Feynman’s Flower

Some people believe that learning science takes away one’s wonder of the world. They fear that science reduces Nature’s beauty into ugly clockwork. I believe that science helps uncover the beauty of Nature. Richard Feynman, physicist and communicator agreed with me:

“I have a friend who’s an artist and he’s sometimes 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 I’ll agree, I think. And he
says, ‘You see, I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, but you, as a scientist, you take
this all apart and it becomes a dull thing.

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 might not be quite as refined aesthetically 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 can imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside which also
have a beauty….

Also, the processes, the fact that the colors in the flower evolved in order to attract insects to
pollinate it is interesting - it means that insects can see the color. It adds a question: Does
this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms? Why is it aesthetic? All kinds of interesting
questions which shows that a scientific knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery
and the awe of a flower. It only adds; I don’t understand how it can subtract.”

So, that’s where Feynman’s Flower comes from. This blog will reflect my interests: art that communicates the the beauty of Nature we discover through science, my work towards communicating science through creative means, and science discoveries in the realms of molecules, microbiology, and physics that are too good not to share.