The Messenger Lectures have taken place annually at Cornell
since 1924, when H.J.Messenger, a graduate and professor of
mathematics, gave a sum of money to encourage eminent
personalities from anywhere in the world to visit Cornell and
talk to the students. In establishing the fund for the lectures
Messenger specified that it is "to provide a course on the
evolution of civilization for the special purpose of rising the
moral standard of our political, business and social life". In November 1964 Richard P. Feynman, one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists, laureate of Nobel prize, and distinguished educator, was invited to the lectures. |
This is an excerpt from his lectures taken from "The
Character of Physical Laws" by Richard P. Feynman, MIT Press,
1967:
...To summarize, I would use the words of Jeans, who said
that "the Great Architect seems to be a mathematician". To those
who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real
feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature. C.P.
Snow talked about two cultures. I really think that those two
cultures separate people who have and people who have not had
this experience of understanding mathematics well enough to
appreciate nature once.
It is too bad that it has to be mathematics, and that
mathematics is hard for some people. It is reputed - I do not
know if it is true - that when one of the kings was trying to
learn geometry from Euclid he complained that it was difficult.
And Euclid said, "There is no royal road to geometry". And there
is no royal road. Physicists cannot make a conversion to any
other language. If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate
nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she
speaks in. She offers her information only in one form; we are
not so unhumble as to demand that she change before we pay any
attention.
All the intellectual arguments that you can make will not
communicate to deaf ears what the experience of music really is.
In the same way all the intellectual arguments in the world will
not convey and understanding of nature to those of "the other
culture". Philosophers may try to teach you by telling you
qualitatively about nature. I am trying to describe her. But it
is not getting across because it is impossible. Perhaps it is
because their horizons are limited in the way that some people
are able to imagine that the center of the universe is man...