“A poet once said “The whole universe is in a glass of wine.” We will probably never know in what sense he meant that, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflections in the glass, and our imaginations adds the atoms. The glass is a distillation of the Earth’s rocks, and in its composition we see the secret of the universe’s age, and the evolution of the stars. What strange array of chemicals are there in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization: all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that Nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure: drink it and forget it all!”
Richard Feynman.
The New Quantum Universe (2003) by Tony Hey and Patrick Walters; Epilogue. (Originally, from “The Feynman Lectures on Physics,” by Feynman, Leighton and Sands.)
Well there’s something to think about!
And they say science is without a sense of wonder and beauty!
This quotation comes, originally, from “The Feynman Lectures on Physics,” by Feynman, Leighton and Sands. It is the closing paragraph of chapter 3, “The Relation of Physics to Other Sciences.”
Thanks, Michael — I will make the appropriate amendment right away.
now if the human mind arises from complex chemical reactions in a brain made of the same essential building blocks as wine, the question really is, how must we look to wine from inside a glass?
Okay, you’re barred for making my head hurt 😉 Just kidding.
Wine as a conscious substance! That really would be something… intoxication would simply become “possession” 😀 A little too shamanic for my tastes, but fun to play with!
Poets don’t write to be understood? I guess I’ll hand in my poetic license, then.
My favourite Feynman quote is this one:
I don’t know when to stop talking. So instead of leaving it as an interesting remark, I am going to horrify and disgust you with the complexities of life by proving that it is so.
from chapter 19 of volume 2 of The Feynman Lectures on Physics (the only volume I have, unfortunately, but I’ve been told that’s the best lecture, and I believe it.)
I have so many favourite Feynman quotes/stories that it’s often difficult to choose. Have you read Surely You’re Joking…?
No, but I’d like to. I already own more books than I have time to read (I blame the New Scientist subscription, but really, I just buy too many books) so I can’t justify buying more. I’ve only read some of his lectures on physics.
Life at CERN is going on as normal… I’m trying to find a way to stay after my current contract ends. With any luck I’ll still be around when we have the first collisions, whenever they may be.
As far as books about the lives of scientists go, I quite liked ‘The Man Who Loved Only Numbers’ about Paul Erdős. Don’t buy it; you already have too many books.
How long have you got left on your contract? It would be a shame for you to not be there when the black holes started eating up downtown Geneva 😉 And I mean that in the nicest possible way, of course LOL
Paul Erdős… oh, God, you had to go and do it, didn’t you?
The contract ends at the end of the year (conveniently, my last week of ‘work’ will be during the end-of-year holidays) though I have applied for a few other things here, I’m just waiting to hear back. I definitely want to be one of the first to be sucked into the black hole, otherwise, what’s the point?
Disclaimer, in case anyone from CERN reads this, because we’re not supposed to say things like that: I’m joking. As I’ve explained in previous comments, there’s about as much chance of a black hole eating up downtown Geneva as there is of a giant cosmic goat eating up downtown Geneva.
You just know I’m going to get all the crackpots who are worried about giant cosmic goats hitting my site, now, don’t you? 😉
That was my intention.
Actually, I have a hypothesis involving giant cosmic goats and dark energy, which I am hoping to test some time next year.
In which the Lambda-CDM model becomes the Goatda-CDE model? Or am I showing my ignorance?
Good morning Mr Murning!
In a search for the Feynman lecture, the actual audio which I have, I have never as yet found the written words or even from the Feynman books on the lectures to be the exact spoken words as in the audio recording. I wonder now how many have not actually heard this lecture in the real audio recordings done at CALTECH in 1961. It is so much more compelling to lesten to his real voice – There are however other lectures online now as Bill gates put up the Project Tuva site but it does not contain this one- If anyone knows if it is avaialble online, please let me know. markscosmiclight@gmail.com – Mark Seibold, retired Artist- Astronomy Educator – Portland Oregon > http://research.microsoft.com/apps/tools/tuva/index.html#data=3%7C%7C%7C
Hello there, Mark! Completely overlooking the morning Murning play on words 😉 I have to agree. Listening to Feynman is, indeed, far more compelling. He had a wonderful capacity to really bring ideas to life.
Unfortunately, no, I haven’t ever found this one online. I will certainly let you know if I do, however — and hope that you’ll do the same.
Thanks for the input.