drishTi srishTi

Some glimpses from the last few months

glimpses are various,
and there are many,
some I captured...
http://www.flickr.com/photos/srikarpadiyar/sets/72157594159936765/

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Came across this somewhere on the net:
- A piece of paper found posted outside a physics lab, "Theory is when you know how it works but it still doesn't. Practice is when it works but you dont know why. In Dept. of Physics, theory and practice are joined together: nothing works and no one knows why! "

Found a video clip where Feynman is sharing his thoughts on 'knowing' beauty.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gGcJIihe3G8&eurl=
Physicists are some of the most intelligent people around. They know so much, and about so many things. But unlike others (artists for instance, who do not comment on rocket science), physicists send out their opinions on every sphere of life.
For instance, Feynman here goes out claiming that he sees so much more than an artist sees in a flower. A flower is beautiful, he says, as a whole, and is as beautiful or more, when you get into the details. The cell structure, the complicated actions in it... the mechanism.. and it goes on deeper. No, that isn't exactly beautiful Sir. Its wonderful cause it surprises us, it amazes us. We are curious, we have questions, and every answer we find pleases us, giving a feeling similar to that beauty does. But, it is self-gratification what works behind this feeling and not the inherent beauty of the object. The purpose of colour in a flower is to attract insects for pollination indeed. That raises questions in your mind, Mr Feynman, about the ability of an insect to see colours, while a lesser mortal would instead think, yes perhaps they see colours, but why does a colour attract an insect? Thats beauty Sir. Its in the instincts. You can explain the effects of instincts, the mechanism but perhaps not the reason. So do not dissect 'Beauty'. Let it alone, and relish it. Your pragmatic mind disintegrates it, and it becomes science, not beauty any more.

On a second thought, I perhaps did not get your joke Mr Feynman!


DVG writes in his Kagga (in kannada though, and I would not take up an (mis)adventure of translating it in part or whole)
' summanobbamTiyemtihudu? bEsaravahudu
hommuvenu kOTi roopadali naanemdu
bommaneLasidanamte, aa yeLasikeye maaye
nammiravu maayeyali mamkutimma '
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