The Meaning of Simplicity in Physics

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Abstract
In the fourteenth century William of Occam in the course of his attack on the medieval scholastic philosophy enunciated his famous “razor”: Entia non sunt multiplicanda praeter necessitatem (hypotheses should not be multiplied unnecessarily). This is the classic claim for the description of nature in terms of the minimum possible number of fundamental concepts. It was presumably so recognized by Newton in the third book of his “Principia” in 1687 when he wrote: “We are to admit no more causes of natural things than such as are both true and sufficient to explain their appearances. To this purpose the philosophers say that Nature does nothing in vain, and more is in vain when less will serve; for Nature is pleased with simplicity and affects not the pomp of superfluous causes.”

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