Zen Pencils by Gavin Aung Than for September 04, 2023
August 28, 2023
September 11, 2023
Transcript:
Richard Feynman on THE BEAUTY OF A FLOWER I have a friend who's an artist and has sometimes taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say... Friend: Look how beautiful it is! And I'll agree. Then he says... Friend: I as an artist can see how beautiful this is... ...but you as a scientist take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing. SUNFLOWER HELIANTHUS ANNOUS AND I THINK THAT HE'S KIND OF NUTTY. First of all... ...the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me too, I believe. Although I may not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is... ...I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. AT THE SAME TIME, I SEE MUCH MORE ABOUT THE FLOWER THAN HE SEES. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside, which also have a beauty. H2O CO2 Photosynthesis Energy Oxygen H2O Molecule Yay, we can breathe! I mean it’s not just beauty at this dimension, at one centimetre. There’s also beauty at smaller dimensions, the inner structure, also the processes. Mmmm…sweet, sweet nectar. That stuff ain’t free! Carry my pollen to another flower. Sheesh, a ‘please’ would be nice. OK, here we go… Success! The fact that the colours in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting. It means that insects can see the colour. It adds a question: does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? FERMAT’S SPIRAL r=cvn 0=nx137*508* Golden Angle 5 Bee: Look how beautiful it is! All kinds of interesting questions which the science knowledge only adds to the excitement, the mystery and the awe of a flower. Richard: IT ONLY ADDS. Richard: I DON’T UNDERSTAND HOW IT SUBTRACTS. - Richard Feynman
Art gives you a bottomless bucket of appreciation-of-beauty…so does science. The only losers are those from either camp that think they’ve gotten to the bottom of the bucket.