Richard Feynman

Feynman was arguably the greatest mind since Einstein, and a teacher of supreme ability. I first heard of Richard Feynman way back, Feynman diagrams are often used in physics class, but I never understood his character until I took up serious study in the early '80s. Then his name kept cropping up. Along with the rumours of his womanising, and his skill playing bongo drums; and archive movies of his lectures, which were amazing (maybe I'll post some in the future).

And then there was this; a BBC Horizon broadcast from 1981. I've blogged this before but the thought police at YouTube saw fit to delete the video. Thankfully that error has been put right by nethius.

The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out (1, 2 ,3 4, 5,)


Now, just for delicate flower I will talk about flowers...

When I first worked in biochemistry we studied an obscure blue pigment in a single celled algae (a simple plant). It's the blue-green stuff on the pond walls in this photo. Over the years we were able to show how the algae makes this pigment and, by a bit of jiggery pokery, infer how higher plants make phytochrome. That's the plant hormone which controls germination, leaf breaks and flowering time. Without phytochrome, flowering plants may not have evolved and humankind would never have witnessed that aspect of beauty.

Like Feynman when I look at a flower, I see the flower but I also see a dance of biochemicals interacting with their environment. But more than that, I'm conscious of the evolution of that species and sometimes its relationship to other plants. Even more I see an individual history. The vagaries of the weather, competition with other plants for sunlight or minerals in the soil, caterpillars or worse, the countless chances and improbabilities of that flower being here and now. That to me is the miracle, if there is one, the unlikely path which lead to that particular blossom. And it is after all, no more than the plant’s attempt at sexual reproduction. Nothing mystical or supernatural about it, it's just awesome.

Other aesthetic apes, may wish to draw or paint or photograph the flower. Or write poetry in its honour, attempting to capture that essence of beauty which can be all too fleeting. That is good and I have great admiration, for I have none of those skills. But is my own perception of a flower diminished by lack of artistic ability? I think not, and I can still chill out and enjoy the garden the same as everyone else. Grow into these trousers... >>

A thought for a Sunday - Richard Feynman

I can live with doubt, and uncertainty, and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers, and possible beliefs, and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything, and in many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about a little, but if I can’t figure it out, then I go to something else. But I don’t have to know an answer. I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn’t frighten me.

Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988), from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out (1999) edited by Jeffery Robbins. See also here. Grow into these trousers... >>