Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)

lettersofnote.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

91–100 of 125 posts

Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)

#91

Post by rattray »

whatshisface wrote: post #88
rattray wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just finished reading _Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman!_ and I agree - the word that described most of his stories to me was "boastful". Most of his stories involve him being more clever than everyone else around him, rather pointedly. However, whenever he talks about getting recruited or being tasked with something important, he always claimed to be astonished that anyone thought "little Feynman" worthy of such…

> Most of his stories involve him being more clever than everyone else around him, rather pointedly. Well, what would you have expected him to write? He was more clever than everyone around him in virtually every room he was in, for his whole life. Usain Bolt's biography would not have very many stories about the times he was outrun by people. Feynman had a healthy attitude about assigned-at-birth characteristics, he…

That certainly wasn't the case in the Manhattan project.

Nonetheless, I see your point - most of the time, the alternative would have been to simply not tell the story, and I'm glad these stories were told.

Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)

#92

Post by sukilot »

sunsetSamurai wrote: post #76
mysterypie wrote: post #75

I’d like to know what the modern substitute is for long personal letters like Feynman’s? It’s not just Feynman; look at this list from the featured website: > written correspondence includes letters from: Jane Austen, Richard Burton, Helen Keller, Alan Turing, Albus Dumbledore, Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry James, Sylvia Plath, John Lennon, Gerald Durrell, Janis Joplin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Hunter S. Thompson, C. G. J…

Albus Dumbledore?!

> J.K. Rowling’s reply, in character as Albus Dumbledore, to a Professor of Colloid and Polymer Science who applied to become Defence Against the Dark Arts Professor at Hogwarts

Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)

#93

Post by Anthony-G »

mysterypie wrote: post #77
sunsetSamurai wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Albus Dumbledore?!

Yeah, Marge Simpson too. It probably refers to a letter that the character wrote. But ignore those. Most of the list are real people.

I guess the Marge Simpson letter is notable because of Barbara Bush's warm and humble reply.

https://lettersofnote.com/2011/09/19/with-great-respect-marg...

Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)

#94

Post by guenthert »

bena wrote: post #81
mysterypie wrote: post #75

I’d like to know what the modern substitute is for long personal letters like Feynman’s? It’s not just Feynman; look at this list from the featured website: > written correspondence includes letters from: Jane Austen, Richard Burton, Helen Keller, Alan Turing, Albus Dumbledore, Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry James, Sylvia Plath, John Lennon, Gerald Durrell, Janis Joplin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Hunter S. Thompson, C. G. J…

Communication is shorter because it is more frequent. If you can keep people constantly updated about whatever, there is no need to write a long letter essentially repeating yourself.

It is more frequent and more shallow. Deep sentiments are then never communicated (or even formulated). E.g. who cares really how the weather had been on your vacation, yet that is stated. But what are your plans for life once your children are grown? Are you going to share that in a WhatsUp status?

Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)

#95

Post by sukilot »

ClumsyPilot wrote: post #55
Angostura wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You filleted the quote. He said. > You met me at the peak of my career when I seemed to you to be concerned with problems close to the gods. This is not ego

Indeed - "seemed to you". Most the discussion is a bit silly.

Some people can't escape "crab bucket" mentality, and have to tear down people who've worked hard to do great things. Perhaps it's unsurprising that those people post in online forums to take cheap shots at dead people.

Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)

#96

Post by sukilot »

akiselev wrote: post #33
erulabs wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed - if anything his ego was _accurate_ - he correctly thought of himself as the smartest in the room. The question is, did his success lead to his ego, or did his ego lead to his success? I certainly do not mean to defame him - I practically worship Feynman - I've just been exploring the idea that a little bit of ego can really aid in accomplishing big tasks.

One of the earliest stories of his career was breaking into people's offices at Los Alamos and picking their safes to get access to their Manhattan project reports when he was impatient and didn't want to wait for them. I think he's had a healthy does of ego right from the beginning.

Feynman's beginning was very early. Before he joined the Manhattan Project he had already published work that appears in textbooks today.

What you call who I call a healthy disrespect for bad rules that impede people trying to get real work done.

Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)

#97

Post by sukilot »

flywheel wrote: post #16
erulabs wrote: post #2

Great 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 think you misread this because he certainly did not say or imply "I was working on problems close to the gods", in fact the phrase he used was "when I seemed to you to be concerned with problems close to the gods", meaning that others considered the things he worked on as being "close to the gods" only because they did not understand them at the same level he did - his list of experiments/problems was about how mun…

> Most of the problems he worked on have little to no impact on society or people's daily lives

Only because he solved so many problems that his side work is more substantial than most successful people's careers.

"Physicist Richard Feynman helped create the atomic bomb, shared a Nobel Prize for his work on quantum electrodynamics, and helped to figure out the source of the space shuttle Challenger explosion" -+livescience.com

Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)

#98

Post by sukilot »

lioeters wrote: post #67
johannesg wrote: post #49

I wonder if Koichi Mano's phrasing "a humble and down-to-earth type of problem" is simply Japanese politeness. And this beautiful letter a chance result of two cultures not entirely understanding each other. That is a nice thought.

I grew up in Japan as well as in the U.S., and I'm inclined to agree with your take. This brilliant letter is the result of a cross-cultural exchange of ideas, philosophy, ways of life. There's a strong Buddhist influence in Japanese culture, and in that value system, it's emphasized that selflessness is a virtue. "The nameless" is one of the phrases in this tradition, for pointing at the "ineffable mystery" - simila…

Even if Koicho Mano didn't need the letter, the world is lucky Feynman wrote it.

Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)

#99

Post by nicoburns »

mysterypie wrote: post #75

I’d like to know what the modern substitute is for long personal letters like Feynman’s? It’s not just Feynman; look at this list from the featured website: > written correspondence includes letters from: Jane Austen, Richard Burton, Helen Keller, Alan Turing, Albus Dumbledore, Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry James, Sylvia Plath, John Lennon, Gerald Durrell, Janis Joplin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Hunter S. Thompson, C. G. J…

In my experience, such long personal letters still take place in the form of actual physical letters. That and phone calls.

Re: Do not remain nameless to yourself (1966)

#100

Post by tropdrop »

mysterypie wrote: post #75

I’d like to know what the modern substitute is for long personal letters like Feynman’s? It’s not just Feynman; look at this list from the featured website: > written correspondence includes letters from: Jane Austen, Richard Burton, Helen Keller, Alan Turing, Albus Dumbledore, Eleanor Roosevelt, Henry James, Sylvia Plath, John Lennon, Gerald Durrell, Janis Joplin, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, Hunter S. Thompson, C. G. J…

Like a couple others in this thread, I have a hand-written correspondence with a small handful of people that I cherish.

I used to do the same like you did - email, with similar results - but I discovered there is something cathartic about sitting down and taking the time to let one's hand fly across the page, stroke after stroke. Because I write in ink, I can't take a stroke back - so I sometimes have to pause and think carefully about the next paragraph as a whole.

People respond to handwritten letters differently - it's not an email that gets sorted in their "to-do" folder only to be forgotten about. One can never be unconscious of the fact that this handwritten letter took time. Opening it, you are elated to find pages and pages of your friend's response that you can touch in your hands. The last time my correspondent even sent me an origami piece in the same envelope - he doesn't hand-write back, opting to type and print on nice paper - but my argument is that the surprise and genuine delight upon receiving a hand-written letter in the (regular!) mail compels people to respond in kind.

I recommend this quite un-modern substitute to you. If you're pressed for time, try writing a letter on a long flight.

Post reply on HN