7 ms·

Losing his first wife was a tragedy that seems to have led Feynman down a dark personal path. Everybody likes the funny second wife divorce story - "because he

Losing his first wife was a tragedy that seems to have led Feynman down a dark personal path. Everybody likes the funny second wife divorce story - "because he did calculus all the time!" His second wife testified in court that he flew into a rage and choked her if she unwittingly interrupted his calculus. [1] She was granted a divorce due to his "extreme cruelty." [1] p. 64-65 of FBI file - https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/fbi-files-on-richard-feynman-1165/#file-4617 https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/fbi...

yedava 3y ago
Plenty of people lose loved ones and manage to remain decent human beings. We can admire Feynman's contributions to physics, but when it comes to personal life, he was just an asshole. There's no point in looking up to him in matters of how to love another human being. Your everyday nobody is far more inspirational in that regard.
- enraged_camel 3y ago
  >> ...but when it comes to personal life, he was just an asshole I don't know about you, but physical abuse (e.g. choking his spouse if she interrupted him while he worked) goes way beyond asshole territory IMHO. We're talking about someone who was essentially an incredibly cruel, if not monstrous person. But what generally happens with these types of things is that history tends to treat famous men very kindly and overlook or even completely erase their dark sides. That is indeed what has happened with Feynman.
Spooky23 3y ago
I’d say having some experience in the area that extreme grief can really affect someone in profound ways. Not making excuses for someone whom I don’t know or understand, but the toxic soup and paranoia associated with where and the nature of his work combined with what seems to a hard loss is a recipe for the type of mental anguish that might explain some of those behaviors.
BigTuna 3y ago
A long time *ago I read re: Feynman's divorce that false accusations of abuse were common back then because no-fault divorce didn't exist. Couples that wanted a divorce would have to concoct a story in order to get a judge to sign off. I don't have strong feelings either way because it's impossible to know what really happened between them, but I found it an interesting counterpoint.
- growingkittens 3y ago
  Do you remember what paper in particular? I would like to read the study about rates of false abuse accusations in areas with strict divorce laws.
  - BigTuna 3y ago
    This was probably 20 years ago now but I don't think it was a formal paper
  - waterhouse 3y ago
    Wikipedia says: > In many other states, especially California, the most popular allegation for divorce was cruelty (which was then unavailable in New York). For example, in 1950, wives pleaded "cruelty" as the basis for 70 percent of San Francisco divorce cases.[41] Wives would regularly testify to the same facts: their husbands swore at them, hit them, and generally treated them terribly.[41] This procedure was described by Supreme Court of California Associate Justice Stanley Mosk: > > Every day, in every superior court in the state, the same melancholy charade was played: the "innocent" spouse, generally the wife, would take the stand and, to the accompanying cacophony of sobbing and nose-blowing, testify under the deft guidance of an attorney to the spousal conduct that she deemed "cruel."[42] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce#Bypassing_the_showing-of-fault_requirements_for_divorce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce#Bypassing_the...
    - growingkittens 3y ago
      I'm not seeing sources that try to separate "real" cases from "false" cases in that section. Both types are included in that 70 percent figure.
slibhb 3y ago
Feynman clearly did not lead an exemplary personal life but his second wife also accused him of being a communist so I'd take her testimony with a grain of salt.
- growingkittens 3y ago
  I'm having difficulty finding a source for this to read more. The closest thing I found are a few blog posts that suggest it might have been her.
  - slibhb 3y ago
    You're right -- it's not known for a fact that the allegation came from her.
bgandrew 3y ago
[flagged]
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
alecst 3y ago
I tend to agree with "where there's smoke, there's fire," but I'm also cautious reading too much into what a single person -- in particular, an ex-lover -- has to say when forming an opinion about someone. Obviously if it's a pattern, that's another story. But I've lived through some things, and witnessed people make claims that were stronger than what was justified.
- growingkittens 3y ago
  I once told my partner that there was a musician he listened to that really relished putting women down. He thought I was talking about one song, but I didn't remember enough to give details. A few weeks later, he comes back - "It's not just one song!" He never noticed until he had the right frame of reference. It was easy to gloss over each individual instance because the songs weren't referring to him. He experienced an entirely different reality based on his perspective of existence. There are ugly patterns in Feynman's writings about women. Not everyone has the luxury of ignoring these patterns as they read his work.

yedava 3y ago

Plenty of people lose loved ones and manage to remain decent human beings. We can admire Feynman's contributions to physics, but when it comes to personal life, he was just an asshole. There's no point in looking up to him in matters of how to love another human being. Your everyday nobody is far more inspirational in that regard.

enraged_camel 3y ago
>> ...but when it comes to personal life, he was just an asshole I don't know about you, but physical abuse (e.g. choking his spouse if she interrupted him while he worked) goes way beyond asshole territory IMHO. We're talking about someone who was essentially an incredibly cruel, if not monstrous person. But what generally happens with these types of things is that history tends to treat famous men very kindly and overlook or even completely erase their dark sides. That is indeed what has happened with Feynman.

Spooky23 3y ago

I’d say having some experience in the area that extreme grief can really affect someone in profound ways. Not making excuses for someone whom I don’t know or understand, but the toxic soup and paranoia associated with where and the nature of his work combined with what seems to a hard loss is a recipe for the type of mental anguish that might explain some of those behaviors.

BigTuna 3y ago

A long time *ago I read re: Feynman's divorce that false accusations of abuse were common back then because no-fault divorce didn't exist. Couples that wanted a divorce would have to concoct a story in order to get a judge to sign off. I don't have strong feelings either way because it's impossible to know what really happened between them, but I found it an interesting counterpoint.

growingkittens 3y ago
Do you remember what paper in particular? I would like to read the study about rates of false abuse accusations in areas with strict divorce laws.
- BigTuna 3y ago
  This was probably 20 years ago now but I don't think it was a formal paper
- waterhouse 3y ago
  Wikipedia says: > In many other states, especially California, the most popular allegation for divorce was cruelty (which was then unavailable in New York). For example, in 1950, wives pleaded "cruelty" as the basis for 70 percent of San Francisco divorce cases.[41] Wives would regularly testify to the same facts: their husbands swore at them, hit them, and generally treated them terribly.[41] This procedure was described by Supreme Court of California Associate Justice Stanley Mosk: > > Every day, in every superior court in the state, the same melancholy charade was played: the "innocent" spouse, generally the wife, would take the stand and, to the accompanying cacophony of sobbing and nose-blowing, testify under the deft guidance of an attorney to the spousal conduct that she deemed "cruel."[42] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce#Bypassing_the_showing-of-fault_requirements_for_divorce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/No-fault_divorce#Bypassing_the...
  - growingkittens 3y ago
    I'm not seeing sources that try to separate "real" cases from "false" cases in that section. Both types are included in that 70 percent figure.

slibhb 3y ago

Feynman clearly did not lead an exemplary personal life but his second wife also accused him of being a communist so I'd take her testimony with a grain of salt.

growingkittens 3y ago
I'm having difficulty finding a source for this to read more. The closest thing I found are a few blog posts that suggest it might have been her.
- slibhb 3y ago
  You're right -- it's not known for a fact that the allegation came from her.

bgandrew 3y ago

[flagged]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

alecst 3y ago

I tend to agree with "where there's smoke, there's fire," but I'm also cautious reading too much into what a single person -- in particular, an ex-lover -- has to say when forming an opinion about someone. Obviously if it's a pattern, that's another story. But I've lived through some things, and witnessed people make claims that were stronger than what was justified.

growingkittens 3y ago
I once told my partner that there was a musician he listened to that really relished putting women down. He thought I was talking about one song, but I didn't remember enough to give details. A few weeks later, he comes back - "It's not just one song!" He never noticed until he had the right frame of reference. It was easy to gloss over each individual instance because the songs weren't referring to him. He experienced an entirely different reality based on his perspective of existence. There are ugly patterns in Feynman's writings about women. Not everyone has the luxury of ignoring these patterns as they read his work.