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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)

#191

Post by ChrisMarshallNY »

stahorn wrote: post #173
fouronnes3 wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I took up social dancing in my 20s, including salsa and Argentinian tango. I think that it is a very good way to experience the difference between being very good at something and being able to teach. I've been on courses with some people that are clearly exceptionally good at dancing but are a bit lacking when it comes to teaching. Then I've had the pleasure of having teachers that, while still very good at dancing,…

All my best teachers were trained as teachers, and weren’t necessarily content experts.

One of the worst teachers I ever had, was a genius Calc II teacher, who was an abusive asshole, and would humiliate students for asking questions he deemed as “stupid.”

Since a significant part of my learning, is asking “stupid” questions, this did not go well for me, and I took an Incomplete. I had a 4.0, to that point.

> “The only stupid question is the one you don’t ask.”

From a poster in one of my tech school classrooms.

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

#192

Post by painted-now »

sigmoid10 wrote: post #4

Richard Feynman having the quantum Hall effect on his "to learn" list is amazing. I mean, it makes sense, because less than three years before he died the Nobel Prize in physics was awarded for its discovery. But it shows that even one of the greatest physicists of his generation had not fully grasped something that is now part of every undergraduate physics degree's standard curriculum and is arguably much less comp…

I think there is some huge difference between learning some bleeding edge ideas vs stuff that -for years - has been repackaged, processed, and optimized for being taught and for making exams out of it.

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

#193

Post by sundarurfriend »

scintill76 wrote: post #187
baxtr wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is the one I was talking about. Watching the first 5 minutes is enough I think.

I’ve watched 2 Angela Collier videos on him albeit in the background — you’d probably have to watch the whole thing to truly understand the “bad rep” and I can’t speak to how widespread the bad rep is. My memory is, misogyny, cringey stories that were surely greatly exaggerated and just happen to make Feynman the smartest guy in every room, kind of a jerk in general, divorce due to claimed domestic violence, never di…

I haven't watched this particular video, but Angela Collier's channel seems to be unfortunately going the typical way of pop-physicists, like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sabine Hossenfelder, etc. - becoming famous for their physics-related content, and then assuming they're an expert at everything because they are physicists, and physics explains everything. It seems to be a rare physicist (possibly Sean Carroll) that's in the public eye, that doesn't succumb to this disease.

The fault lies partly with the viewers and commenters, ascribing a similar level of expertise to their platitudes and ill-informed takes on, for eg. AI, as to their actual field of expertise. But they don't exactly discourage that either, and in some cases lean into it actively. It's at least a hopeful sign that the descent into "physicist disease" isn't especially rapid in Angela's case, physics still being the primary topic on the channel, but it's still disappointing all the same.

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

#194

Post by DiogenesKynikos »

jcranmer wrote: post #35
vonneumannstan wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's easy to dunk on someone unable to defend themselves. Some basic sanity checks: Personally recruited onto the Manhattan Project by Oppenheimer in 1943. Feynman Diagrams, fundamental to QM and became popular in the early 50s. There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom lecture was given in 1959. The Feynman Lectures on Physics were recorded at Caltech between 1961-1964 and became famous throughout the field shortly after…

It's not a critique of his work (although to be honest, he's probably not in the top 10 physicists of the 20th century). Rather, it's a critique of the mythbuilding that seems to surround Feynman--and only Feynman, you don't see this stuff around (say) Hawking or Einstein--that turn him into the only physicist worth emulating. As for your later contention that he's less visible to the general public since the '90s, w…

He developed quantum electrodynamics, the first fully fleshed-out quantum field theory. In the process, the invented the action formulation of quantum field theory, which is absolutely fundamental to the modern understanding of the subject, and he invented the method of solving path integrals perturbatively that everyone has used since (Feynman diagrams).

That easily puts him among the top 10 physicists of the 20th Century.

Beyond his research contributions, he was a highly innovative und unorthodox teacher, and an utterly captivating raconteur. He had a highly unusual combination of skills and personality traits. That's why he's so famous.

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

#195

Post by ballooney »

Xelynega wrote: post #171
shimonabi wrote: post #169

He was a con artist with a Nobel Prize. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc

It's interesting having this video be my introduction to Feynman, then seeing how people talk about his personality. She brings up points that don't seem easy to dispute, yet all of the comments here seem to be praise for the man outside of just his achievements.

This website is 99% the sort of not especially socialised young men who for various psychological insecurities are prone to the sort of hero-worship that she refers to in the video.

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

#196

Post by jstanley »

JKCalhoun wrote: post #144
gowld wrote: post #81

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you are calling Richard Feynman "profoundly unwise" and "endlessly futile", you might need to do a bit more reflection on the grounding for your opinion.

Feynman has a comment in one of his two autobiographies where he describes an argument with an artist friend — about, I think, the beauty of a rose. His friend believed that "dissecting" the rose, breaking it down to its biological components chemical processes, took away from the beauty of the rose. Feynman disagreed — couldn't understand how knowing more about the thing could possibly take away from it. It was the…

This comment went the exact opposite of the direction I was expecting.

Do you also find that you enjoy magic tricks less when you know how they're done?

Personally I find the "not knowing" kind of painful. I can't imagine cherishing ignorance.

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

#197

Post by tomthe »

ChrisMarshallNY wrote: post #191
stahorn wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I took up social dancing in my 20s, including salsa and Argentinian tango. I think that it is a very good way to experience the difference between being very good at something and being able to teach. I've been on courses with some people that are clearly exceptionally good at dancing but are a bit lacking when it comes to teaching. Then I've had the pleasure of having teachers that, while still very good at dancing,…

All my best teachers were trained as teachers, and weren’t necessarily content experts. One of the worst teachers I ever had, was a genius Calc II teacher, who was an abusive asshole, and would humiliate students for asking questions he deemed as “stupid.” Since a significant part of my learning, is asking “stupid” questions, this did not go well for me, and I took an Incomplete. I had a 4.0, to that point. > “The on…

It is not sufficient to understand the content very well, you also have to understand the state of the mind of your pupils very well.
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