Watch beauty unfold through science in this "ode to a flower" (video)
A multifaceted admiration of beauty from the viewpoint of a theoretical physicist.
The study of the microscopic is one of the richest, most aesthetic methods of understanding the world. Lucky is the scientist who, upon seeing something beautiful, is able to see all of the tiny beauties that constitute the beautiful as a whole. He can see the internal fractals and triangulations that make up everything in nature, and this without losing the primary admiration of seeing things as they present themselves to men.
In this animation by Fraser Davidson, based on an interview the BBC did with the theoretical physicist Richard Feynman, we can glimpse into the kaleidoscopic world of science before the aesthetic experience.
Contrary to what many believe, scientists (or at lest many of them) do appreciate beauty, but they have the privilege of magnification. Every shape they see is ‘unfoldable’ into thousands of shapes that are equally beautiful and simple in their complexity.
This video is an amazing encounter between an artist and a scientist who refutes the belief that science only dissects without stopping to appreciate. Its simple and genius illustrations explain the vision of a scientist and his need to tell the world how marvelous is the universe of physics which asks nothing of art (and vice versa). The flower, in this case, as Gertrude Stein would say, is not one but many flowers, thousands of flowers, and at the same time it’s nothing more than that: A rose is a rose is a rose is a rose…
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