hell hath no fury
Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)
11–20 of 73 posts
Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)
#12(2014) Relevant because since then it's become quite trendy to throw mud at men like him.
Not entirely without reason though. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc
Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)
#13[deleted]
Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)
#14(2014) Relevant because since then it's become quite trendy to throw mud at men like him.
I haven't seen many people going around saying Ed Witten is a security risk due to communist loyalties.
Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)
#15Plausible; also marginal. We already knew that Edward Teller made these kinds of accusations against a lot of people and thereby did much greater harm.
I don’t think Teller worked with Feynman.
Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)
#16(2014) Relevant because since then it's become quite trendy to throw mud at men like him.
Feynman really deserves it though: [0]. I admit to being part of the problem here, because in the 2000s and 2010s, I was in the Feynman cult with everyone else, but once you dig a little deeper under the quirky anecdotes (many of which are probably fictional), it’s clear he was kind of a scumbag and a lot of his reputation is whitewashing by what we’d now call fanboys.
If his wife did write that memo, I’d say she had pretty good justification.
[0]: https://www.tumblr.com/centrally-unplanned/76851065507251814...
Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)
#17I thought it's known for a long time already that it was his second wife, from Boise, Idaho.
Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)
#18This is actually kind of hilarious. That your ex-wife would write to the FBI to denounce your character a couple of months after the divorce.
I did really enjoy this detail:
> It was an extremely ugly, long (2 years!) divorce hearing: it made the newspapers because of Bell’s allegations of “extreme cruelty” by Feynman, including the notion that he spent all of his waking hours either doing calculus and playing the bongos.
Brilliant guy... but it is funny to think how nonstop bongos could definitely drive a spouse crazy.
Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)
#19Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)
#20(2014) Relevant because since then it's become quite trendy to throw mud at men like him.
Feynman really deserves it though: [0]. I admit to being part of the problem here, because in the 2000s and 2010s, I was in the Feynman cult with everyone else, but once you dig a little deeper under the quirky anecdotes (many of which are probably fictional), it’s clear he was kind of a scumbag and a lot of his reputation is whitewashing by what we’d now call fanboys. If his wife did write that memo, I’d say she had…
That link demonstrates that he deserved a domestic abuse charge, not that he was a communist. I think the latter is still a smear, insofar as the (speculated) author is seeking justice through any avenue afforded.
(I should note that I have never particularly liked or cared about Feynman or any of the 20th century cult-of-personality physicists.)