I Could Not But Wonder at It

February 2, 2017 9:48 AM

Seeing the Invisible: a short animated film directed by Flora Lichtman and Sharon Shattuck about Dutch merchant-scientist Antonie van Leeuwenhoek's serendipitous 1674 discovery of microbial life. Part of the Animated Life series which uses papercraft puppets to depict outstanding discoveries and scientists in the history of biology. See also the Coelacanth and Mary Leakey.
posted by byanyothername (5 comments total)

This is beautiful; thanks for posting it! I worry sometimes about the transition from amateur to professionalized science: I know all scientists maintain some fundamental sense of wonder and curiosity, but knowledge of the natural world seems like one of the many things that's best and most truly pursued as an end in itself, vs. as a necessary means to grants, positions, publications, reputation, bread on the table, etc. We need more random instrument-makers, parsons and ladies of the manor who also do science in their spare time, for the hell of it and for the fun of following where the evidence leads.
posted by Bardolph at 10:49 AM on February 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

Oh, awesome.

Also, geekcore band name up for grabs: The Coelacanth and Mary Leakey
posted by mandolin conspiracy at 11:01 AM on February 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

Wonderful--I love all the papercraft small things. The Daphnia look like they're doing the wave.
posted by late afternoon dreaming hotel at 12:21 PM on February 2, 2017

This film is a pleasure to watch. Such gorgeous work! And timely for me; I've been reading Ed Yong's book about microbes, I Contain Multitudes, this week and have been thinking about Leeuwenhoek and just how revolutionary his discoveries were. I really liked this passage, which echoes what the film says:

The little 'animacules' were everywhere. Life, it turned out, existed in untold numbers beyond the threshold of our perception, visible only to this one man and his superlative lenses. As historian Douglas Anderson later wrote, "Almost everything he saw, he was the first human ever to see." And more to the point, why did he look at the water in the first place?

And I was amused that Yong mentions that Leeuwenhoek's letters to the Royal Society "were full of local gossip and reports about Leeuwenhoek's health. ('The man needed a blog,' observed Anderson.)" Just more about how integrated curiosity and observation were into his whole life, and how his unpretentious scientific scholarly life was integrated into that right back.
posted by mixedmetaphors at 2:52 PM on February 2, 2017 [2 favorites]

AR Wallace is in there-- just watched. Ship full of dying animals. Ugh.
posted by oflinkey at 7:40 PM on February 2, 2017