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Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

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Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#101

Post by pdonis »

wk_end wrote: post #57
pdonis wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I shouldn't have to watch several hours of video to see what the basis is for such an outlandish-sounding claim.

That's fair - although it's a really great video! The section about 45m in ("The Myth of Richard Feynman) covers it in a hair under seven minutes. She notices that in the preface to "What Do You Care What Other People Think?", the author says that people have the "mistaken idea" that "Surely You're Joking..." was an autobiography. The preface, which was written from the perspective of the author of the books, is attr…

I see. In a strict sense, yes, published books like Surely You're Joking and its sequel, The Feynman Lectures, QED, etc. weren't "written" by Feynman himself.

But the statement "never wrote a book", without a lot of context (which might be in the video or Gleick's biography, but wasn't in the post I responded to), suggests that Feynman didn't create the content that's in the books, but someone else did and Feynman took credit for them. That is emphatically not the case. All of the content of those books is Feynman's. Leighton took Feynman's content, delivered orally, and put it into publishable book form. Certainly not a negligible task, and he deserves credit for it, but it doesn't mean the books aren't Feynman's content. They are. And nobody, certainly not Leighton, ever said otherwise.

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#102

Post by speff »

fromMars wrote: post #95
speff wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Frankly I'm having trouble believing you watched the video if you make the assertion: > He’s inspired many people to go into physics and other sciences, which she herself states in the video, but somehow she makes that out to be a bad thing by implying the Feynman fans are weird, calling them “Feynman Bros”. There were multiple points in the presentation on her experience with Feynman fans and why they deserved the B…

Did you read the book? Some of those are distortions. Regarding the negging incident, she left out important context in her summary of this part of the book. Feynman went to a bar where it was clear that some of the women at that bar were intending to use men to get free drinks and food. In the incident he described, a woman asked him to buy three sandwiches and a drink at a diner and then says she has to run to go m…

I hadn't read the book fully, but I did coincidentally read that chapter a long time ago. Given the context you provide, I agree that he does not seem to be worse than anyone else given the time period. The problem is when people read about him and try to adopt mid-1900s values in the 2000s - and that's really what the video above about his legacy is about.

(also I'm fairly pro people-visiting-the-strip-club even though I've never been)

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#103

Post by pdonis »

margalabargala wrote: post #53
pdonis wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> you don't see this stuff around (say) Hawking or Einstein Yes, you do--it's just that the mythbuilding builds on different aspects of their personalities. Mythbuilding around Einstein made him out to be the physics outsider who came in and revolutionized physics--or, in the somewhat less outlandish (but still outlandish) version, the kid who flunked all his physics classes in school and then revolutionized physics.…

> The reason he did badly in school The myth is not "Einstein did badly in school, but for that reason not this one". "Einstein did badly in school" is a myth, period. Einstein excelled in school. https://www.nytimes.com/1984/02/14/science/einstein-revealed...

> Einstein excelled in school.

hotdogscout correctly clarified that I meant university, not grade school. Sorry for the ambiguity on my part.

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#104

Post by gosub100 »

fouronnes3 wrote: post #34
gregschlom wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What I cannot teach, I do not understand" And the corollary to that, from 17th century French writer Nicolas Boileau: "Ce que l'on conçoit bien s'énonce clairement, et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisément." - What we understand well, we express clearly, and words to describe it flow easily.

I'm french and I have a great memory about that quote. In high school my litterature and physics teachers had a disagreement about it, although I believe they didn't know about each other's point of views. Only us the students did, as they each hand waved great insights about the world with this quote. One was arguing, much like you, about the profound truth there is to it. The other was quick to explain that they pe…

That's a great rebuttal. But if the actual claim is "I cannot teach..." It is still consistent. No one is claiming to teach you how to ride a bike or be in a relationship or know when to leave a party. "I cannot teach what I cannot understand" is not the inverse: "I can teach everything I understand".

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#105

Post by pdonis »

cyberax wrote: post #75
pdonis wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'd put Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Pauli, and Dirac ahead of Feynman. I'm not so sure about the others; not that they weren't world class physicists, but so was Feynman.

Planck? His greatest achievements were a bit before the 20-th century. Feynman also became active in physics right at the end of the heroic era. So he's disadvantaged by it.

If we're limiting to work actually done in the 20th century, yes, I agree Planck might not qualify because of the century boundary. And we also get to split hairs over whether 1900, when Planck published his quantum hypothesis, is in the 20th century or the 19th. :-)

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#108

Post by AnimalMuppet »

pdonis wrote: post #48
sho_hn wrote: post #45

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let's see ... Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Pauli, Heisenberg, Bohm, Dirac, Schroedinger, de Broglie, Ehrenfest?

I'd put Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Pauli, and Dirac ahead of Feynman. I'm not so sure about the others; not that they weren't world class physicists, but so was Feynman.

Einstein for sure. For the rest: I'm not sure that they're clearly ahead of Feynman. I'm not sure they're behind, either. To me, they seem to kind of be in a cluster.

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#109

Post by somat »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #14

His motto "What I cannot create, I do not understand" has been one of the driving forces in my own quest to understand more about the world around me. A good friend had picked up a corollary which was "What I cannot teach, I do not understand" which I think was quite similar. Definitely one of my heroes.

A similar thing I heard about the amish, is that it is not that they are anti technology, it is that they Don't want technology they can't control, basically if unable to make from raw materials they don't want it.

Now I don't think this is entirely the way things are, I suspect there is a core of truth with a lot of religion and tradition surrounding it. But I have a lot of sympathy for wanting to have the freedom that control over your environment grants you. Personally I would hate to give up my tech. and remain a willing slave to the manufactures.

Re: Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988)

#110

Post by BobaFloutist »

cyberax wrote: post #86
gregschlom wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "What I cannot teach, I do not understand" And the corollary to that, from 17th century French writer Nicolas Boileau: "Ce que l'on conçoit bien s'énonce clairement, et les mots pour le dire arrivent aisément." - What we understand well, we express clearly, and words to describe it flow easily.

One my personal trick: imagine that you are magically transported into the 19-th century (or earlier). Can you teach the subject to a well-known scientist of that era? E.g. if you want to explain radioactivity to somebody from 1860-s, how would you do that? Or for math, how would you explain calculus to Archimedes?

Those both seem much easier to me than what I usually struggle with: Transported back to a pre-industrial time, is any of my technological knowledge or understanding even remotely useful?

Like, sure, germ theory is great I guess, but I have no idea how I'd begin to explain the internal combustion engine (which I'm fairly sure requires pretty advanced metallurgy) let alone something as esoteric as solar panels. Hell, how do you generate electricity? I could mumble something about waterwheels, a coil of wires, and a large magnet, but I have no idea how you'd begin to go about sourcing a large magnet. Industrial-scale mining of Africa/Australia, maybe?

Like, I know a lot, and I could explain a good amount about how a lot of this works conceptually, but I couldn't even begin to explain how to actually engineer it. As far as I'm concerned, solar panels come from factories.

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