In a BBc interview, the scientist Richard Feynman recalls a disagreement with a friend, where he maintains that a scientist can appreciate the beauty of a flower just as much as an artist. Feynman believes the aesthetics of a flower can be recognised by everyone. He says that a scientist can also imagine the plant at a cellular level, and see the beauty in its complex inner structure. He wonders whether this beauty can also be appreciated by other creatures. Watch the following animation to the words of Feynman.
Ode to a Flower.
From the BBC Interview for Horizon 'The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.
(bbc.co.uk/sn/tvradio/programmes/horizon/broadband/archive/feynman/)
Animated by Fraser Davidson (sweetcrude.tv).
I have a friend who's an artist and he's some times taken a view which I don't agree with very well. He'll hold up a flower and say, "look how beautiful it is", and he says you see as I as an artist could see how beautiful this is, but you as a scientist, oh, take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing." And I think he's kind of nutty.
First of all, Although I may not be quite as refined as esthetically as he is. But I can appreciate the beauty of a flower.
At the same time, I see much more about the flower that he sees. I mean it's not just a beauty at this dimensión there's also beauty at a swallow dimension I could imagine the cells in there, also the processes the complicated actions I would also have a beauty .
The fact that the colors in the flower are evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting -- it means that insects can see the color.
It adds a question. Why is it aesthetic?, All kinds of interesting questions which a science only adds to the excitement and mystery in the awe of a flower.
It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts.
