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Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)

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Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)

#61

Post by mlyle »

rimunroe wrote: post #60
mlyle wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yah. He didn't write the Feynman Lectures on Physics. He just came up with the unique arguments in them and gave the lectures at Caltech; it fell to Leighton and Sands to do most of the work of knitting it into a cohesive, coherent book. And his other books-- they're just his stories, trying to capture the characteristic style in which he talked, while editing it to be a cohesive written work. This criticism is maybe…

Do you mean he didn’t write the lectures he gave to students? I know the books weren’t put together by him and were substantially edited, but I thought the original lectures as delivered by him were either all or largely his work. I once worked through part of the first volume of his lectures in the published book while listening to the recordings of him partly out of curiosity to see how much the original lectures a…

Yah, I was saying the volumes.

> put together a written work which so closely matched a spoken one without coming across as being a transcript.

Leighton deserves the credit for this. Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through.

Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)

#62

Post by rimunroe »

mlyle wrote: post #61
rimunroe wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you mean he didn’t write the lectures he gave to students? I know the books weren’t put together by him and were substantially edited, but I thought the original lectures as delivered by him were either all or largely his work. I once worked through part of the first volume of his lectures in the published book while listening to the recordings of him partly out of curiosity to see how much the original lectures a…

Yah, I was saying the volumes. > put together a written work which so closely matched a spoken one without coming across as being a transcript. Leighton deserves the credit for this. Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through.

> Leighton deserves the credit for this. Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through.

It's pretty clear he also used the recordings of the lectures themselves. Otherwise there'd be a much bigger difference between the lectures as presented in the books and the audio recordings[1] of him actually giving the lectures. Leighton deserves a lot of credit, but the lectures Feynman gave were substantially similar enough that it's absurd not to act as though he didn't co-author them.

> Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through.

I don't doubt his notes would be, however they also used the audio recordings of and took notes during the lectures themselves for the books. I'm not sure how much they relied on Feynman's notes themselves though. It's been about 15 years since I last read and listened to them together, but I recall the experience of the combined activity being that the book was surprisingly close to being a transcript of what he said (including references to figures which the books reproduced).

This is why I thought it was impressive that the book didn't read like a transcript on its own. I rarely encountered professors who gave such well-structured lectures, but it seems like something Feynman could not only give prepared lectures in this way, but could do this off the cuff as well.

[1] https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/flptapes.html

Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)

#63

Post by mlyle »

rimunroe wrote: post #62
mlyle wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yah, I was saying the volumes. > put together a written work which so closely matched a spoken one without coming across as being a transcript. Leighton deserves the credit for this. Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through.

> Leighton deserves the credit for this. Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through. It's pretty clear he also used the recordings of the lectures themselves. Otherwise there'd be a much bigger difference between the lectures as presented in the books and the audio recordings[1] of him actually giving the lectures. Leighton deserves a lot of credit, but the lectures Feynman…

> Leighton deserves a lot of credit, but the lectures Feynman gave were substantially similar enough that it's absurd not to act as though he didn't co-author them

I'm sorry that it's difficult to convey tone on the internet. My intent was to highlight that absurdity that seemed to be present in the comment that I replied to-- Feynman only came up with the physics and gave the lectures, but didn't actually "write the book" is not much of a gotcha as far as the accomplishment goes.

It doesn't take away from Feynman, but it maybe adds a lot to each of the Leightons that they could capture such a range of ideas and Feynman's tone so well without simply repeating things verbatim in that transcript style.

> (including references to figures which the books reproduced).

Yes, this is one of the areas of significant challenges in reproduction. So Leighton definitely deserves a whole lot of respect for producing the work, from audio recordings, a few spare photographs, and notes. Even more impressive is what the Goodsteins did with the "Lost Lecture" to recreate the figures from just a few pages of surviving notes that looked like this:

https://i.imgur.com/zQessy9.png

(And it seems Feynman gave this 60 minute lecture quickly wandering between history, geometrical ideas, and dynamics-- that still seems well organized-- with these few pages of sparse notes).

Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)

#64

Post by ecshafer »

mlyle wrote: post #63
rimunroe wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leighton deserves the credit for this. Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through. It's pretty clear he also used the recordings of the lectures themselves. Otherwise there'd be a much bigger difference between the lectures as presented in the books and the audio recordings[1] of him actually giving the lectures. Leighton deserves a lot of credit, but the lectures Feynman…

> Leighton deserves a lot of credit, but the lectures Feynman gave were substantially similar enough that it's absurd not to act as though he didn't co-author them I'm sorry that it's difficult to convey tone on the internet. My intent was to highlight that absurdity that seemed to be present in the comment that I replied to-- Feynman only came up with the physics and gave the lectures, but didn't actually "write the…

Feynman's ability to give an off the cuff lecture is astounding and probably an area where he is world class. I think of the one recorded interview with him, and his shockingly deep answers to simple questions that were off the cuff. His response to "why do magnets push/pull eachother" and what the issue is with asking "why" requires a lot of introspection is stellar.

Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)

#65

Post by rimunroe »

mlyle wrote: post #63
rimunroe wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leighton deserves the credit for this. Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through. It's pretty clear he also used the recordings of the lectures themselves. Otherwise there'd be a much bigger difference between the lectures as presented in the books and the audio recordings[1] of him actually giving the lectures. Leighton deserves a lot of credit, but the lectures Feynman…

> Leighton deserves a lot of credit, but the lectures Feynman gave were substantially similar enough that it's absurd not to act as though he didn't co-author them I'm sorry that it's difficult to convey tone on the internet. My intent was to highlight that absurdity that seemed to be present in the comment that I replied to-- Feynman only came up with the physics and gave the lectures, but didn't actually "write the…

No worries! That makes sense. I got tripped up by "just came up with the unique arguments [...] and gave the lectures" and "Leighton and Sands [did] most of the work of knitting it into a cohesive, coherent book". It felt like glossing over the degree to which the books' contents match the words he spoke.

> Yes, this is one of the areas of significant challenges in reproduction.

I feel this deeply. I'm very slow at writing by hand and have trouble paying attention to what someone's saying if I'm also trying to simultaneously summarize it. In college I solved this by becoming very, very swift with LaTeX. My pure math notes were easiest, but I struggled with physics notes the most. I settled on a middle ground of learning TikZ and making a bunch of LaTeX macros for common stuff. This did well enough for most simple diagrams. I'd fall back to hand-copying more complicated ones and just typing the text. I'd either scan the drawings afterward and add annotations as needed or convert fully into LaTeX. Converting these hand-drawn ones into LaTeX was a ton of work. After doing this for a short bit, I realized that I was remembering the more complicated diagrams better than the easier ones. I figured out that being able to take almost verbatim notes easily wasn't making me absorb the material at all, so I started spending more time afterward tidying everything up to make things stick a bit better.

> Even more impressive is what the Goodsteins did with the "Lost Lecture" to recreate the figures from just a few pages of surviving notes that looked like this: https://i.imgur.com/zQessy9.png

That's really cool. That note looks about as inscrutable as the ones I have from when I was being taught a crash course in QCD.

Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)

#66

Post by rimunroe »

ecshafer wrote: post #64
mlyle wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leighton deserves a lot of credit, but the lectures Feynman gave were substantially similar enough that it's absurd not to act as though he didn't co-author them I'm sorry that it's difficult to convey tone on the internet. My intent was to highlight that absurdity that seemed to be present in the comment that I replied to-- Feynman only came up with the physics and gave the lectures, but didn't actually "write the…

Feynman's ability to give an off the cuff lecture is astounding and probably an area where he is world class. I think of the one recorded interview with him, and his shockingly deep answers to simple questions that were off the cuff. His response to "why do magnets push/pull eachother" and what the issue is with asking "why" requires a lot of introspection is stellar.

I linked the "why do magnets do that?" interview elsewhere in the comments, but if anyone else missed it I highly recommend it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1lL-hXO27Q

Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)

#67

Post by mlyle »

ecshafer wrote: post #64
mlyle wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Leighton deserves a lot of credit, but the lectures Feynman gave were substantially similar enough that it's absurd not to act as though he didn't co-author them I'm sorry that it's difficult to convey tone on the internet. My intent was to highlight that absurdity that seemed to be present in the comment that I replied to-- Feynman only came up with the physics and gave the lectures, but didn't actually "write the…

Feynman's ability to give an off the cuff lecture is astounding and probably an area where he is world class. I think of the one recorded interview with him, and his shockingly deep answers to simple questions that were off the cuff. His response to "why do magnets push/pull eachother" and what the issue is with asking "why" requires a lot of introspection is stellar.

It's from Fun to Imagine-- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1ww1IXRfTA

Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)

#68

Post by Gud »

ASalazarMX wrote: post #57
jcranmer wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem with extremely smart people is not many people understand them. I know this is a common trope in many media portrayals, but it's really not my experience. The "insufferable genius" stereotype tracks most not for the extremely smart people but the kinda-smart people who are absolute jerks but try to defend their jerkassery on the basis of their intelligence.

The few very brilliant people I've known devoted themselves to master a subject, at the cost of neglecting others, like socialization. They were not autists by any measure of the condition, just very socially undeveloped. Some embraced the awkwardness, but others chose to be jerks because it is easier than rescuing an atrophied skill. The jock equivalent of wearing baggy pants because they skipped leg days. I've also…

Feynman is known for being a very social guy, though.

Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)

#69

Post by jackling »

srean wrote: post #58
jackling wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think people really make up domestic abuse charges with this much detail. His wife explains in the post specifically what causes him to get so angry that he hurts her. I don't see her having much incentive to lie and make up these statements, and see no evidence that she did lie. Some women lie about domestic abuse, most don't.

If the wild allegations in the smearjob was hers, she does not rank very high on credibility. Going by what people say, it was not unusual at all to use false allegations of abuse (or adultery) in divorce proceedings at that time. Sometimes it was the only way. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8025878

Both those statements need to be prove for her, and I don't see any strong evidence for either.

And if someone was going to to make false allegations of abuse, why include specifics about how interrupting his calculus and drums caused his anger? Why not just say he was abusive, or state a more common reason for abuse? To me, the specifics make her statement more credible. Combined with his predatory history regarding women[1], I view Feynman as a distrubed individual (but a genius nonetheless)

I find the allegation credible, as I don't see why someone in her position would lie, and especially give specific details on what sets Feynman off.

Also, unless I see some concrete data about the amount/percentage of women who lie in order to get a divorce, the comment you linked is pure conjecture. Nothing really to argue about since it's just the vague idea of what people think about that time.

[1] https://thebaffler.com/outbursts/surely-youre-a-creep-mr-fey...

Re: Who smeared Richard Feynman? (2014)

#70

Post by srean »

jackling wrote: post #69
srean wrote: post #58

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If the wild allegations in the smearjob was hers, she does not rank very high on credibility. Going by what people say, it was not unusual at all to use false allegations of abuse (or adultery) in divorce proceedings at that time. Sometimes it was the only way. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8025878

Both those statements need to be prove for her, and I don't see any strong evidence for either. And if someone was going to to make false allegations of abuse, why include specifics about how interrupting his calculus and drums caused his anger? Why not just say he was abusive, or state a more common reason for abuse? To me, the specifics make her statement more credible. Combined with his predatory history regarding…

> Both those statements need to be prove for her, and I don't see any strong evidence for either.

You can query the search engines yourself, it's a pretty standard and accepted thing now based on analysis of the letter and that the interview with the FBI officer happened in her home town, Boise, Idaho. Only personal connect that Feynman had with Boise, Idaho is through his 2nd wife, Mary Louise Bell.

The redacted FBI files still contain references to the informant as "she" and "her" and accusations match the tone of her wife's divorce filings.

https://share.google/aimode/7JeIsDlMrouAUCKiE (on general consensus on who was the smearer)

https://share.google/aimode/Yhzt0fim0kljZgHQ7 (on where the interview with the informer took place)

Regarding specificity of complaints, of course, she was not an idiot, these are filings in a divorce court, unless it's specific it would likely be thrown out. On top of that there were divorce lawyers overseeing the filing of these accusations, it would be their job to make it specific.

Yes, circumstantial, but as damning as you can get. A vindictive wife with a tendency to throw wild accusations ... not a particularly credible source, especially when compared with how Feynman's sister and other wives talk about him.

As for the baffler article the only concrete thing is his anecdote in surely you are joking, that's well addressed in

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46972641

and here

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46970233

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