Feynman on Wine
A poet once said, ‘The whole universe is in a glass of wine.’ We will probably never know in what sense he meant it, for poets do not write to be understood. But it is true that if we look at a glass of wine closely enough we see the entire universe. There are the things of physics: the twisting liquid which evaporates depending on the wind and weather, the reflection in the glass; and our imagination adds atoms. The glass is a distillation of the earth’s rocks, and in its composition we see the secrets of the universe’s age, and the evolution of stars. What strange array of chemicals are in the wine? How did they come to be? There are the ferments, the enzymes, the substrates, and the products. There in wine is found the great generalization; all life is fermentation. Nobody can discover the chemistry of wine without discovering, as did Louis Pasteur, the cause of much disease. How vivid is the claret, pressing its existence into the consciousness that watches it! If our small minds, for some convenience, divide this glass of wine, this universe, into parts — physics, biology, geology, astronomy, psychology, and so on — remember that nature does not know it! So let us put it all back together, not forgetting ultimately what it is for. Let it give us one more final pleasure; drink it and forget it all!
Richard Feynman (1918-1988)
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In the Dark 
July 5, 2011 at 1:25 pm
This is the last paragraph of The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Volume I, Chapter 3, “The Relation of Physics to Other Sciences.” It was originally recited by Feynman ) in 1961 in the Caltech physics lecture hall (E. Bridge 201), with the (then, all-male) Freshman class in attendance.
Mike Gottlieb
Editor, The Feynman Lectures on Physics
July 5, 2011 at 1:56 pm
I’ve googled the “glass of wine” quote, but although there are thousands of Feynman hits, no poet ever said it, so far as I can see.
July 5, 2011 at 2:47 pm
I also wondered who the poet might be that Feynman mentioned, but have also been unable to find a convincing candidate..
July 5, 2011 at 4:17 pm
Perhaps Feynman was echoing Blake’s
To see a world in a grain of sand,
And a heaven in a wild flower,
Hold infinity in the palm of your hand,
And eternity in an hour.
Poets are traditionally expected to build on the work of their predecessors.
July 5, 2011 at 6:30 pm
It seems clear that he was paraphrasing a poet and did not intend those quotation marks which appeared when his words were transcribed. Perhaps Veritas in vino?
July 5, 2011 at 9:45 pm
Feynman could have quoted Persian poets Omar Khayam or Hafez Shirazi who numerously used such metaphors. Especially there is a phrase by Hafez “Jam-e Jahanbin” meaning “The goblet you can see the world through” or “The goblet that sees the world”! Apparently, fortunetellers used to look into a cup to tell the future, so foreseeing the future could allude to seeing the world.
July 15, 2011 at 2:30 am
He’s probably just quoting something a friend of his said at one time or another…
January 17, 2013 at 12:41 pm
no he is quoting omar khayam, omar loved wine!