Comments by "GH1618" (@GH-oi2jf) on "" video.

  1. Anybody who thought "Surely ..." was an autobiography just doesn't know what an autobiography is. It is just a collection of anecdotes, but they are Feynnan's anecdotes. The fact that he spoke them instead of wrote them is of no importance.
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  2. Complaining about harrassment? And lack of respect? Sure, why shouldn't they?
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  3. Greek mythology is part of a liberal education because it is part of our culture. There are references to it which an educated person should understand without explanation, such as "Achilles heel."
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  4. I think the physical world is on its own course, whatever we do.
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  5. We had computers before Feynman did any important work.
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  6. It is easy to find references to her papers online.
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  7. That's the play for which Alan Alda originated the Feynman role. I haven't seen it performed, but I read it because someone I knew was in a performance of it. I liked it. I didn't worry about whether it was a strictly accurate portrayal of Feynman. Plays are an art form. Artists have artistic license. It's in the same category as Steve Martin's play about Einstein and Picasso at the Lapin Agile. It's fiction, but it is trying to give an impression of the actual characters.
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  8. Maybe the subject wasn't mentioned because, in a physics lecture, it was off-topic.
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  9. I was interested in physics as a young boy. I bought the first volume of Lectures in 1964. I have a few other Feynman books, as well as books by or about other physicists. I don't think Feynman was a bad influence. It never occurred to me to try to copy his lifestyle.
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  10. The former refers to a statement Feynman made in an interview which can be found on YT.
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  11. We have freedom of speech. Anyone may comment on Feynman.
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  12. I wouldn't see a film on Feynman. Plenty has been written about him. What's the point of a film? The same with Oppenheimer. I had read a lot about him, so skipped the film.
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  13. "physician"?
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  14. No comparison.
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  15. He was a family friend who thought Feynnan's anecdotes were worth writing down and publishing, that's all. I think you are overanalyzing this.
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  16. Another thing I liked about Feynman is that he was an early skeptic of string theory. I was also, but, as a layman, my opinion didn't mean anything. I was in no position to argue about it with anybody who took it seriously. Feynman gave my skepticism legitimacy.
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  17. Some of the nicest women I've met worked in strip clubs. Some are not so nice. There's a spectrum, like in life generally.
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  18. Mine didn't either, but I learned about the Feynman Lectures in high school physics. I only had a year of college physics, and we didn't use his Lectures, so there was no reason to mention him.
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  19. Leighton's book of Feynman anecdotes does not claim to be an autobiography.
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  20. Certainly a great experimentalist, but Archimedes and Galileo were no slouches. Faraday's luck was to be in the right place at a time when there was much to be discovered which could be discovered with simple equipment.
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  21. Robert Leighton is a co-author of the Feynman Lectures. His name is on the books. Ghost writers do not put their names on the books.
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  22. I doubt he spent a minute comparing himself to other physicists.
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  23. How would Maxwell get into popular culture? People interested in science learn about him.
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  24. Isaac Asimov started writing mass market books on science topics in the mid-1950s, a decade before Feynman's Messenger Lectures were published. Asimov went on to write far more popular treatments of scientific subjects than anybody else. George Gamow's "One Two Three... Infinity" was published a decade before Asimov's first science book, in 1947.
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  25. That's the way it is in the book.
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  26. If you didn't know at the outset that the book is a collection of stories told by Feynman to Ralph Leighton, then you just weren't paying attention. In any case, there is no important difference between writing a story and telling a story. They are Feynman's stories.
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  27. One should not use quotation marks unless the text inside the marks is an exact quote.
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  28. Linus Pauling was a famous chemist. Isaac Asimov was a famous chemist, but not for his chemistry.
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  29. Because he was from Queens.
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  30. The greatest teacher ever would have to be Siddhartha, the Buddha.
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  31. I don't think he was a misogynist. That means hatred of women. He may not have respected women, but I don't think he hated them.
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  32. Franklin was not "ripped off" by anybody.
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  33. They didn't just take notes, they recorded the lectures and rendered them into print. The process is described in the foreword to "The Character of Physical Law," which is the printed version of the Messenger Lectures of 1964. Feynman did not literally "write" the book, but he gave the lectures and reviewed the transcription. It is his book.
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  34. A 1/3 share of a Nobel, to be precise.
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  35. Where did you get that idea? My safe has a Sargent & Greenleaf lock which can be set to three numbers of my choice. The company was founded in 1857. I'm not sure when the resettable combination lock was invented, but it wasn't recently.
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  36. Feynman's works are not ghostwritten. They are openly transcribed from recordings of him talking.
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  37. The term means "a person who hates women." That's a strong term. I don't think he hated women, although he may have lacked respect for them and treated some poorly.
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  38.  @sharonberry410 — I have read the books, including the two books of anecdotes collected by Ralph Leighton. You might read a good dictionary now and then.
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  39. The remark refers to his career as a theoretical physicist. His Los Alamos work, which started when he was still a student, is not what it refers to.
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  40. Hardly.
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  41. Some Master locks are pretty cheap. I can attest that the common combination padlocks that are used for school lockers are easy to open. I did open one once using the method Feynman described, and it didn't take long.
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  42. He loved women. He married the love of his life when they were young, and she died tragically not long after. Late in life, he was a family man. The in between years are what bother some people.
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  43. Oh, a Tesla bro.
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  44. I read it long ago and took it neither as an example to follow, nor as something repellent. I took it merely as what it claims to be: "Adventures of a Curious Character."
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  45. There is nothing wrong with shorthand, in my opinion.
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  46. She got into graduate school in physics. She has talked about it in this channel.
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  47. Of those three, Feynman is the least like a cult figure. Most people who know something about Feynman know something about a lot of other physicists as well. Tesla cultists know about Edison, but nothing about people like Dolivo-Dobrovoksky or Shallenberger.
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  48. Galbraith said "modesty is a greatly overrated virtue."
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  49. Besides, they were all working inside a secure compound.
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  50. I think people who frequent this channel can sort this out on our own.
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  51. Depends on what you mean by "laymen." I would say he is fairly well known to people who are interested in the physical sciences, and have some education in physics, but who do not have a degree in physics.
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  52.  @v0Xx60 — He gave the lectures, so presumably wrote notes on which the lectures were based. The printed versions were produced from recordings of the lectures. He certainly participated in the production. The credited authors are Feynman, Leighton, Sands.
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  53. Where did he say that?
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  54. Ranking (almost) anything is pointless. Just remember people for their contributions. I expect if you asked ten physicists to name the top five physicists of all time in rank order, you would not get two matching lists.
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  55. The QED book might be better known today.
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  56. NdeGT does not belong in this comoarison.
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  57. I just reread the introduction to QED (The Strange Theory of Light and Matter). It's more than thirty pages. Where and what is the shocking part?
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  58. Is trying to get a date a "nefarious reason"?
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  59. Dr. Collier certainly did "do physics."
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  60. Feynman was known to me first by his Lectures on Physics. I bought the first volume when I was in high school, when the series was still relatively new and getting a lot of attention. I later read the books of anecdotes, of course, but his writing on physics for the general (but scientifically inclined) reader* were more important to me. I admired him for the clarity of his explanations. He is best known as a physicist for QED, which you didn't even mention in your intro. *The Character of Physical Law, 1965
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  61. On the subject of words, the names for a thing in different languages is a trivial case. Sometimes another language contains a word for an abstract idea for which English has no equivalent. In such cases, we incorporate the foreign word into our speech.
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  62. But it turns the public off. I never understood why he would use that as an example for the point he was trying to make.
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  63. Jonas Salk.
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  64. At least being a disciple of Feynman (or Tesla, or Musk) is harmless.
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  65. Be serious.
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  66.  @GoodVolition — He told the stories to Ralph Leighton, who rendered them into print. They are Feynman's stories.
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  67. It wouldn't come up if you mean an undergraduate degree.
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  68. Are you confusing Feynman with Luis Alvarez?
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  69. Many important people are almost unknown. Shallengerger; Shannon.
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  70. Do the "views" represent the number of individual viewers, or are multiple views from one individual counted?
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  71. The authors are Feynman, Leighton and Sands, so Feynman et al.
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  72.  @ZappBranniganCos — Those books are not autobiographies. There is no autobiography.
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  73. Why even try to rank the contributions of people? Just recognize people for what they did and leave it at that.
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  74. I didn't see either, but I have a good book on Oppenheimer. Doesn't anybody read anymore? Edit: Ironically, I just noticed my book is by Peter Goodchild, the executive producer of the BBC television series.
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  75. Context makes a difference.
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  76. A better introduction would be "The Character of Physical Law," based on the Messenger Lectures at Cornell.
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  77. I suspect it is more about Dr. Collier, but I haven't watched the whole thing.
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  78. "All their characters"? Hardly.
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  79. Rethink that.
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  80. Which one?
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  81. I doubt it. You don't need to find a reason for someone being different. Variation is normal.
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  82. Gamow
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  83. Feynman is known to anyone in the USA who is interested in physics, at least in my generation.
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  84. The first time I heard of Feynman was when the first volume of Lectures came out.
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  85. That book is not about physics.
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  86.  @mykey6375 — I didn't say they were true, I said they were Feynman's stories.
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  87. Which book? I am not embarrassed to have read "Surely You're Joking" or the other, similar one. I've read hundreds of books and can't think of one I would be embarrassed to admit I've read.
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  88. What autobiography?
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  89. What's the bombshell? I don't want to listen to this whole thing to get it. "Surely You're Joking" contains anecdotes told to Ralph Leighton, and turned into print by him. The Feynman Lectures are lectures actually given by Feynman, recorded, and put into print form by somebody (Leighton and Sands, I suppose). Is that all? Doesn't everybody know that? Is that supposed to be scandalous?
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  90. The young man was a family friend. He was the son of a colleague. That's not the same thing as a cult follower at all.
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  91. Only if you limit yourself to reading the comic books.
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  92. MPW is not idolized for "aggressive and toxic behavior." His reputation is based on his having reached the highest rank in his profession, and, since then, in his ability to communicate what he has learned to others.
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  93. Garrison Keillor explained his stories that way when asked if they were true. He said that they started with a kernel of truth, but that sometimes strict adherence to truth didn't get him where he wanted to go.
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  94. There was a controversy about Lewin as well. I don't let it keep me from enjoying some of his lectures.
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  95. Feynman never sought an administrative position.
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  96.  @iwannabethekid34xc — She is probably just trolling the language police.
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  97. Hawking
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  98. Besides, they were all working together inside an ultra-secret compound.
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  99. What autobiography?
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  100.  @adamshinbrot — That is not an autobiography. It is merely a collection of anecdotes. Although they are individually autobiographical in nature, they do not add up to an autobiography. There is no autobiography. There is a biography, but I haven't read it.
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  101. It is his book. I don't get this attempt to deny him credit. While he did not literally write it, he spoke it. It is his story from his own mouth.
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  102. He did say UV, not IR.
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  103. It certainly is not an autobiography. It is a collection of anecdotes told to Ralph Leighton, the son of a colleague. They seem authentic to me, although one doesn't expect an anecdote to be accurate in every detail.
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  104. I've never even heard of that book. Do you mean "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out"? That's an anthology.
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  105. "What do You Care What Other People Think" — Arline Feynman
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  106. Stan Boreson was a prominent television personality when I was young. He was Norwegian and everybody thought it was acceptable then. You can still find him on YT, I think.
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  107. Einstein is the only physicist so famous that people who are not connected with physics or with science generally recognize his likeness and know his name. The name "Einstein" has become part of the language.
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  108. Depends on what you mean by "famous." I know Feynman was on the commission. I know Sally Ride was on the commission. Rogers (I forget his first name) was the chairman. I can't name anyone else.
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  109. "Surely ..." doesn't even pretend to be an autobiography. I can't find my copy, so I don't know if it says that, but clearly it isn't. It's just a collection of anecdotes.
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  110.  @abyssssb913 — It was written from recordings of Feynman telling his stories to Ralph Leighton. The stories are Feynman's, not Leighton's.
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  111. Ok, please give us your capsule explanation.
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  112. Tesla is more of a cult figure than Feynman. People who are into Feynman know who Schwinger, Tomonaga, and Dyson were. Tesla cultists have never heard of Ferraris and Dolivo-Dobrovoosky.
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  113. Yes. Einstein is the only physicist whose name is a household word.
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  114. You just weren't paying close attention. I don't get why learning that is "shocking."
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  115.  @r3lativ — No, they are Feynman's stories. He was a distinguished physicist. The stories were told to a friend, Ralph Leighton, who recorded them and rendered them into print. Both "Surely" and the "Lectures" are Feynman's work. Ralph Leighton was not an anti-physicist, he was the son of a physicist and a friend of Feynnan.
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  116. I think those charges are bunk. My view is that the position of Olivier Darrigol is the right one. A summary of this view can be found in the paper "Einstein, Poincare ́ and Special Relativity" by Emma Sallent Del Colombo, which can be found online.
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  117. Right. I don't know why someone would recommend "Surely ..." to someone who was interested in physics and wanted something inspirational. People my age (old) were inspired by Gamow's "1, 2, 3, ..." when we were young.
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  118. No, the title is a quote from one of the stories. It was used as the title because he was a joker, but that dies not imply that the anecdotes are fictional.
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  119. Feynman doesn't come up in the first-year college physics course that everybody takes.
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  120. It isn't a biography.
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  121. I have never heard of anyone describing Feynman as a role model.
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  122. It's a lightweight book. So? There are many lightweight books.
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  123. Dyson? No. He did not originate the theory. Dyson was bright, but I think he was a kook. Why does anybody take Dyson spheres seriously?
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  124. Of the various cults (Musk, Tesla, Feynman), it seems to me that the Feynman cult is the weakest. I heard about Feynman in the mid 1960s, when I was in high school, so have met many people who knew about him and liked him, but I don't recall anyone who seemed to have a cultish obsession with him. I think it has developed into a cult more recently. The Tesla cult is stronger. I often notice evidence of that. For example, I once read somewhere that someone thought Tesla was under appreciated, and that he should have a statue or something in Silicon Valley (California. I live near there). In fact, Tesla is well-remembered. There are memorials in the places he worked. He never worked in California, but there is a car company there named for him. A person more deserving of a monument in Silicon Valley is Claude Shannon, but I doubt many Tesla Cultists know who that was. Musk is definitely a cult figure. When there's a problem, whatever it is, somebody will say "Elon could fix that." Cultists always pretend they are on a first name basis with Musk.
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  125. George Gamow was influential. He did not get the Nobel, but he should have.
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  126. He did not write an autobiography.
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  127. I don't remember that. If he did, it was a joke. Which book? Where?
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  128. Ironically, Alan Alda played Feynman in the play "QED."
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  129. Exactly. The clarity of his exposition.
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  130. Feynman was well-known before that. Someone who hadn't heard of him until the Challenger Commission probably would not have bought QED just because of that. Maybe they would have bought "What do you care ..." because that has a chapter on Challenger.
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  131. That isn't "reading Feynman," though. "The Character of Physical Law" is a better choice.
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  132. Correct. Does she imply that this is news? It's in the book!
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  133. He gave credit to Maj. General Kutyna in the account in "What do You Care ...".
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  134. I don't think so. I like some of Feynman's work, but I'm not obsessed with him. I have the two books of anecdotes, and the Lectures, and QED, and the Messenger lectures. I'll sort it out for myself.
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  135. It isn't an autobiography of any kind.
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  136. Nye is not important enough to be worth the effort.
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