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I can't help imagining his wife nagging him about taking out the trash just when he was about to solve quantum gravity. I'm not saying it's ok... But it doesn't break my heart. I guess it depends on how much pressure he applied.
The shit people tell you about themselves for free, unprompted. It’s unreal.
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Well said ! These sort of people are what is pejoratively called "attention whores" with nothing worthwhile to contribute on the topic under discussion. Hence they always come up with provocative phrases/statements simply to make themselves feel relevant. Downvote and Flag these sorts of comments into oblivion; don't engage with them.
This is offensive and uncalled for. If the admins see your comment, they will tell you that comments like this get you banned. I don't agree with ThrowawayR2 but they were respectful; I doubt they appreciate their views being lumped in with your insulting, inappropriate comment. You've done a disservice to both of us.
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No, she's absolutely wrong about this. The book is based very closely on Feynman's lectures. He wrote the material and gave the lectures. Other people edited that material into book form, but Feynman did the lion's share of the work. Saying that Feynman didn't write the book is just dishonest, unless you immediately clarify afterwards that Feynman did indeed write almost all of the material in the book, in something…
You should watch the whole video. From memory, the video author claims that the books are not based directly on the recordings nor on material that Feynman wrote himself, but rather on lecture notes written by another professor who had to cover for Feynman (who is also listed as one of the authors in the book). She also mentions how those lecture notes from this other professor correct some small mistakes Feynman mad…
All lectures that professors deliver have mistakes in them. He produced a massive lecture series covering huge areas of physics over hundreds of hours of class time. There are bound to be typos and small math mistakes.
The complaint that Feynman had an editor makes me think the person who created this YouTube video has no idea how publishing works, not to mention academic publishing.
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No, she's absolutely wrong about this. The book is based very closely on Feynman's lectures. He wrote the material and gave the lectures. Other people edited that material into book form, but Feynman did the lion's share of the work. Saying that Feynman didn't write the book is just dishonest, unless you immediately clarify afterwards that Feynman did indeed write almost all of the material in the book, in something…
I mean, for the most part the book is an edited transcription of what he said at the lectures (or, in some cases, what a guest lecturer said). But the lectures weren't scripted, and we know this because his lecture notes are preserved[0] and they do not contain anything like he full text of even a single lecture. They're just lecture notes, not a script. And of course, the book also contain a lot of example problems…
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> I do not think Feynman was celebrating his activity in the book. The argument presented in the video about this is that these are the stories Feynman edited and reworked over time, and shared with his friend Ralph Leighton, who then recorded them in the "Surely You're Joking" book. The video also describes a change in his behavior later in life. In 1974, responding to a letter asking to reprint "What is Science?"[1…
And…who hasn’t done offensive things, before learning that what they’re doing is bad? It’s a matter of developing self control and awareness.
By many other accounts he was a kind, caring, thoughtful person, but some of the selected stories in "Surely" paint a significantly different picture. To me it's unclear, not having studied the life of Richard Feynman, what parts are exaggerated. But it does seem clear that these stories were refined and selected for inclusion, and were therefore considered endearing or representative for the intention of the book. And in the time and culture in which it was published that seems like a bit of a miss at the very least.
Along these lines, one of the early popular science works is "Letters to a German Princess", which compiles Euler's letters on Natural Philosophy (which is mostly what we today call science and maths) which he was commissioned to write as part of her education. Many were keen to educate their daughters as well as royalty, so the book version sold well. It is, of course, very out of date in terms of the science. https…
Thanks for the pointer.
PS: Obviously, it is nothing like nor comparable to Feynman Lectures which is modern science but an interesting piece of scientific history.
There is a whole genre of youtube videos with AI generated Feynmann voice based on those lectures. They are of surprisingly high quality.
Do you have a link to a good one? I presume the original videos of Feynman are lost, or never existed?
The Feynman Lectures website does have links to recordings of almost every lecture, but no video. BUT there are thousands of photos --- many photos of each lecture, showing Feynman's blackboards.
Also, there are videos there of a series of 7 lectures at Cornell in 1964.
It is very interesting to see completely different impressions of Feynman from comments here. As a physicist, I first got introduced to Feynman from his popular QED book as a freshman in college. Over the years, I came to admire his contributions and way of thinking but could also see the cult of personality that has formed. Feynman is definitely not like Neil deGrasse Tyson or Kaku. He was a very creative and techni…
As the OP, one of the reasons for (re)posting this well-known work is to elicit informative comments from physicists/knowledgeable people like yourself. What i was looking for is the pros/cons of this work, comparisons with other similar works, other authors whose texts that a student should study etc.
Another commenter also mentioned Sommerfeld/Landau/Schwinger's works. Would you mind posting details of the works of the authors you have listed and how students interested in Physics should read and navigate them?
People get even more mad if you tell them there are many reasons to think Joseph Papp created a mixture of noble gasses, injected into sealed pistons of conventional combustion engines and then those engines would run for 6 months without adding any other fuel.
Feynman was amoung the angry mob. After hearing about it he went to a demonstration involving a big volvo engine funded by the navy.
After 10 min he climbed onto stage pointed at some electronics plugged into the wall, he pulled the plug and playfully dangled it above papp who protested loudly and said it was not safe. Feynman ignored him until papp went into full panic. The plug was returned, papp put it back into the wall and the engine exploded. 7 people were injured, one lost a leg and one audience member died.
The dubious thing to me was that after much media exposure no one was interested in the physics.
Feynman oddly twists the story and said papp unplugged it and gave the plug to him. He wanted to hold it he said.
He also created a fantastic imaginary forensic report where he imagined papp put explosives in the engine.
After papp blamed him for destroying the engine they settled out of court.
The noble gas engine was now officially debunked.
https://hoaxes.org/comments/papparticle2.html
It gets more absurd where journalists and internet septics make an effort to change the story.
https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/28530/did-richa...
I generously give the Papp engine 0.1% odds of being useful technology which means we should be looking at the thousand claims of miraculous tech. If i look at the debunking there is never any evidence against them. Look at them fabricating, its quite amusing. Or do you see a single convincing argument the engine doesnt work even from the highly praised Feynman himself?
To a suspicious extend the internet is full of articles praising the man. With the exception of the stripclub story (which only barely makes the cut) it is as if nothing negative was ever written about him. The www echochamber just doesnt want to hear it. People get even more mad if you tell them there are many reasons to think Joseph Papp created a mixture of noble gasses, injected into sealed pistons of conventiona…
if anyone is irresponsible its Papp who knowingly handed the plug to a productive skeptic, knowing full well the dangers of the device.
if the motor had any merit, he could refuse the out-of-court settlement and demonstrate the working principles of his motor, but he didn't! he took the money, Feymann inadvertently saved him from certain humiliation had this not occured.
hiding rocket propellant in a perpetuum mobile must be one of the most dangerously retarded things to do, people will come closer and inspect and try to figure out the true power source, and they will home in on your panic reactions to get closer (warmer - colder style).