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I suspect the sibling reply is correct, that it’s more about celebrity than genius. But I also don’t think Feynman was a genius the way Einstein was. AFAIK, hi

I suspect the sibling reply is correct, that it’s more about celebrity than genius. But I also don’t think Feynman was a genius the way Einstein was. AFAIK, his math skills didn’t stand out and his main contributions seemed to be about making physics more accessible and teaching.

drjesusphd 7y ago
Im not sure about his genius compared to Einstein, but Hus contributions to physics are much more than popularization (which I think came much later in his career). He played a leading role in developing the most successful scientific theory in history: quantum electrodynamics.
- akvadrako 7y ago
  I didn't just mean popularization, but I know him best for Feynman diagrams and the path integral formulation. Basically making existing concepts easier to understand.
- cryptonector 7y ago
  Einstein was not very good with math. He stood on the shoulders of Pointcaré, Lorentz, and Riemman. He saw more, he saw farther, he was brilliant, but I'm not sure he'd have done what he did without those shoulders to stand on. OTOH, once he had Special Relativity in the bag and saw an outline of General Relativity, he had the persistence to see it through. Feynman had it easier in this sense: more shoulders to stand on, less radical theories to develop, and was less alone in terms of peers. IMO Feynman and Einstein are comparable.
jimhefferon 7y ago
> his math skills didn’t stand out I don't believe that is right. From WP: When Feynman was 15, he taught himself trigonometry, advanced algebra, infinite series, analytic geometry, and both differential and integral calculus. Before entering college, he was experimenting with and deriving mathematical topics such as the half-derivative using his own notation. He created special symbols for logarithm, sine, cosine and tangent functions so they did not look like three variables multiplied together, and for the derivative, to remove the temptation of canceling out the d's. A member of the Arista Honor Society, in his last year in high school he won the New York University Math Championship.

drjesusphd 7y ago

Im not sure about his genius compared to Einstein, but Hus contributions to physics are much more than popularization (which I think came much later in his career). He played a leading role in developing the most successful scientific theory in history: quantum electrodynamics.

akvadrako 7y ago
I didn't just mean popularization, but I know him best for Feynman diagrams and the path integral formulation. Basically making existing concepts easier to understand.
cryptonector 7y ago
Einstein was not very good with math. He stood on the shoulders of Pointcaré, Lorentz, and Riemman. He saw more, he saw farther, he was brilliant, but I'm not sure he'd have done what he did without those shoulders to stand on. OTOH, once he had Special Relativity in the bag and saw an outline of General Relativity, he had the persistence to see it through. Feynman had it easier in this sense: more shoulders to stand on, less radical theories to develop, and was less alone in terms of peers. IMO Feynman and Einstein are comparable.

jimhefferon 7y ago

> his math skills didn’t stand out I don't believe that is right. From WP: When Feynman was 15, he taught himself trigonometry, advanced algebra, infinite series, analytic geometry, and both differential and integral calculus. Before entering college, he was experimenting with and deriving mathematical topics such as the half-derivative using his own notation. He created special symbols for logarithm, sine, cosine and tangent functions so they did not look like three variables multiplied together, and for the derivative, to remove the temptation of canceling out the d's. A member of the Arista Honor Society, in his last year in high school he won the New York University Math Championship.