Das rad – the Wheel is an award winning short film about a conversation between two rocks.
This is the film that was referred to by Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson in Cosmology and Buddhist Thought: Interview With Dr. Neil deGrasse Tyson, Part 4.
It is a lovely German cartoon by Chris Shtennera which was nominated for the Best Short Film in 2003.
Das Rad – The Wheel
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OvQlTecZuuc
Please watch the movie before you read what Dr. Tyson said:
There were two rocks having a conversation with each other. And one of them asked, “Do lichens irritate you?”
And he goes, “Yeah, they’re kind of itchy. And they on grow on my back. And the try to reshape you.”
And he said these two rocks are talking about lichens. But lichens take a long time to show up on a rock and the conditions have to be right and all that.
… And you look at the environment that the rocks are in, you don’t quite understand what’s going on because the sky is kind of pulsing in a weird sort of way. You don’t really understand it.
And then… you hear this slowing down sound. Like rrrrrr, like that. And then you see the sun in the sky.
And the two cavemen walk up to the rock. And then there is a rock sitting on top on the rock and he grabs it and looks at it and then walks off.
And only then you figure out what’s going on. The sun goes around faster and faster and faster, then it’s brrr, and then the rocks continue to talk to each other.
So it’s like a billion years in the life of a rock shrunk down to these couple of minutes. And it was, so the rocks are observing all of these things going on but there are selected moments where they slow things down enough so you can see something else take place.
I’ve placed the film here because I didn’t want to interrupt the flow of the interview.
If you like this cartoon, please share it.
