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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)

#51

Post by lemonberry »

esafak wrote: post #13
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

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Autobiographies. As Churchill said, "For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself."

"He lived, he died, the rest is anecdote"

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

#52

Post by gmueckl »

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…

Even the greatest of us are only human.

Also, the way many discoveries are explained in a course is usually very streamlined compared to the papers that present them initially and defend them in detail on a limited number of pages.

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

#53

Post by margalabargala »

pdonis wrote: post #43
jcranmer wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> 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...

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

#54

Post by vonneumannstan »

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…

Sounds like you went to a pretty unusual school? It definitely wasn't on my reading list during a similar time period. But it seems like your doing a lot of selection bias here. People interested in become Physicists inevitably hear about him and the sample of people active on HN is wildly different from the general public.

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

#55

Post by vonneumannstan »

furyofantares wrote: post #33
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 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…

I watched the video months ago and found it pandering and boring.

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

#57

Post by wk_end »

pdonis wrote: post #46
torlok wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Watch the video. Feynman didn't write a single book.

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 attributed to Ralph Leighton, who has a Wikipedia article about him. It turns out that he wrote the books, years later, based on stories Feynman told him at drumming circles. So it's not exactly a secret, but also not exactly publicized - Leighton's name is nowhere on the book jackets, for instance.

The video goes onto explain that this is the case for anything commonly attributed to him - The Feynman Lectures, for instance, were transcribed/edited/turned into books by Robert B. Leighton (Ralph's father) and Matthew Sands.

She then cites the general "never wrote a book" claim as directly coming from James Gleick's "Genius", which is a well-regarded and fact-checked biography of Feynman.

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

#58

Post by simonswords82 »

bookofjoe wrote: post #5
Molitor5901 wrote: post #3

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

I was a UCLA anesthesiology attending in the 1980s when Feynman came to our OR for an abdominal procedure after having been diagnosed with kidney cancer. I watched as he was wheeled down the hall toward OR 9, our largest, reserved for major complicated operations. As he was wheeled into the room, he clasped his two hands above his head like a prizefighter.

Seriously? That is so cool that you were there. Sad that we lost him fairly young. Such a legend, I love his work.

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

#60

Post by sympil »

vonneumannstan wrote: post #55
furyofantares wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I watched the video months ago and found it pandering and boring.

Was it accurate or not? Who cares if the presentstion was to your liking? The question is whether or not its claims are accurate. You sound like the Feynman Bros she talks about.
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