Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death (1988) • Hacker News Board

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

#281

Post by Xelynega » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 2:53 AM UTC

pdonis wrote: post #265

Xelynega wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think the problem people have is "Richard Feynman didn't produce content" It's "the content that people interacted with that they formed an opinion on "Richard Feynman" from was actually editorialized and published by other people" They're not trying to take credit from Feynman, theyre trying to divorce the character of "Feynman" as written by these authors from the real historical person

To the extent that the character of "Feynman" as he appears in books like Surely You're Joking is different from the real historical person, I think the difference is due to Feynman himself--the way he told the stories orally to people like Leighton. I don't think it's due in any significant measure to people like Leighton "editoralizing" when they wrote up the stories for publication. So again, I think "never wrote…

That's true, i guess I'm trying to say "the portrayal of Feynman versus the reality of him" which "he didn't write any books" doesn't represent well.

With some more thought, the fact that he wasn't the direct author of any books is interesting but not really that significant to his character, so i can't see much reason to point it out other than to discredit his achievements.

Though if the achievement being discredited is the number of books he's seemingly written then it makes sense to a degree.

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

#282

Post by pmarreck » Tue, Feb 25, 2025, 6:06 PM UTC

toomanyrichies wrote: post #233

pmarreck wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So forgive the pedantry but what was your takeaway?

One of the big takeaways was not to over -value the knowledge I had gained learning English via immersion in an English-speaking culture, and conversely not to under-value that of the local teachers, who had gained their knowledge in the classroom. It's a cliche at this point to say that "street smarts > book smarts", at least in my culture. My teaching job taught me that there are situations where neither type of kn…

Great answer!

And the implicit-order-of-adjectives thing is something I was not even aware of, but makes sense now! Fascinating!

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

#283

Post by pdonis » Wed, Feb 26, 2025, 4:27 PM UTC

Xelynega wrote: post #281

pdonis wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To the extent that the character of "Feynman" as he appears in books like Surely You're Joking is different from the real historical person, I think the difference is due to Feynman himself--the way he told the stories orally to people like Leighton. I don't think it's due in any significant measure to people like Leighton "editoralizing" when they wrote up the stories for publication. So again, I think "never wrote…

That's true, i guess I'm trying to say "the portrayal of Feynman versus the reality of him" which "he didn't write any books" doesn't represent well. With some more thought, the fact that he wasn't the direct author of any books is interesting but not really that significant to his character, so i can't see much reason to point it out other than to discredit his achievements. Though if the achievement being discredit…

> if the achievement being discredited is the number of books he's seemingly written then it makes sense to a degree.

Only if you take "written" literally, as in, he didn't do the actual writing, he just told the stories orally and someone else wrote them down.

I personally don't care much about that; the stories are his (including, as I've said, whatever misrepresentations of what actually happened they contain). Lots of people have books ghostwritten, and that's not considered unusual.

More than that, there are famous examples of books for which someone got the credit for the writing when they actually did little or none of it: John F. Kennedy being credited as the author of Profiles in Courage, for example. Even the content of Profiles in Courage was probably less Kennedy's than the content of the books Feynman gets credited for was Feynman's.

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

#284

Post by nurettin » Sun, Mar 02, 2025, 2:19 PM UTC

dinkumthinkum wrote: post #249

EncomLab wrote: post #234

Anyone know why it seems that Feynman is coming under attack lately - most prominently by You Tuber Angela Collier whose "the sham legacy of Richard Feynman" now has nearly 1M views? I don't understand it at all.

I don't want to get into it but she is a nice person and is quite smart but she is a far leftist and interprets many things through a Marxist and anti-capitalist world-view with a very millennial kind of approach. So, I would tend take a lot of things she says with a grain of salt.

I'm 2 minutes in, she's doing her hardest to dis F and failing miserably.