Featuring astrophysicist Joan Feynman her brother Richard, this video, part reminiscence, part rousing defense of scientific method, is so uplifting. Do you "encounter enormous suns, endless distances and great mysteries?"
Do you still wonder?
Whether splashing new ideas across the blank canvas or taking in the implications of the new data or carefully tracing the full extent of Hydra in the inky depths, do you still look up?
The poem Joan Feynman references is actually from Walt Whitman, and in its last three lines hints at perhaps the greatest and still unexplained mystery - the first-person experience. Here it is in full:
When I Hear the Learn'd Astronomer
When I heard the learn'd astronomer;
When the proofs, the figures, were ranged in columns before me;
When I was shown the charts and the diagrams, to add, divide, and
measure them;
When I, sitting, heard the astronomer, where he lectured with much
applause in the lecture-room,
How soon, unaccountable, I became tired and sick;
Till rising and gliding out, I wander'd off by myself,
In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars.
Have a great weekend.
Wayne