Richard Feynman’s Ode to a Flower: A Short Animation

A rose by any oth­er name would smell as sweet, but could­n’t one’s appre­ci­a­tion of that aro­ma get a boost from under­stand­ing the sci­ence behind its exis­tence? So the­o­ret­i­cal physi­cist Richard Feyn­man argues from beyond the grave in ‘Ode to a Flower’, a short ani­ma­tion by Fras­er David­son. Pulling from a 1981 BBC inter­view with the charis­mat­ic Nobel lau­re­ate, David­son’s sim­ple graph­ics make the case for a mul­ti­fac­eted sense of admi­ra­tion. Revers­ing the angle, are there not those of us for whom Sci­ence is a patient ether­ized upon a table, until viewed through the warm lens of a tight­ly edit­ed ani­ma­tion? Speak­ing for myself, yes.
Let us find ways for our exist­ing pas­sions to lead to new found appre­ci­a­tions and an ever-deep­en­ing sense of won­der in the new year.

- Ayun Hal­l­i­day is the author of Peanut, a graph­ic nov­el released ear­li­er this week. Find her @AyunHalliday

Relat­ed con­tent:

Richard Feyn­man Presents Quan­tum Elec­tro­dy­nam­ics for the Non­Sci­en­tist

Leonard Susskind, Father of String The­o­ry, Warm­ly Remem­bers His Friend, Richard Feyn­man