The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out

While answering emails and working this morning, I listened to an interview by the noted physicist Richard Feynman. He speaks of the pleasure of learning things.

He starts out by insulting artists, talks about his fathers profound influence on his appreciation for science, reflects on his involvement at Los Alamos building the atomic bomb, speaks of his digust with bestowing honor on people (including his own honors) and the way we do it, makes some really cool analogies to studying the world and formulating laws compared to observing a game of chess with its rules involved, throws in a lenghty discussion of physics, and talks about teaching science to his son by telling stories of walking into a dogs nose. He admits that he’s baffled on how to teach science.

He ends with a discussion of religious beliefs. He gentle, he’s graceful, and he’s godless. While I ultimately don’t share his conclusions, I find his reflections interesting and can identify with different points.

And if you crank up your speakers really loud in the first part of the clip, when Feynman is drawing a picture of a woman, you can just barely maked out Western Scrub Jays callling in the background. True birders don’t just watch movies or interviews. They listen to what’s calling in the background.

(via Pharyngula)