What does /sci/ think of Richard Feynman?
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What does /sci/ think of Richard Feynman?
>>7752842
If he's so smart, how come he's dead?
Checkmate, atheists!
I'm just a dopey freshman in physics, but my thoughts about him:
-He was a genius. Hard to argue against. He was a whiz at math (Putnam fellow, for Christ's sake) and his contributions to physics both added knowledge AND an understanding to the field of QCD. Not anyone can add mathematical formalism to field, but even less can do so in such a way that the formalism seems to make intuitive sense.
-He was a great teacher. What he did for academic physicists, he did for undergraduates. I've worked through a bit of the Feynman lectures, and they are all they are cracked up to be. I especially recommend the Feynman Tips on Physics--Google for a pdf, worth the read, especially if you are riddled with intellectual insecurities like me (and like 90% of /sci/).
-He was a human--that is to say,flawed. What doesn't get mentioned about Feynman is how flawed he was. Everyone ridicules his second wife for saying he "does calculus all the time" in her divorce filings, but she also describes how he'd be a physical bully to her, throw things in anger, and yell. Yes, his first wife had died, yes, it was a different time, but still. Reading "Surely You're Joking", you read about his attitude towards women after his first wife died, before his second marriage, where he describes girls as bitches, and gets mad at them if they won't sleep with him. I'm not trying to be a SJW here, but it is still something that goes against his wacky-uncle-of-physics image we nerds create.
TL;DR: Feynman was a great scientist, a great teacher, and a man from the 50's--with all that implies.
>>7752842
he's a wizard.
at least that's what other nobel laureates called him.
they said he would find solutions to problems so easily and so abstractly, that even with his answers, they still couldn't understand how he did it.
>>7752901
>throw things in anger, and yell.
That's normal behaviour. Not even manly. Not behaviour "from another time". Normal behaviour.
> where he describes girls as bitches, and gets mad at them if they won't sleep with him. I'm not trying to be a SJW here, but it is still something that goes against his wacky-uncle-of-physics image we nerds create.
Except no one ever thought he was a pussy, you're the first little beta faggot I've seen try to imply that anyone thought he was.
>>7752842
if he's so smart, how come I understand quantum mechanics but he said he didn't (or that no one did actually)?
If he's a genius why did his first wife die?
>>7752985
Its called Dunning-Kruger effect.
>>7753062
We see a lot of that among Global Warming alarmists -- they don't know that they don't know what they don't know. So they make it up.
>>7752901
Usually in every part of the world (except the US) we dont care about his personality, specially for such trivial behaviour. You may not be a SJW but you have all their bullshit deep in your brain already. Your universities are already one step ahead of 1984.
>>7753073
We are interested in his hanging out in topless bars, though.
>>7752853
He was a Christian tho.
>>7753062
no it's not.
I'm not talking about rating my skill, I'm talking about understanding.
>>7753112
Its Dunning-Kruger effect again.
>>7753163
you really showed him there
God
>>7753079
lolno
>>7752901
>hurr if a woman won't sleep with you, just beta orbit her anyways, don't get mad ;)
C-U-C-K
>>7752842
Smart guy. However regarding soft sciences, even considering the time he lived in, completely retarded and a dick. Most likely because he was slightly autistic.
No matter that you won't obtain any direct relationships within soft sciences, there is still such a thing as statistics. Something he did not understand at all.
>>7752842
Great teacher and a man with a good imagination.
People like to compare him to scientists who were borderline autistic, but that was not him. He was a teacher and a problem solver.
>>7752901
What this guy said. I look at his lectures to answer certain specific questions that are answered nowhere else. I think it was probably him that created the interdisciplinary current in western culture that Sagan expressed in Cosmos - the book that instilled it in me.
His lectures are so easy to follow that I think I could have benefitted from them as a child - my parents would tell me all sorts of things about biology, chemistry and physics in the same style as Feynman.
>>7753079
>He was a Christian tho.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Feynman#Cultural_identification
>>7752901
I agree with you. "His ex-wife reportedly testified that on several occasions when she unwittingly disturbed either his calculus or his drums he flew into a violent rage, during which time he choked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about and smashed the furniture."
A bunch of anons are blowing your comment out of proportion, but I completely agree he was not perfect.
>>7754006
>"His ex-wife reportedly testified that on several occasions when she unwittingly disturbed either his calculus or his drums he flew into a violent rage, during which time he choked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about and smashed the furniture."
Sounds like she had it coming, desu. I know I get pretty pissed when some bitch interrupts me when I'm working.
>>7754018
You wish you had a bitch to interrupt you. (Besides your mom.)
>>7753777
Trips don't like, Richard P. Faithman denied.
>>7753072
*tips*
>>7754018
2016, still being patriarchal
then you wonder why SJW exist....
>>7754078
I am not defending Feynmann's action but
>Not wanting to be distracted while you work, probably in really important shit
>patriarchal
Tumblr pls go. If you are this fucking soft then go hide in your echo chamber you piece of shit.
>>7752901
>What doesn't get mentioned about Feynman is how flawed he was.
That's par for the course whenever anyone has any degree of fame, they're dehumanized or polarized in one way or another.
>but she also describes how he'd be a physical bully to her
Call me a sexist, but when this comes from a woman it needs a special sort of scrutiny and context. They're at a mechanical disadvantage their entire life, and this breeds insecurity. It's also very convenient for them to get their way, feel good about themselves, and probably the skewed way they see it anyway. Probably because regardless of your sex, you're going to be pretty terrible at seeing things and yourself from another perspective.
Women do the dumbest and most selfish shit and expect to have everything their own way. If they feel the slightest bit imposed upon, ah, it's physical or emotional abuse when you try to defend yourself or facilitate some meaningful fucking communication to approach the current disagreement. In my entire life, I've never had that line be anything other than childish bullshit.
>throw things in anger, and yell.
That's called being human. If you haven't done it yet, if you haven't realized how it really can be, you will soon.
>Reading "Surely You're Joking"
Which I haven't.
>where he describes girls as bitches
Maybe they were. They definitely can be.
>and gets mad at them if they won't sleep with him.
This needs context. A lot of it. More than you or I will ever truly have.
Obviously Feynman was only human, but your analysis seems lacking at best. I'd rather figure out what someone really was and characterize them on more substantial ground than that.
>>7752985
Because you don't actually understand. You just assume you do because things seem consistent in a given context, and on a given scale. Really, you don't actually know much of anything about what, how, or why. You just have something that appears to work.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NM-zWTU7X-k
If you think being a good scientist is more important than being a good human being, and thus hitting a woman (or man, to be fair) that disturbs your work is justified, then you are probably neither a good person nor a good scientist.
>>7754132
Sounds like you've never had endeavors which you're very committed to, and find very meaningful, consistently and shamelessly disrupted by people who barely half give a damn. Then they leave. You're still there, your mindset trashed, you head cluttered, and your focus gone.
Yet the drive remains. The desire remains. You want, but you can't. You can't do anything but sit there uselessly wanting to do something that would have been fine if other people's needs didn't exist, and if maintaining relationships wasn't so consistently costly.
Male or female, if someone continually disrupted me, I'd throw em right out the door. Pound em around a bit if they think it's going to be another way. There is no other way but my way.
>>7754128
>call me a sexist
K. U sexist brah.
>your analysis seems lacking at best
Well, I mean, yeah. I couldn't recall a lot of the details about his life as I was writing, and was too lazy to look them up. Mea culpa. When I said he threw things in anger, I meant to say (and hoped people realized what I meant was) that he was violent both around people (which IS normal, obviously) and AT people, which I don't really demonize Feynman for (I mention that his first wife has died as a possible explanation). The reason I mentioned it was less to have a discussion of the merits of smacking hoes that interrupt your calculations and more to say that Feynman, who is often seen as the quirky professor that did physics at a titty bars,was a three dimensional man. I know this is a simple point (I can hear you calling me a faggot as I write) but here's why I think it's not so trite an argument: Feynman isn't like other scientists. Most scientists are known for their work, primarily, not for their personal lives or their own selves (do you know what Hamilton looked like? What was Gauss's wife's name? I don't, not without Wikipedia). Feynman is known as much for his personality, his CHARCHTER as he is his physics. This may be the result of his being so recent a scientist, and so charming a man. Either way if one is going to see Feynman as an inspiration--which I do, wholeheartedly- then one ought to know what he was like beyond the meme-tier picture of Feynman a lot of people have. He called women bitches--Yes, we need context that I can't provide, but in the book, he says it was bc he wanted some pussy and no girl would give it to him. Does this make him evil? No. My point is that these things go unsaid, and in some cases denied by people that want him to be the man he was in his lectures, on TV. They want the Feynman they liked, and(this is the important bit) pretend that that's ALL Feynman was. They say they know Feymnan while ignoring the more human parts of his life.
>>7752985
Because you don’t.
The quote goes:
>If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don’t understand quantum mechanics
Hinting at the deeply counter intuitive results. You may be able to handle the math and be quite adept at juggling with those Feynman diagrams, but you DO NOT deeply and intuitively *understand* quantum mechanics. And saying that you do demonstrates that you have failed to understand how strange, complex and weird the concepts of this theory really are.
>>7754179
We're more or less in agreement.
>>7752842
reading 'surely you're joking', the parts where he talks about women just make me like him more. He'd drive to las vegas every summer, pick out the smart showgirls and fuck em.
>>7754515
Lol.
>what do you think of Richard Feynman /sci/?
>anyone who has a different opinion is immediately attacked
>>7754006
I really wish someone would choke me when I interrupt them.
>>7753072
Who's more tinfoil here?
>>7754128
>Because you don't actually understand. You just assume you do because things seem consistent in a given context, and on a given scale. Really, you don't actually know much of anything about what, how, or why. You just have something that appears to work.
keep telling yourself that to justifiy your limited intellect
Whatever helps you sleep at night anon
>>7754184
but I do.
You are just limited intellectually, and it's fine.
But don't generalize to everyone.
>Feynman discussion.
Ah yes, I remember being 18. Just google it and see that this has already been discussed to death many times by many eager freshmen who just discovered Feynman for the first time.
He was good, he made contributions. They're slightly overblown because of his quirky approach and grating personality.
>>7754593
I'm talking more from an epistemological standpoint. You don't actually understand the underlying machinery of the universe, and if you aren't intellectually crippled, you can readily realize and admit that.
For what it's worth, my intellect is limited. It just makes me feel even higher when my atrophied, chronic pain wracked brain is capable of more accurate judgement than other people. that my frameworks and capacity for controlling for error is that much better than yours.
Younger, shittier me's in shittier times would ride that high. At this point I just feel apathetic. You're just another pitiful, broken joke. Anything i feel about you nets out to a negative. I feel bad that you exist, and I feel even worse that I can't help. Speaking of Feynman, he talked about how genuinely strange nature was, and I feel I cannot show you an entire part of the world you miss with your delusional sense of certainty. You barely know anything, and convince yourself otherwise. It's tragic.
>>7754621
I love that you consider yourself in a position to make the call in terms of someone making a contribution to science when you're nowhere near his intellect and insight and you're most likely not an expert in the field he was a genius at. Anyway, good luck with your mediocre life, anon.
>>7754621
Why are you such a stupid cunt? What does that?
I might just go into physics for the sole purpose of finding out what makes it do that. What make it be such a stupid cunt.
>>7754128
>Women do the dumbest and most selfish shit and expect to have everything their own way. If they feel the slightest bit imposed upon, ah, it's physical or emotional abuse when you try to defend yourself or facilitate some meaningful fucking communication to approach the current disagreement. In my entire life, I've never had that line be anything other than childish bullshit.
This desu. I mean, there are obviously guys that act like this too, ive even dated some (am literal faggot) but fewer and by and large the world tolerates it far less coming from a man. The SJW talk of "male entitlement culture" is a supreme irony.
I mean, absolutely everyone gets frustrated when someone they want to fuck doesn't want to fuck them. It's like getting passed up for a promotion, job offer, grant funding, uni/grad admission, postdocs, getting your paper rejected, and so on. People want things. This is normal.
>>7752901
>Reading "Surely You're Joking", you read about his attitude towards women after his first wife died, before his second marriage, where he describes girls as bitches, and gets mad at them if they won't sleep with him.
Wrong. He would get mad when women would pretend to like him in order to get free drinks, food, etc, only to completely blow him off after they were done using him.
This is incredibly typical female behavior, and I've learned to never buy a woman a drink unless she's a legitimate friend, family, or I'm already fucking her.
It's worked well.
I love when shit reduces eventually to the inferiority of female primates.
It's glorious.
>>7754595
No you don't. And you're not fooling anyone.
>>7754742
>getting this mad over your inferior intellect and intuition
>>7754760
Im not mad at all. I just think that anon (you?) is full of shit.
Carry on
>>7754132
>muh "good human being" meme
fact: there are famous, accomplished scientists who were notoriously horrible people
tell your feel-good just-world reddit bullshit elsewhere.
>>7754844
this, family
Their contributions last millenia longer than a bruise.
