Okay, gang, I just lifted this directly from a Boing Boing post by Cory Doctorow - forgive me, Cory, but I just had to have it here! (Thanks!)
The amazing Richard Feynman - who once won my admiration for his fanciful trip to Tuva - was a particle physicist, and Nobel prize winner, amongst his many accomplishments. He was also one of the most humane, and truly funny scientists I ever researched; and as a popularizer of science, he was right up there with Sagan.
I love this quote from the video:
“I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without any purpose, which is the way it really is as far as I can tell.”
For a virtual library of Feynman videos at YouTube, start here.
Feynman was wonderful; I remember the first time I saw him on PBS on Nova or something. It was like a door to a whole other world opening.
ReplyDeleteFrankly, I probably can't technically understand a single one of his contributions to quantum physics... I guess I just love the sort of scientist he seemed to be... a brilliant eccentric... part sage, part trickster... and some guy you hold long philosophical discussions with at a local bar.
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