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Feynman's Letter to His Wife

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Re: Feynman's Letter to His Wife

#41

Post by gmunu »

mitchtbaum wrote: post #27
ececconi wrote: post #9

After my dad died my freshman year of college, I wrote a letter and sealed it. It's so hard to understand that a person that was so important to you won't be there to hear everything you wanted to tell them. Since then, I've loved studying letters between friends and lovers. This is a great letter.

> a person that was so important to you won't be there As I understand it, we die two deaths. Once when your last breath leaves your body and next when those who remember you say your name for the last time. By continuing to tell their stories, continuing to read their words, continuing to live, cherishing and remembering, loving, they also live... Life extends through our bodies and beyond.

I've often thought the same thing. If I'm ever in an old cemetery, I walk through the graves and whisper names that are still legible to give the forgotten people one more time when someone said their names.

Re: Feynman's Letter to His Wife

#42

Post by kwhitefoot »

Steuard wrote: post #22
guard-of-terra wrote: post #16

I was under impression that Feynman was a pickup artist (i.e. persuading ladies to have flings). During his work on the Bomb, i.e. before 1945. That's from his books. Can you please enlighten me on the issue?

My impression, which others may correct me on, is that he started down that road while in Los Alamos: I vaguely recall that his "You just ask them?" story was in that setting, anyway. I've always had the sense that he was deeply (and monogamously) devoted to his wife until her death. After her death, well, he says in this letter that he's had multiple girlfriends but that those relationships never went anywhere; my g…

As a sort of slight compensation for his behaviour toward women in a sexual context there is always the comment made by a woman engineer who was one of his victims, see the last paragraph of the section title Feynman the Explainer on W. Daniel Hillis' essay: http://longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection-machine...

Re: Feynman's Letter to His Wife

#43

Post by Steuard »

nerd_stuff wrote: post #39
Steuard wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression, which others may correct me on, is that he started down that road while in Los Alamos: I vaguely recall that his "You just ask them?" story was in that setting, anyway. I've always had the sense that he was deeply (and monogamously) devoted to his wife until her death. After her death, well, he says in this letter that he's had multiple girlfriends but that those relationships never went anywhere; my g…

Feynman, 1966 ( http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/what_is_science.html ): > I listened to a conversation between two girls, and one was explaining that if you want to make a straight line, you see, you go over a certain number to the right for each row you go up--that is, if you go over each time the same amount when you go up a row, you make a straight line--a deep principle of analytic geometry! It went on. I was rathe…

That's heartening to read! But still, it rather damns with faint praise, doesn't it? With its "in the face of all obvious evidence to the contrary" and its "you may be able to get something out of it" and its observation that "we" have never been able to communicate with "the female mind".

Yes, he's presumably trying to be lighthearted and cute and speak in a way that might connect with reluctant colleagues. But it's still awfully condescending.

And yes, I know that Feynman was condescending to everyone who wasn't Feynman. Here, though, he continues a trend of being condescending toward women as a group. Just because he could recognize individual women as talented (his wife, too!) doesn't mean that he didn't have negative (and harmful) attitudes toward them on the whole. And I think that those harmful attitudes have become a more lasting part of his popular image than have the quotes you've shared here.

> "...and supporting women in science wasn't the popularity contest it is today."

This quote speaks volumes about your own perspective.

Re: Feynman's Letter to His Wife

#44

Post by Steuard »

kwhitefoot wrote: post #42
Steuard wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression, which others may correct me on, is that he started down that road while in Los Alamos: I vaguely recall that his "You just ask them?" story was in that setting, anyway. I've always had the sense that he was deeply (and monogamously) devoted to his wife until her death. After her death, well, he says in this letter that he's had multiple girlfriends but that those relationships never went anywhere; my g…

As a sort of slight compensation for his behaviour toward women in a sexual context there is always the comment made by a woman engineer who was one of his victims, see the last paragraph of the section title Feynman the Explainer on W. Daniel Hillis' essay: http://longnow.org/essays/richard-feynman-connection-machine...

Oh, that's a perfect encapsulation of this topic! For the lazy:

> The charming side of Richard helped people forgive him for his uncharming characteristics. For example, in many ways Richard was a sexist. Whenever it came time for his daily bowl of soup he would look around for the nearest "girl" and ask if she would fetch it to him. It did not matter if she was the cook, an engineer, or the president of the company. I once asked a female engineer who had just been a victim of this if it bothered her. "Yes, it really annoys me," she said. "On the other hand, he is the only one who ever explained quantum mechanics to me as if I could understand it." That was the essence of Richard's charm.

Re: Feynman's Letter to His Wife

#45

Post by mgkimsal »

mgkimsal wrote: post #21
pavornyoh wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It's so hard to understand that a person that was so important to you won't be there to hear everything you wanted to tell them. I agree. I know this is going to sound creepy, but in certain African countries like Ghana there is a video made of the funeral just like they do for weddings. And when you miss whoever has passed away, you get to watch the video. It doesn't bring them back but you get to see the person.

doesn't sound creepy to me at all. i wish it was done more.

i wanted to take pics and video at a funeral as there was a family member who couldn't be there, and was told to stop (by other family). Same family member who couldn't there was, days later, at a funeral of her own (in a different country) and received a DVD of the service. Very much 'cultural norms' at play, and it'll be many more years before video of funerals is considered 'normal'.

Re: Feynman's Letter to His Wife

#48

Post by 13thLetter »

Steuard wrote: post #43
nerd_stuff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feynman, 1966 ( http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/what_is_science.html ): > I listened to a conversation between two girls, and one was explaining that if you want to make a straight line, you see, you go over a certain number to the right for each row you go up--that is, if you go over each time the same amount when you go up a row, you make a straight line--a deep principle of analytic geometry! It went on. I was rathe…

That's heartening to read! But still, it rather damns with faint praise, doesn't it? With its "in the face of all obvious evidence to the contrary" and its "you may be able to get something out of it" and its observation that "we" have never been able to communicate with "the female mind". Yes, he's presumably trying to be lighthearted and cute and speak in a way that might connect with reluctant colleagues. But it's…

> Yes, he's presumably trying to be lighthearted and cute and speak in a way that might connect with reluctant colleagues. But it's still awfully condescending.

He said that literally sixty years ago. Is every historical figure who didn't have the good fortune to live in our modern era of tolerance to be disavowed?

Re: Feynman's Letter to His Wife

#49

Post by nerd_stuff »

Steuard wrote: post #43
nerd_stuff wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Feynman, 1966 ( http://www.fotuva.org/feynman/what_is_science.html ): > I listened to a conversation between two girls, and one was explaining that if you want to make a straight line, you see, you go over a certain number to the right for each row you go up--that is, if you go over each time the same amount when you go up a row, you make a straight line--a deep principle of analytic geometry! It went on. I was rathe…

That's heartening to read! But still, it rather damns with faint praise, doesn't it? With its "in the face of all obvious evidence to the contrary" and its "you may be able to get something out of it" and its observation that "we" have never been able to communicate with "the female mind". Yes, he's presumably trying to be lighthearted and cute and speak in a way that might connect with reluctant colleagues. But it's…

> This quote speaks volumes about your own perspective.

Does it? I was pointing out that today there are motives for publicly supporting women in the sciences that didn't exist in 1966. In that quote Feynman pushed things in a progressive direction in a different political atmosphere than we live in today.

Re: Feynman's Letter to His Wife

#50

Post by thesteamboat »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #37
Steuard wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My impression, which others may correct me on, is that he started down that road while in Los Alamos: I vaguely recall that his "You just ask them?" story was in that setting, anyway. I've always had the sense that he was deeply (and monogamously) devoted to his wife until her death. After her death, well, he says in this letter that he's had multiple girlfriends but that those relationships never went anywhere; my g…

I don't know about other theoretician's love lives but wasn't Einstein also something of a womaniser? Is there a trend, perhaps attraction to great minds coupled with the person being so deep in their work as to disrespect normal social mores?

See also Schrödinger's discovery of his eponymous equation.
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