Quote of the Week

In Week 201, which came up recently at the cafe, John Baez said, in relation to Galois theory,

The moral is this: you can't solve a problem if the answer has some symmetry, and your method of solution doesn't let you write down a correct answer that has this symmetry! An old example of this principle is the medieval puzzle called Buridan's Ass. Placed equidistant between two equally good piles of hay, this donkey starves to death because it can't make up its mind which alternative is best.

Good advice for string theorists and particle physicists, perhaps? Also check out some of Baez's cool new links.