Huiting Liu

Developing intuition is a key part of a physicist’s training. Loosely speaking, intuition is the ability to know, believe, judge, or act prior to rational reflection or when rational reflection is inconclusive or insufficient. In physics research and education, intuition often uses aesthetic devices such as imagery, metaphor, and visualization to transform the abstract and invisible into the tangible and concrete. Drawing upon modern physics, philosophy, and aesthetics, I hope to understand intuition, its connection to imagination, its role in the formation of a physicist, and the possible changes in scientific practices that new computational tools for intuition will bring.