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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)

#31

Post by archermarks »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #28
gitremote wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the sham legacy of Richard Feynman" is about Feynman being famous because of this book rather than because of his physics. The YouTuber, an obsessed physicist who had spent months reading all Feynman books, provides a critical analysis and explains the cultural impact of "Surely You're Joking, Mr.Feynman!" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc

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…

The video is not about Feynman's actual career. That's actually the point -- the idea of Feynman people have in their minds is totally divorced from the actual person and his work.

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

#32

Post by vonneumannstan »

archermarks wrote: post #31
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…

The video is not about Feynman's actual career. That's actually the point -- the idea of Feynman people have in their minds is totally divorced from the actual person and his work.

Maybe true in the early 90s but I don't imagine really anyone in the general public is familiar with him anymore. Physicists know of him.

>is about Feynman being famous because of this book rather than because of his physics.

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

#33

Post by furyofantares »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #28
gitremote wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the sham legacy of Richard Feynman" is about Feynman being famous because of this book rather than because of his physics. The YouTuber, an obsessed physicist who had spent months reading all Feynman books, provides a critical analysis and explains the cultural impact of "Surely You're Joking, Mr.Feynman!" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc

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 also easy to dunk on someone without watching their content. You should probably watch the video if you want to dunk on it. It does not dunk on his physics. It's extremely thoroughly researched and it's about "the sham legacy of Richard Feynman" which is specifically about the legacy of anecdotes about his personality, and is different from the actual physics legacy of Richard Feynman, and it is extremely clear on this point.

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

#34

Post by fouronnes3 »

gregschlom wrote: post #30
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.

> "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 perfectly conceived how to ride a bicycle, but like most of us couldn't possibly teach it at a blackboard. I leave it to you to guess which was which :)

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

#35

Post by jcranmer »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #28
gitremote wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"the sham legacy of Richard Feynman" is about Feynman being famous because of this book rather than because of his physics. The YouTuber, an obsessed physicist who had spent months reading all Feynman books, provides a critical analysis and explains the cultural impact of "Surely You're Joking, Mr.Feynman!" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc

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, well, I had Surely You're Joking as required school reading in the '00s, the narrator of the video similarly remarks on it being recommended reading for aspiring physicists in probably near enough the same timeframe. Oh, and someone cared enough to post a link today to his blackboard, and (as of this writing) 58 other people cared to upvote it.

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

#36

Post by jimbokun »

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.

This is even more relevant in the LLM era. LLMs can spit out an answer to a question. But if you cannot understand and assess those claims at a deep level, you are not adding any value to the process.

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

#37

Post by furyofantares »

gitremote wrote: post #8
Molitor5901 wrote: post #3

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! is one of my favorite books. We lost him much too soon.

"the sham legacy of Richard Feynman" is about Feynman being famous because of this book rather than because of his physics. The YouTuber, an obsessed physicist who had spent months reading all Feynman books, provides a critical analysis and explains the cultural impact of "Surely You're Joking, Mr.Feynman!" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc

Wow. This is very, very good. Thanks.

I LOVE the videos of how Feynman talks about physics and have read and loved many of the books she talked about. But really this whole video is, I think, spot on about them.

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

#38

Post by ddtaylor »

mkagenius wrote: post #26
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…

Being part of a course doesn't mean the students get enough time to delve as deep or have as deep an understanding of the phenomenon though.

I agree. Someone might be able to understand and reproduce some basic components of the system in the same way I use mathematics effectively, but to say I have an understanding of the fundamentals at any level like Wolfram does.

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

#39

Post by pdonis »

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…

> to be honest, he's probably not in the top 10 physicists of the 20th century

Who would you put in the top 10 ahead of him?

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

#40

Post by jimbokun »

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…

> 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.

He's the only one who left behind a model for how to go about emulating him.

Hawking and Einstein left behind their work but nothing I'm aware of teaching others how to do comparable work.

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