6 ms·
Classic Feynman: "with one exception, fall madly in love!"
by teilo 16y ago
Classic Feynman: "with one exception, fall madly in love!"
- albertcardona 16y agoSomeone once said that madness was necessary for creating. Does anybody know who it was? Can't find it.
- mustpax 16y agoMaybe this is what you're thinking of, it's by Nietzsche. One must have chaos within oneself, to give birth to a dancing star.
- albertcardona 16y agoIf it isn't, it is in any case a great sentence. Thank you.
- Saint_loup 16y agoLot of people said that, in a way or another.
- mturmon 16y agoOne version, by John Dryden (1681): Great wits are sure to madness near allied, and thin partitions do their bounds divide.
- axod 16y ago"A little madness now and then, is relished by the wisest men" - Mr Willy Wonka.
- albertcardona 16y ago"Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory" must have been where I read it, ages ago. Thank you!
- BRadmin 16y agoIt's interesting because Wolfram quotes Feynman as saying: "Peace of mind is the most important prerequisite for creative work." http://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/recent/feynman/ http://www.stephenwolfram.com/publications/recent/feynman/
- danielnicollet 16y agoI think you can be a peaceful nut-case though. I am the living proof ;-) No seriously though, "peace of mind" and "madness" or insanity are not necessarily contrary to one another.
- JCThoughtscream 16y agoPeace of mind can just as easily be interpreted as "comfort within one's madness."
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- hugh3 16y ago"The opposite of a correct statement is a false statement. But the opposite of a profound truth may well be another profound truth." Niels Bohr
- Perceval 16y agoAustrian physicist Wolfgang Pauli once dismissed a muddled analysis of a physics problem saying, "It's not right. It's not even wrong."
- icey 16y agoEither Aristotle or Seneca said "There was never a great genius without a tincture of madness".
- fizx 16y agoPerhaps: The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man. -- George Bernard Shaw
- hassenben 16y agoI believe this is what you're thinking of. “No great genius has ever existed without some touch of madness.” -- Aristotle “There is no great genius without some touch of madness.” -- Seneca
- deleted 16y ago[deleted]
- javanix 16y agoI'm pretty sure he was just quoting the letter.
- pasbesoin 16y agoYes, take another look at the punctuation used in the comment containing the quote.
- asnyder 16y agoI stand corrected. Would be nice to not have been down-voted to oblivion for a misunderstanding.
- pasbesoin 16y agoNo downvote from me. :-) Just the comment, which I almost didn't make except that the punctuation had not previously been noted and appeared to be the cause of the misunderstanding.
- nzmsv 16y agoWhy limit yourself to falling in love only with non-technical people? :)
- manvsmachine 16y ago"...as little contact with non-technical people, with one exception..." Meaning: when it comes to love, don't shy away from people just because they're non-technical.
- bluedanieru 16y agoThe comments on that make we want to tear my hair out. About half the posts are people convinced Feynman is implying that all women are necessarily non-technical.
- Confusion 16y agoThat is partially true: during the first part of his life, Feynman really didn't have a high opinion of the intellectual capabilities of women.
- apmee 16y agoReally? Can I ask what you're basing that on? I'm not disbelieving you, just skeptically curious :)
- Kliment 16y agohttp://www.fotuva.org/online/frameload.htm?/online/science.htm http://www.fotuva.org/online/frameload.htm?/online/science.h... When he talks about his time at Cornell: "She went on and said, "Suppose you have another line coming in from the other side, and you want to figure out where they are going to intersect. Suppose on one line you go over two to the right for every one you go up, and the other line goes over three to the right for every one that it goes up, and they start twenty steps apart," etc.--I was flabbergasted. She figured out where the intersection was. It turned out that one girl was explaining to the other how to knit argyle socks. I, therefore, did learn a lesson: The female mind is capable of understanding analytic geometry. Those people who have for years been insisting (in the face of all obvious evidence to the contrary) that the male and female are equally capable of rational thought may have something. The difficulty may just be that we have never yet discovered a way to communicate with the female mind. If it is done in the right way, you may be able to get something out of it."
- apmee 16y agoInteresting, thanks. But, without meaning to excuse it, I do wonder how much of that was a) tongue in cheek (given that it was an informal talk rather than an essay or article) b) just a reflection of the general attitudes of the era c) indeed down to personal prejudice I'm guessing though that whatever prejudices he had must have been re-evaluated by the time he encouraged his sister to go into science