3 ms·

Please provide source.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
retsibsi 9y ago
Her pioneering work on these processes led to an understanding of the mechanism responsible for auroras. She found this work wonderful, and her immediate reaction was to tell her brother, who’d first introduced her to these beautiful phenomena all those years before. But then a second thought crossed her mind. “Richard is pretty smart, and if I tell him about an interesting problem, he’ll find the answer before I do and take all the fun out of it for me.” So Joan decided to strike a deal with him. “I said, Look, I don’t want us to compete, so let’s divide up physics between us. I’ll take auroras and you take the rest of the Universe. And he said OK!” [...] In the early 1980s, Joan wasn’t the only Feynman seduced by solar-terrestrial relations. Her brother Richard had kept his original promise to her not to work on auroras. Despite an impressive polymath career in which he applied his genius to a spectacular spectrum of problem-solving across the fields of maths, physics, chemistry, and biology, he had never turned his attention to Joan’s chosen field. But then he traveled to Alaska, an important centre for aurora studies. On a tour of the facility, the head of the lab pointed out many of the interesting geophysical phenomena that were yet to be explained. “Would you be interested in working on it?” he enquired. Richard responded that he would, but added that he’d have to ask his sister’s permission. Joan remembers that he came back and told her the story. “I’m sorry Richard,” she replied, “but I’m not giving you permission.” Richard duly reported back that his sister had refused to allow him to study auroras! Word of this story eventually got round, and people would come up to Joan at conferences and ask her if it was true. At one meeting, a colleague from UCLA told the gathering that he wanted “to publicly thank Richard Feynman for not studying aurora, so that we can all have some fun!” https://findingada.com/shop/a-passion-for-science-stories-of-discovery-and-invention/joan-feynman-from-auroras-to-anthropology/ https://findingada.com/shop/a-passion-for-science-stories-of...
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- wiredsister 9y ago
  While this does corroborate the story the original commenter was making, it’s not a quote from Feynman or any of his books. I am sure this is probably true, but this book/excerpt has no citations or sources I can find. Can we find the root of this?
  - eesmith 9y ago
    It appears to be drawn from the book "Feynman", by Jim Ottaviaani and Leland Myrick (illustrator), based on a preview snippet from "Look Inside". Further confirmation that this story is in the book comes from the reader comments to the book at http://fullmoon.typepad.com/books/nonfiction/page/2/ http://fullmoon.typepad.com/books/nonfiction/page/2/ : > "He didn't mean to, but he couldn't help it: present Feynman with a problem, from a Mayan codex to a locked safe to the mysteries of quantum electrodynamics, and he would just have to solve it--the exception that proves the rule, of course, being his promise to his sister Joan to leave the aurora to her." > "At one point in adulthood someone asks him to look at something and he asks Joan for permission first. When she says no, she's not done with it yet, he tells the other person that the two of them have an agreement about that sort of thing. Good brother!"

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

Her pioneering work on these processes led to an understanding of the mechanism responsible for auroras. She found this work wonderful, and her immediate reaction was to tell her brother, who’d first introduced her to these beautiful phenomena all those years before. But then a second thought crossed her mind. “Richard is pretty smart, and if I tell him about an interesting problem, he’ll find the answer before I do and take all the fun out of it for me.” So Joan decided to strike a deal with him. “I said, Look, I don’t want us to compete, so let’s divide up physics between us. I’ll take auroras and you take the rest of the Universe. And he said OK!” [...] In the early 1980s, Joan wasn’t the only Feynman seduced by solar-terrestrial relations. Her brother Richard had kept his original promise to her not to work on auroras. Despite an impressive polymath career in which he applied his genius to a spectacular spectrum of problem-solving across the fields of maths, physics, chemistry, and biology, he had never turned his attention to Joan’s chosen field. But then he traveled to Alaska, an important centre for aurora studies. On a tour of the facility, the head of the lab pointed out many of the interesting geophysical phenomena that were yet to be explained. “Would you be interested in working on it?” he enquired. Richard responded that he would, but added that he’d have to ask his sister’s permission. Joan remembers that he came back and told her the story. “I’m sorry Richard,” she replied, “but I’m not giving you permission.” Richard duly reported back that his sister had refused to allow him to study auroras! Word of this story eventually got round, and people would come up to Joan at conferences and ask her if it was true. At one meeting, a colleague from UCLA told the gathering that he wanted “to publicly thank Richard Feynman for not studying aurora, so that we can all have some fun!” https://findingada.com/shop/a-passion-for-science-stories-of-discovery-and-invention/joan-feynman-from-auroras-to-anthropology/ https://findingada.com/shop/a-passion-for-science-stories-of...

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
wiredsister 9y ago
While this does corroborate the story the original commenter was making, it’s not a quote from Feynman or any of his books. I am sure this is probably true, but this book/excerpt has no citations or sources I can find. Can we find the root of this?
- eesmith 9y ago
  It appears to be drawn from the book "Feynman", by Jim Ottaviaani and Leland Myrick (illustrator), based on a preview snippet from "Look Inside". Further confirmation that this story is in the book comes from the reader comments to the book at http://fullmoon.typepad.com/books/nonfiction/page/2/ http://fullmoon.typepad.com/books/nonfiction/page/2/ : > "He didn't mean to, but he couldn't help it: present Feynman with a problem, from a Mayan codex to a locked safe to the mysteries of quantum electrodynamics, and he would just have to solve it--the exception that proves the rule, of course, being his promise to his sister Joan to leave the aurora to her." > "At one point in adulthood someone asks him to look at something and he asks Joan for permission first. When she says no, she's not done with it yet, he tells the other person that the two of them have an agreement about that sort of thing. Good brother!"