic chemist of the 20th century, R. B. Woodward) did make sense of many disparate and puzzling observations in organic chemistry. And “orbital symmetry control,” as our complex of ideas came to be called, made some risky predictions. I remember well the day that Jerry Berson sent us his remarkable experimental results on the stereochemistry of the so- called 1,3-sigmatropic shift . It should proceed in a certain way, he reasoned from our theory—a non-intuitive way. And it did. But much that goes into the acceptance of theories has little to do with rationalization and prediction. Instead, I will claim, what matters is a heady mix of factors in which psychological attitudes figure prominently. A simple equation describing a physical phenomenon (better still, many), the molecule shaped like a Platonic solid with regular geometry, the simple mechanism (A→B, in one step)—these have tremendous aesthetic appeal, a direct beeline into our soul. They are beautifully simple, and simply beautiful. Theories of this type are awesome in the original sense of the word—who would deny this of the theory of evolution, the Dirac equation or general relativity? A little caution might be suggested from pondering the fact that political ads patently cater to our psychobiological predilection for simplicity. Is the world simple? Or do we just want it to be such? In the dreams of some, the beauty and simplicity of equations becomes a criterion for their truth. Simple theories seem to validate that idol of science, Ockham’s Razor. In preaching the poetic conciseness and generality of orbital explanations, I have succumbed to this, too.
Levitation Methods for Use in the Hyperloop High-Speed Transportation System