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Feynman's Letter to His Wife
- twsted 11y ago"PS Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don't know your new address."
- bordercases 11y agoFeels kind of invasive reading this.
- knodi123 11y agoThen you definitely don't want to google Napoleon's letters to his wife Josephine.
- djhn 11y agoOr James Joyce's correspondence of similar nature. Or Mozarts..
- nommm-nommm 11y agoOr Warren G. Harding's love letters to Carrie Phillips whom he was having an extramarital affair with.
- logicallee 11y agoI agree with you.
- a3voices 11y agoIt feels creepy to read this, like if you were to hack into someone's private emails or Facebook or such.
- ergothus 11y agoI don't find this creepy or invasive at all. A bit hard to read, as my eyes are suddenly blurry, but I'm glad to have read it.
- ripitrust 11y agoMan I am justing reading Surely you are joking mr Feynman, this comes in the right time
- fpgaminer 11y agoSurely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman is a fantastic book; worth every page. I was just listening to the Upvoted podcast where they interview Unidan, a once popular scientist on Reddit. One of the things he talked about was how he always wanted to convey to others that scientists are normal people just like everyone else. They don't live in a clean white lab coat atop a pedestal of beakers; scientists spend most of their time doing average joe stuff, running experiments in their underpants, and brewing craft beer with lab equipment. He wanted to make that clear, in the hopes that it would inspire people to go "Hey, if that shumlp can be a scientist, why can't I?" That immediately reminded me of the Feynman book. It humanizes Feynman, turning him from the great untouchable figurehead of quantum physics to an average, hounddog schlum like most of us. The guy would hang out in titty bars while working on his theories! It's oddly inspiring.
- ececconi 11y agoAfter my dad died my freshman year of college, I wrote a letter and sealed it. It's so hard to understand that a person that was so important to you won't be there to hear everything you wanted to tell them. Since then, I've loved studying letters between friends and lovers. This is a great letter.
- pavornyoh 11y ago> It's so hard to understand that a person that was so important to you won't be there to hear everything you wanted to tell them. I agree. I know this is going to sound creepy, but in certain African countries like Ghana there is a video made of the funeral just like they do for weddings. And when you miss whoever has passed away, you get to watch the video. It doesn't bring them back but you get to see the person.
- mgkimsal 11y agodoesn't sound creepy to me at all. i wish it was done more.
- mgkimsal 11y agoi wanted to take pics and video at a funeral as there was a family member who couldn't be there, and was told to stop (by other family). Same family member who couldn't there was, days later, at a funeral of her own (in a different country) and received a DVD of the service. Very much 'cultural norms' at play, and it'll be many more years before video of funerals is considered 'normal'.
- Amanjeev 11y agoNot creepy at all. I wanted to make a video of my brother but I was immediately shunned by some religious elders.
- dexterdog 11y agoHow dare you try to grieve in your own way.
- pavornyoh 11y ago>In October of 1946, Richard wrote his late wife a heartbreaking love letter and sealed it in an envelope. It remained unopened until after his death in 1988. It is a very heartbreaking and sad. But was there instruction for it to be shared publicly? It will pain me if someone is sharing this just to further their own agenda. It seems kind of private.
- ceejayoz 11y agoWe'd be missing a large portion of our civilization's history without the private writings of notable people. I can't find anything on the provenance of Feynman's letters, but I'd suspect either he or his estate willingly donated them.
- pavornyoh 11y ago>But I'd suspect either he or his estate willingly donated them. Agreed. That was what I thought after my post.
- javawizard 11y ago(Source: The Letters of Note book - reproduced with permission of Richard Feynman's Estate.)
- pavornyoh 11y ago@javawizard, thank you.
- michael_nielsen 11y agoThe letter is in "Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track", a book of letters edited by Feynman's daughter, Michelle, and with the co-operation of his son, Carl.
- idibidiart 11y agoThis is hard to read. It really is. A reminder to open our heart to the people in our lives, while they are still with us in the flesh, and vice versa.
- hoorayimhelping 11y ago"How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future, only a limitless now." I didn't read the letter. The framing of it was all I needed to text my wife and tell her how much I love her.
- guard-of-terra 11y agoI was under impression that Feynman was a pickup artist (i.e. persuading ladies to have flings). During his work on the Bomb, i.e. before 1945. That's from his books. Can you please enlighten me on the issue?
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]
- aklemm 11y agoJust another walking contradiction like the rest of us.
- Steuard 11y agoMy impression, which others may correct me on, is that he started down that road while in Los Alamos: I vaguely recall that his "You just ask them?" story was in that setting, anyway. I've always had the sense that he was deeply (and monogamously) devoted to his wife until her death. After her death, well, he says in this letter that he's had multiple girlfriends but that those relationships never went anywhere; my guess would be that he's telling his wife about precisely those early flings, and what they meant to him. But yeah, for all his brilliance and magnetism and vision, Feynman was also (eventually) pretty terrible toward women. I gaze in grateful awe and reverence at his personal contributions to human knowledge, even as I grimace in frustration and disappointment at his contributions to a culture that continues to drive too many potentially brilliant contributors away. So this letter is bittersweet to me, since it calls to mind one of the few significant areas where Feynman's life did harm to humanity rather than good. I wonder if that might have been different if his wife had lived?
- Moshe_Silnorin 11y agoI know he was somewhat rakish before he married his third wife, but in what manner was he terrible to women? It takes two to tango, so his rakishness doesn't seem to imply sexism.
- DugFin 11y ago
- IBCNU 11y agoSitting in my office - crying.
- dkns 11y agoThat was beautiful. Recently I was feeling really, really lonely. This letter helped me remember what great feeling is to have someone you can love and care for. It's the little things like sending "Hello" texts in the morning to each other that I'm missing the most. Love is great.
- SloopJon 11y agoI read this at my dad's wedding, five years after my mom died. Wasn't sure how an atheist's letter to his dead wife would be received, but it kind of spoke to me.
- eevilspock 11y agoIn general I don't think the best time and place to make a tribute to your dad's dead wife is at his new wife's wedding. I hope it wasn't passive aggressive.
- eric_h 11y agoI would like to think that a woman marrying a man who has gone through this would be quite well acquainted with (and respect) the fact that the man's love for the woman who passed would not be replaced by the new love.
- eevilspock 11y agoI agree but still, its her wedding. The focus should be on her and the future, not her predecessor and the past. There are plenty of other occasions for such a loving memorial, for example the anniversary of her passing. The problem with software people is they too often treat people like logical code. Hence the stereotypes. Feynman's letter itself is beautiful precisely because it isn't logical. Not only because he was writing to a dead person, but also beause he so deeply respected their intimacy and cherished her feelings even after her death that he kept the letter private. In other words it was a real letter not a memorial or tribute. It would have been quite logical to publish it in her honor. But he did not!
- thucydides 11y agoHow was it received?
- SloopJon 11y agoVery well. They asked for a copy of the book.
- Friedduck 11y agoIt still brings me comfort in a small way to see a dead friend in my contact list, or old emails from him. I liked Feynman before and more so now. It's endearing that he's trying to work through it with her.
- deleted 11y ago[deleted]