What We Get Wrong About Emotions
Fear, excitement, disgust: These feelings don’t deflect us from good judgment. They help guide it.
Paul Dirac was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century. A pioneer in quantum theory, which shaped our modern world, Dirac was a genius when it came to analytical thinking. But when his colleagues asked him for advice, his secret to success had nothing to do with the traditional scientific method: Be guided, Dirac told them, “by your emotions.”
Why would the cold logic of theoretical physics benefit from emotion? Physics’ theories are expressed in mathematics, which is governed by a set of rules. But physicists don’t just study existing theories—they invent new ones. In order to make discoveries, they have to pursue roads that feel
