Feynman: making the extraordinary look easy • Hacker News Board

Re: Feynman: making the extraordinary look easy

#41

Post by ramraj07 » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 9:14 PM UTC

djaque wrote: post #32

codesections wrote: post #5

The article quotes Feynman's memoirs is a highly misleading way. It says: > Such behavior is chronicled in a notorious chapter of his autobiography, Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (“I adopted the attitude that those bar girls are all bitches, that they aren’t worth anything, and all they’re in there for is to get you to buy them a drink, and they’re not going to give you a goddamn thing”). This suggests that the…

Taking a look back at the book, I think you're right. They are misrepresenting him in this one quote. He was referring to the gross mindset he was trying out. On the other hand, I'm in one of the departments Feynman had an appointment with for a few years. Some of the older faculty overlapped with him and have fun stories to share. However, one of the lasting memories of his stay was how he was predatory towards the…

Is there any evidence or reporting to this end? This seems quite the fact (other than him choking his wife) and would love to learn more about.

Re: Feynman: making the extraordinary look easy

#42

Post by djaque » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

ramraj07 wrote: post #41

djaque wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking a look back at the book, I think you're right. They are misrepresenting him in this one quote. He was referring to the gross mindset he was trying out. On the other hand, I'm in one of the departments Feynman had an appointment with for a few years. Some of the older faculty overlapped with him and have fun stories to share. However, one of the lasting memories of his stay was how he was predatory towards the…

Is there any evidence or reporting to this end? This seems quite the fact (other than him choking his wife) and would love to learn more about.

My knowledge of it is just through department oral history.

I did some googling though and apparently his time at Cornell is talked about in Lawrence Krauss's biography "Quantum Man". Here's a brief review of it [1]. Apparently as a professor he would pretend to be an undergrad to sleep with students. He also apparently slept with the wives of multiple faculty (I might have remembered it wrong and this was the reason he was rumored to have been forced to leave over).

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/science/2011/may/15/quantum-man-...

Re: Feynman: making the extraordinary look easy

#43

Post by westoncb » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 9:27 PM UTC

adamsea wrote: post #22

nscalf wrote: post #12

I’m so sick of these hatchet jobs on long dead people. If you are not empathetic enough to put yourself in the position of a different society, you’re probably not empathic enough to criticize a persons character. Additionally, I don’t care if he was sexist. We don’t like Feynman because he was a feminist. We like Feynman because he led the charge in scientific discovery and progress. No one is perfect.

For context, this is the _entirety_ of the portion of the article which critiques Feynman's behavior towards women. It's not even 1/5 of the article. "In high school, though Feynman excelled in academics, he began to foster insecurities around masculinity. Later in life this would curdle into juvenile braggadocio and poisonous attitudes towards women, with him making degrading remarks about those he met, and which pe…

It's already been pointed out elsewhere in the comments, but the quote about "those bar girls are all bitches" is badly taken out of context, since that was something he'd said in connection with a thought experiment he was performing.

Re: Feynman: making the extraordinary look easy

#44

Post by uep » Sun, Apr 26, 2020, 9:40 PM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #36

Despite what the other comments are saying, I think this article strikes a perfect tone, and is showing how we as a society can look at the heroes of our past and see them holistically - accolades and flaws together. In the past there were two kinds of Feynman articles: 1) Glowing, without reservation, and notably ignoring some of his sexist views, statements, and actions 2) Conflicted and accusatory - tainting a won…

I generally agree with you, and I like that it doesn't harp on this aspect when talking about his life, but doesn't pretend it's not there either.

I am not familiar enough with Feynman's life to hold a particularly nuanced opinion, but it seems like just that one line intentionally taken out of context seems to be the issue. A one-line summary of the same chapter in the book could show that he was a womanizer without taking a particularly inflammatory quote out of context.

In an unlikely coincidence, that particular chapter of Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! was one of the few that I had read.

Re: Feynman: making the extraordinary look easy

#45

Post by swsieber » Mon, Apr 27, 2020, 2:35 AM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #31

swsieber wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there, don't be an ugly tourist. "

The only time this quote seems to be used is on blogs and forums when people are trying to convince others to stay in the Mormon church. Is that what you're quoting or is there some other origin to this phrase?

That is indeed where I picked up the phrase. I like it quite a bit because of widely applicable it is.

Edit: I think it was from this address: https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/broadcasts/face-to-face/... I haven't come across it other places, but it doesn't surprise me.

Re: Feynman: making the extraordinary look easy

#46

Post by mistermann » Mon, Apr 27, 2020, 4:20 AM UTC

deanCommie wrote: post #39

batlamenace wrote: post #19

I'm not sure a lot of the comments here have read Feynman's memoir. As much as he was a brilliant scientist, his attitude towards women does show. That chapter is chilling, it reads like a post on an incel group. Sure he was in a more sexist society. But the reason this still matters is that it represents the sexist culture that's still around in science today. It's not about the man it's a bigger discussion on an in…

This is 100% accurate. I don't understand why people on this forum are so uncomfortable when it comes to nuance about interpersonal behaviour across genders. Feynman was a brilliant genius and educator. He also had some fucked up attitudes towards women he considered sexual targets (less so those he saw as intellectual peers). These are both facts. The second does not negate the first. We have to understand and embra…

> I don't understand why people on this forum are so uncomfortable when it comes to nuance about interpersonal behaviour across genders.

Decades of multi-channel social and psychological conditioning would be my guess, the same way most beliefs are formed within the human mind.

Re: Feynman: making the extraordinary look easy

#47

Post by gjm11 » Mon, Apr 27, 2020, 10:24 AM UTC

oh_sigh wrote: post #31

swsieber wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"The past is a foreign country, they do things differently there, don't be an ugly tourist. "

The only time this quote seems to be used is on blogs and forums when people are trying to convince others to stay in the Mormon church. Is that what you're quoting or is there some other origin to this phrase?

The first bit ("The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there") is from L P Hartley's novel "The Go-between". The "ugly tourist" bit is a later addition.

(Very likely you already knew this and were asking about the "ugly tourist" part.)

Re: Feynman: making the extraordinary look easy

#48

Post by rowanG077 » Mon, Apr 27, 2020, 3:02 PM UTC

kingkongjaffa wrote: post #24

amelius wrote: post #8

Who would be the "Feynman(s)" of our time?

One answer would be 'science is done in a much more collaborative way now' so singular titans of a field is much less of a thing. That being said, I suspect another answer would be 'Imagine some kind of complex disaster investigation, who would the nation call on to help solve it?' That he was brilliant and also seemingly very broad, is probably less common now along both axis simply because there's so much more stuf…

The only person I can think of is Elon Musk. But he isn't really a scientist.

Re: Feynman: making the extraordinary look easy

#49

Post by swsieber » Tue, Apr 28, 2020, 7:54 PM UTC

gjm11 wrote: post #47

oh_sigh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only time this quote seems to be used is on blogs and forums when people are trying to convince others to stay in the Mormon church. Is that what you're quoting or is there some other origin to this phrase?

The first bit ("The past is a foreign country; they do things differently there") is from L P Hartley's novel "The Go-between". The "ugly tourist" bit is a later addition. (Very likely you already knew this and were asking about the "ugly tourist" part.)

I didn't know that, so thanks for commenting! :)