Stephon Alexander, a Brown University physicist, emphasizes the importance of hobbies, particularly music, in scientific exploration. His passion for jazz, inspired by the legendary John Coltrane, provides him with a unique perspective on physics. Alexander's jazz epiphany arose from a diagram by Coltrane that he found related to quantum gravity. This connection highlights how the arts, specifically music, can parallel and influence theoretical scientific thought, much like the views of both Coltrane and Einstein, who perceived music and physics as intuitive and improvisational activities.
Coltrane changed my whole research direction... led to basically a discovery in physics.
The same geometric principle that motivated Einstein's theory was reflected in Coltrane's diagram.
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