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I can't help but feel like this page does a huge disservice to what he was all about. He wasn't some mystical super brilliant genius. He was a guy who had som

I can't help but feel like this page does a huge disservice to what he was all about. He wasn't some mystical super brilliant genius. He was a guy who had some particular skills in thinking about problems and communicating them effectively. I have enormous respect for him. Maybe I'm being too sensitive, but it seems like WAY too many things on that page miss the point completely.

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mturmon 16y ago
"mystical" -- no. But "super brilliant genius" -- yes. That's just the best quick way of summarizing it. Alas, this is a "method" for achieving greatness that you or I can't replicate. Feynmann was not "just a guy who had some particular skills in thinking about problems". This is just not accurate. At age 24, his Princeton advisor suggested he join the Manhattan Project. He routinely dazzled the other physicists there, probably the greatest collection of physics talent (Bohr, Oppenheimer, Bethe, Fermi) gathered in one place since the Cavendish Lab in the early 1900s. And that was only the start of his long career.
- endlessvoid94 16y ago
  Yes, I'm not denying that he was unconventionally an incredibly talented physicist. But in the process of figuring out his process (and the processes of lots of 'brilliant' people), we discover that we can't pinpoint exactly WHY or HOW he worked. That's the point. Nobody can. He was a human being and he certainly had flaws, which I imagine he'd be happy to acknowledge. I just dislike putting people onto pedestals like this. If you had hung out with him over a beer, I'm willing to bet you'd be surprised how normal of a person he was.
  - mturmon 16y ago
    Of course he had lots of flaws. But he does deserve a pedestal, actually. (All those folks on pedestals have flaws; some of them don't deserve their pedestal at all; Feynmann does.) Also, I don't think he was a very "normal person". Being that brilliant tends to make you not very normal -- although he could impersonate a particularly sharp "normal person" if it seemed advantageous. Read some anecdotes about his career and life -- for instance, the time he had a concussion and acted weird for about three weeks before anyone thought something was really the matter. That's not a "normal person". It seems to me that you're letting your desire to not idolize him, get in the way of recognizing the reality of his genius and what he accomplished. That's not fair to reality.
- zeynel1 16y ago
  Feynman and other physicists built a mass destruction weapon that they knew it was a mass destruction weapon. Feynman is a murderer http://science1.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/ten-most-wanted-physicists-for-crimes-against-humanity/ http://science1.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/ten-most-wanted-phy...
  - noonespecial 16y ago
    I only wish it were so easy.
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    - trafficlight 16y ago
      Big Physics. That's the funniest thing I've heard all day.
  - btilly 16y ago
    Things to consider. - Feynman got involved in the belief that the Americans needed to build this before Germany did. Which Germany certainly had the talent, motivation, and resources to do. In short if the bomb was going to be used, he didn't want it used against his country. - Once the nuclear bomb was exploded, and Feynman realized what he had helped do, he fell into a significant period of depression. - In later years he publicly criticized himself for getting caught up in the project and continuing it after Germany surrendered and it was clear that there was no race. - Feynman died believing that his work on the nuclear bomb is what caused the leukemia that killed him. It is easy to paint a picture of black and white and make people out to be pure villains. But reality is seldom so simple.
    - arethuza 16y ago
      Nuclear weapons are perhaps mankinds most terrible invention - but it is fairly clear that political leaders on both sides of the Cold War were utterly terrified of using them. If they hadn't been invented then I suspect there probably would have been direct armed conflict between the Soviets and/or China and/or the West at some point after WW2, so we were probably saved from another horrific conflict by scaring ourselves rigid with these weapons. Rational, perhaps not, effective - arguably yes.

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mturmon 16y ago

"mystical" -- no. But "super brilliant genius" -- yes. That's just the best quick way of summarizing it. Alas, this is a "method" for achieving greatness that you or I can't replicate. Feynmann was not "just a guy who had some particular skills in thinking about problems". This is just not accurate. At age 24, his Princeton advisor suggested he join the Manhattan Project. He routinely dazzled the other physicists there, probably the greatest collection of physics talent (Bohr, Oppenheimer, Bethe, Fermi) gathered in one place since the Cavendish Lab in the early 1900s. And that was only the start of his long career.

endlessvoid94 16y ago
Yes, I'm not denying that he was unconventionally an incredibly talented physicist. But in the process of figuring out his process (and the processes of lots of 'brilliant' people), we discover that we can't pinpoint exactly WHY or HOW he worked. That's the point. Nobody can. He was a human being and he certainly had flaws, which I imagine he'd be happy to acknowledge. I just dislike putting people onto pedestals like this. If you had hung out with him over a beer, I'm willing to bet you'd be surprised how normal of a person he was.
- mturmon 16y ago
  Of course he had lots of flaws. But he does deserve a pedestal, actually. (All those folks on pedestals have flaws; some of them don't deserve their pedestal at all; Feynmann does.) Also, I don't think he was a very "normal person". Being that brilliant tends to make you not very normal -- although he could impersonate a particularly sharp "normal person" if it seemed advantageous. Read some anecdotes about his career and life -- for instance, the time he had a concussion and acted weird for about three weeks before anyone thought something was really the matter. That's not a "normal person". It seems to me that you're letting your desire to not idolize him, get in the way of recognizing the reality of his genius and what he accomplished. That's not fair to reality.
zeynel1 16y ago
Feynman and other physicists built a mass destruction weapon that they knew it was a mass destruction weapon. Feynman is a murderer http://science1.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/ten-most-wanted-physicists-for-crimes-against-humanity/ http://science1.wordpress.com/2010/09/23/ten-most-wanted-phy...
- noonespecial 16y ago
  I only wish it were so easy.
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  - trafficlight 16y ago
    Big Physics. That's the funniest thing I've heard all day.
- btilly 16y ago
  Things to consider. - Feynman got involved in the belief that the Americans needed to build this before Germany did. Which Germany certainly had the talent, motivation, and resources to do. In short if the bomb was going to be used, he didn't want it used against his country. - Once the nuclear bomb was exploded, and Feynman realized what he had helped do, he fell into a significant period of depression. - In later years he publicly criticized himself for getting caught up in the project and continuing it after Germany surrendered and it was clear that there was no race. - Feynman died believing that his work on the nuclear bomb is what caused the leukemia that killed him. It is easy to paint a picture of black and white and make people out to be pure villains. But reality is seldom so simple.
  - arethuza 16y ago
    Nuclear weapons are perhaps mankinds most terrible invention - but it is fairly clear that political leaders on both sides of the Cold War were utterly terrified of using them. If they hadn't been invented then I suspect there probably would have been direct armed conflict between the Soviets and/or China and/or the West at some point after WW2, so we were probably saved from another horrific conflict by scaring ourselves rigid with these weapons. Rational, perhaps not, effective - arguably yes.