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The Life and Science of Richard Feynman (1992)
- JackFr 3y agoPossibly my favorite biography.
- interfixus 3y agoYes, it's all the way up there. As these coincidenses will sometimes have it, I just dug out my old paperback copy from the basement a few days ago, and looking mightily forward to a reread.
- appleaday1 3y ago[flagged]
- ftxbro 3y agoI feel like his womanizing behavior was bad and that it was also somehow wrapped up in his attention seeking and other self promoting drives that made him so well known. I don't think it should be hidden.
- guenthert 3y agoMr Feynman is well known (among other) for his work in the field of quantum electrodynamic theory (for which he won the Nobel price), his diagrams, his lectures and his work in the commission investigating the challenger catastrophe. Are those the self-promoting drives you refer to?
- moritzwarhier 3y agoI assume that the parent commenter was referring to being a good teacher and charismatic lecturer.
- mrgoldenbrown 3y agoWhen it comes to how we was self promoting, I think it's fair to look at his autobiography (edit: autobiographical anecdotes is probably a better description of the book) (Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman). In which he describes his own redpillish behavior towards women, and brags about how he would troll waitresses by purposely setting up time bomb messes for them to cleanup.
- nearmuse 3y agoI am really tired of dirt being brought up each time a discussion of a renowned figure is happening. It obviously detracts from the inspiration or immersion people are trying to derive from bringing up those renowned figures. They are intentionally focusing on the positive aspects, and those who are bringing the garbage up are intentionally detracting from it.
- chowells 3y agoYou think there's a problem reminding readers that venerated people aren't good role models? Why? Why not strive to be better than them, intentionally moving past their flaws?
- _yb2s 3y agoI think that attitude would be great, but that isn't what I see happening. There is a widespread movement to cancel basically all famous historical figures, and dismiss the value of their work along with discrediting their personalities. It's frustrating to see, since many of these people were really inspiring to me as a kid, making me want to be a scientist/engineer myself.
- _yb2s 3y agoHow is "womanizing" a concept that makes sense, or has any meaning in modern times? If I understand correctly, it describes a man that only has casual relationships with women. The implication being that all woman only want long term committed relationships, and any man doing this must be somehow exploiting or tricking the woman. Nowadays, it is widely accepted that preferring casual relationships is within the range of normal preferences for both men and women- some people prefer it, others don't. If both women and men can choose and prefer consenting casual relationships, the concept that a man can be a "womanizer" seems to be paternalistic and infantizing to women. It also implies some sort of old fashioned 'duty' on the part of a man to essentially marry anyone he dates, even if they realize they are incompatible, and neither has a desire to stay together.
- tshaddox 3y agoThere’s no need to do mental gymnastics around the definition of the word “womanizing” as if all criticisms of Feynman’s behavior can be reduced to that single word and then dismissed by opining over the definition of that single word. In reality, there are a fair number of much more specific claims about his behavior that are not reducible to that single word and can be described without even using that word if one finds it impossible to move past that word.
- southernplaces7 3y agoGo ahead and name these "problematic" claims if you like. It's long since tiresome to see so many historical figures with co much to recommend them being judged through an obsession with their failures to live and think like 21st century human beings of a specific and still very debatable set of morals.
- tshaddox 3y agoI’m confident you can find the claims in mere minutes if you genuinely haven’t seen them and are interested.
- 3y ago
- sillysaurusx 3y ago> He joined a fraternity, one of the two that took in Jews. This was a surprising reminder that things were very different in 1935. I wonder, is there any group like this today? “One of the two that took in X” for any X seems like an interesting formula for locating outliers, whether good or bad. A lot of nasty examples come to mind, but it’s hard to know how Jews were regarded at the time. I wonder what the official justification was for denying access to Feynman. (I’m half Jewish on my father’s side, and I only discovered this by accident a few years ago. So I’ve been trying to research my heritage wherever I can.)
- jhbadger 3y agoAnd he only went to MIT as an undergraduate because his first choice Columbia had a "Jew quota" and they had already admitted all the Jews they wanted to for that year. Besides the antisemitism, it's also a reminder that in the 1930s MIT was seen as a good, but not particularly elite school and would be somebody's backup school.
- sn9 3y agoColumbia is also in New York, so for Feynman it was one of the major universities closest to him.
- sillysaurusx 3y agoNow that’s fascinating. Thank you. Both that Columbia was as regarded as MIT and that MIT hadn’t achieved its current fame. It’s odd to realize that I’ve always thought of MIT as MIT, yet (obviously, now) it wasn’t always that way. I wonder what the tipping point was.
- jhbadger 3y agoProbably WWII, with the American radar research program (not as famous as the Manhattan Project but probably equally or more important) centered there.
- 3y ago
- chrisbrandow 3y agoThis book had such a big impact on me. Really helped fuel my love of science and gave me a sense of the scientific community as a special group of people.
- michael_nielsen 3y agoI've heard that Murray Gell-Mann said of this book that "Jim Gleick has written a biography about Feynman's genius in order to illustrate his own". A bit backhanded, perhaps, but it captures the essence well: it's an extraordinary book about an extraordinary person. The best biography I've ever read, along with Skidelsky's one-volume Keynes.
- rcarmo 3y agoThat’s a pretty typical Gell-Mann quote, and I don’t think he meant anything bad about it.
- rcarmo 3y agoFeynman’s life (and various takes on it) have always been fascinating to me. This is a very, very good book for anyone of an inquisitive nature (technical or otherwise) to read.