Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)
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Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)
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Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)
#2Great read. I've always loved Feynman - but the word "ego" might apply. "I was working on problems close to the gods", and his list of solved (and to be fair, unsolved) investigations remind me of his "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman". Clearly the most brilliant man, and also clearly with a healthy regard for himself. One has to look out at the world and, taking in the successful and unsuccessful, conclude that some ego about oneself might be more or less required for success.
I think we all want to believe that success can "go to your head", but I am beginning to believe the opposite: it's those with temerity and a certain precise lack of hubris who go on to do great things and do not "remain nameless" to the human race. Too many engineers eschew ego as much as possible, but (as Feynman points out) sometimes it's important to congratulate yourself.
Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)
#3Great read. I've always loved Feynman - but the word "ego" might apply. "I was working on problems close to the gods", and his list of solved (and to be fair, unsolved) investigations remind me of his "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman". Clearly the most brilliant man, and also clearly with a healthy regard for himself. One has to look out at the world and, taking in the successful and unsuccessful, conclude that som…
"You met me at the peak of my career when I seemed to you to be concerned with problems close to the gods."
It sounds like Feynman remembered that his student thought highly of the problems he was working on late into his career. Feynman's encouraging his former student, as a recent graduate, to start out with low-hanging fruit.
He goes on to describe some of the easier problems that he worked on in the beginning of his career. That gave his former student some examples of worthwhile problems to start out with.
Personally, I think Feynman was very humble. Especially for a Nobel Prize winner.
Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)
#4Great read. I've always loved Feynman - but the word "ego" might apply. "I was working on problems close to the gods", and his list of solved (and to be fair, unsolved) investigations remind me of his "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman". Clearly the most brilliant man, and also clearly with a healthy regard for himself. One has to look out at the world and, taking in the successful and unsuccessful, conclude that som…
"You met me at the peak of my career when I seemed to you to be concerned with problems close to the gods." It sounds like Feynman remembered that his student thought highly of the problems he was working on late into his career. Feynman's encouraging his former student, as a recent graduate, to start out with low-hanging fruit. He goes on to describe some of the easier problems that he worked on in the beginning of…
Feynman, like everyone, has his virtues and vices, but humility is definitely not among his strong points. The majority of the stories he tells about himself are anecdotes in which he is the smart person in the room making (maybe lighthearted and friendly) fun of others with a cheaply superficial pretence of humility.
Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)
#5Feynman's quality (apart from home obvious intellect and contributions to science) is that he has a knack for dispelling pretense.
There's a clip of him on YT in a BBC documentary explaining he can admire a flower just as much if not more than an artistic mind. He wanted to drop the pretense of an analytical mind somehow being less expressive or emotional. He goes on to explain how the science behind the flower is beautiful.
Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)
#6Great read. I've always loved Feynman - but the word "ego" might apply. "I was working on problems close to the gods", and his list of solved (and to be fair, unsolved) investigations remind me of his "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman". Clearly the most brilliant man, and also clearly with a healthy regard for himself. One has to look out at the world and, taking in the successful and unsuccessful, conclude that som…
I got the opposite impression regarding the list. To me it seemed to be trying to illustrate that he was not always working on grand ideas (one of them was a theory of how to fold paper to make a children's toy, after all).
Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)
#7Great read. I've always loved Feynman - but the word "ego" might apply. "I was working on problems close to the gods", and his list of solved (and to be fair, unsolved) investigations remind me of his "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman". Clearly the most brilliant man, and also clearly with a healthy regard for himself. One has to look out at the world and, taking in the successful and unsuccessful, conclude that som…
Ego is necessary to protect a rather fragile flame of intelligence. When the flame becomes stable, the ego can be discarded. Some do, and in case of Feynman, if he did that, he would be called St. Richard; while some choose to turn their ego into a blast furnace, so the fire would turn inwards.
Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)
#8"You say you are a nameless man. You are not to your wife and to your child. You will not long remain so to your immediate colleagues if you can answer their simple questions when they come into your office. You are not nameless to me. Do not remain nameless to yourself – it is too sad a way to be. Know your place in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of your naïve ideals of your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher’s ideals are."
Something I am going to share with my engineering/science related friends. You can't be shy forever as long as you are going to be a responsible father.
Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)
#9> ... Feynman replied with an enquiry about Mano’s current job, to which Mano responded that he was “studying the Coherence theory with some applications to the propagation of electromagnetic waves through turbulent atmosphere […] a humble and down-to-earth type of problem.” Feynman responded with this letter.
I must be missing something. Feynman's letter is full of good advice about the crucial importance of choosing problems to work on carefully, and how to do that.
But Mano's inquiry doesn't seem to warrant Feynman's response, which seeks to correct an error. I can't find one in the short quote from Mano's letter. Where is the original?
Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)
#10Great read. I've always loved Feynman - but the word "ego" might apply. "I was working on problems close to the gods", and his list of solved (and to be fair, unsolved) investigations remind me of his "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman". Clearly the most brilliant man, and also clearly with a healthy regard for himself. One has to look out at the world and, taking in the successful and unsuccessful, conclude that som…
Ego is important because it allows you to seriously attempt problems that many people would consider beyond them.
If you genuinely believe that you can achieve something, you might be willing to sink many months of nonstop work into it despite zero tangible progress. Someone without that ego may not have the tolerance to last that long without progress while still believing it's a good use of time.