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The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992)

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Re: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992)

#21

Post by zamfi »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #9
jhbadger wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And he only went to MIT as an undergraduate because his first choice Columbia had a "Jew quota" and they had already admitted all the Jews they wanted to for that year. Besides the antisemitism, it's also a reminder that in the 1930s MIT was seen as a good, but not particularly elite school and would be somebody's backup school.

Now that’s fascinating. Thank you. Both that Columbia was as regarded as MIT and that MIT hadn’t achieved its current fame. It’s odd to realize that I’ve always thought of MIT as MIT, yet (obviously, now) it wasn’t always that way. I wonder what the tipping point was.

MIT was only a few decades old at the time -- having been founded about 75 years prior. Columbia was over twice as old at the time (185 years) and was well-established as a global center of physics research.

Re: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992)

#22

Post by olddustytrail »

tshaddox wrote: post #15
southernplaces7 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go ahead and name these "problematic" claims if you like. It's long since tiresome to see so many historical figures with co much to recommend them being judged through an obsession with their failures to live and think like 21st century human beings of a specific and still very debatable set of morals.

I’m confident you can find the claims in mere minutes if you genuinely haven’t seen them and are interested.

I couldn't. All the accusations are vague to the point of uselessness. What is the convincing claim in your eyes?

Re: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992)

#23

Post by ghaff »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #7

> He joined a fraternity, one of the two that took in Jews. This was a surprising reminder that things were very different in 1935. I wonder, is there any group like this today? “One of the two that took in X” for any X seems like an interesting formula for locating outliers, whether good or bad. A lot of nasty examples come to mind, but it’s hard to know how Jews were regarded at the time. I wonder what the official…

There were a ton of membership organizations that, probably even quite a bit later, required one or more members to vouch for you and generally excluded people who didn't fit the generally WASPy mold. (And often male--male only organizations were quite widespread until relatively recently and AFAIK frats--as well as sororities--can be single-sex but mostly based on the fact that some level of living arrangements are OK to restrict one sex or the other.)

Re: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992)

#24

Post by southernplaces7 »

tshaddox wrote: post #15
southernplaces7 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Go ahead and name these "problematic" claims if you like. It's long since tiresome to see so many historical figures with co much to recommend them being judged through an obsession with their failures to live and think like 21st century human beings of a specific and still very debatable set of morals.

I’m confident you can find the claims in mere minutes if you genuinely haven’t seen them and are interested.

Likewise. Vague things that it's absurd to use again and again in any mention of all the enormous contributions that Feynman made to science and an interest in science among younger people. The polarization towards this one specific thing, which in this case also happens to be vague, speaks of a tacitly puritanical need to paint black anyone who somehow decades ago didn't fit just right with a specific notion of modern moral correctness. Laughable idiocy.

Re: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992)

#25

Post by tshaddox »

olddustytrail wrote: post #22
tshaddox wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m confident you can find the claims in mere minutes if you genuinely haven’t seen them and are interested.

I couldn't. All the accusations are vague to the point of uselessness. What is the convincing claim in your eyes?

I have no inside information and I haven’t done any particularly focused research into any of the claims. I’m only referring to extremely widely known and very easy to find claims that are much more specific than the single word “womanizing.” I’m not trying to convince anyone of their veracity or litigate details of claims on a point by point basis. I just think it’s disingenuous to reduce all such claims to a single or imply that they’re vague or difficult to find.

Re: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992)

#26

Post by mrgoldenbrown »

guenthert wrote: post #13
ftxbro wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like his womanizing behavior was bad and that it was also somehow wrapped up in his attention seeking and other self promoting drives that made him so well known. I don't think it should be hidden.

Mr Feynman is well known (among other) for his work in the field of quantum electrodynamic theory (for which he won the Nobel price), his diagrams, his lectures and his work in the commission investigating the challenger catastrophe. Are those the self-promoting drives you refer to?

When it comes to how we was self promoting, I think it's fair to look at his autobiography (edit: autobiographical anecdotes is probably a better description of the book) (Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman). In which he describes his own redpillish behavior towards women, and brags about how he would troll waitresses by purposely setting up time bomb messes for them to cleanup.

Re: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992)

#27

Post by logdap »

tshaddox wrote: post #25
olddustytrail wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't. All the accusations are vague to the point of uselessness. What is the convincing claim in your eyes?

I have no inside information and I haven’t done any particularly focused research into any of the claims. I’m only referring to extremely widely known and very easy to find claims that are much more specific than the single word “womanizing.” I’m not trying to convince anyone of their veracity or litigate details of claims on a point by point basis. I just think it’s disingenuous to reduce all such claims to a single…

[dead]

Re: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992)

#28

Post by michael_nielsen »

I've heard that Murray Gell-Mann said of this book that "Jim Gleick has written a biography about Feynman's genius in order to illustrate his own". A bit backhanded, perhaps, but it captures the essence well: it's an extraordinary book about an extraordinary person. The best biography I've ever read, along with Skidelsky's one-volume Keynes.

Re: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992)

#29

Post by olddustytrail »

tshaddox wrote: post #25
olddustytrail wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I couldn't. All the accusations are vague to the point of uselessness. What is the convincing claim in your eyes?

I have no inside information and I haven’t done any particularly focused research into any of the claims. I’m only referring to extremely widely known and very easy to find claims that are much more specific than the single word “womanizing.” I’m not trying to convince anyone of their veracity or litigate details of claims on a point by point basis. I just think it’s disingenuous to reduce all such claims to a single…

It's not widely known to me and I found concrete claims difficult to find.

Why are you so shy about simply naming specifics on a subject you claim is widely known and easy to find information on?

Re: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992)

#30

Post by hawk_ »

sillysaurusx wrote: post #9
jhbadger wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And he only went to MIT as an undergraduate because his first choice Columbia had a "Jew quota" and they had already admitted all the Jews they wanted to for that year. Besides the antisemitism, it's also a reminder that in the 1930s MIT was seen as a good, but not particularly elite school and would be somebody's backup school.

Now that’s fascinating. Thank you. Both that Columbia was as regarded as MIT and that MIT hadn’t achieved its current fame. It’s odd to realize that I’ve always thought of MIT as MIT, yet (obviously, now) it wasn’t always that way. I wonder what the tipping point was.

Makes me wonder how big a role did the "Jew Quota" or similar discriminatory practices played in holding back the likes of Columbia. Also whether we will see a similar effect over next 50 years with affirmative vs non-affirmative schools.
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