Feynman

Notice the spelling. F-e-y-n-m-a-n. Sort of like superman and spiderman, Feynman is an ordinary
mortal who tells us what being a scientist is all about. I’m quoting “The Pleasure of Finding Things out” Page 2, “The Beauty of a Flower”:

I have a friend who’s an artist and he’s sometimes taken a view which I don’t agree 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, oh, take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing.” And I think that he’s kind of funny. First of all, the beauty that he sees
is available to other people too. […] At the same time, I see much more about the flower than he sees. I can imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions
inside which also have a beauty. I mean it’s not just the beauty at this dimension of one centimeter, there is also a beauty at a smaller dimension, the inner structure. Also the processes,
the fact that the colors in the flower evolved in the 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 science knowledge only adds to the excitement
and mystery and the awe of a flower. It only adds; I don’t understand how it subtracts.

I’ll let that passage speak for itself. Richard P. Feynman thinks about the world around him. And in doing that, he makes
us recognize lots of things that we see daily, but we don’t notice. The book is a gem – a collection of the most sense-making
stuff I’ve read in a year, and I’ll recommend it to anyone.

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