6 ms·

Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman is a brilliant read. My high school Physics teacher lent it to me a few years ago; it really opened my eyes and increased my lo

by sarreph 13y ago

Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman is a brilliant read. My high school Physics teacher lent it to me a few years ago; it really opened my eyes and increased my love for the subject.

kops 13y ago
I first spotted that book in 1993, when a semi-illiterate guy passed it to my dad. The book came from a person who runs a school "Feynman public school" in a place called Bharatpur in northern India. It was the best thing that happened to me in 1993 and there was quite a lot that happened that year in my life... The part that got me hooked was "he fixes radios by thinking" and then sure enough I learnt a bit of safe-cracking too :-) His lectures on physics were the most beautiful books sitting on my shelf during my school years(never read them), but in India cool kids aren't supposed to be theoretical physicists... they are supposed to be Engineers..and so here I am...
- projectileboy 13y ago
  Reading the Feynman Lectures on Physics is a lot to ask of anyone, even many physicists. But if you'd like to appreciate a gem, crack open Volume I and read Chapter 22 - "Algebra". He starts with the ability to count integers, and then proceeds to derive Euler's Formula. Not rigorous mathematics to be sure, but easily my favorite piece of writing (fiction or non-fiction).
  - deleted 13y ago
    [deleted]
  - ash 13y ago
    Link to Chapter 22 ("Algebra") online: http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_22.html http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_22.html
  - arjunnarayan 13y ago
    Oh boy was that a good read. Thank you!
valisystem 13y ago
I just happened to finish it today. I already knew throughout the book that it would be a very important read, in several aspects. The very end is about the cargo cult in science, and it looks like he put this collection of anecdotes of his life in the sole point of illustrating the cargo cult problem, only exposed in the end. It's almost the sole time he talks extensively about science in this book (and it's why it's so awesome). Cargo cult is the result of a trap that our own brain seem to be wired to fall in. We all know or knew at some point how to avoid the trap, but it gets another perspective when reading about someone that put it in practice his entire life. Question everything, discover everything, take nothing for granted. If it's seems unrealistic, just read the book, it'll just teach you how it happens. If it's intimidating, it's by its ruthless simplicity.
- IanCal 13y ago
  > Cargo cult is the result of a trap that our own brain seem to be wired to fall in That's because we're over-sensitive pattern matching machines. This is good because often recognising and learning patterns quickly is extremely important, far more so than some false positives. Our amygdala, for example, responds very quickly to simple patterns ("AAAAH A SNAKE"). Slower processing can then tell us it's actually a stick. The cost of a false positive VS a false negative here are quite clear. "Cargo Cult X" is always about us recognising a pattern and just blindly following it without understanding the causal links. Our poor (innate) understanding of probabilities means we can't really combine evidence well, but we can pattern match. Worse, because we start to feel like we understand what's happening we don't delve more into the problem. Even worse than that, we start to ignore evidence that doesn't fit the pattern since those examples look like outliers, and we quickly forget how often we've seen them. As situations get more subtle than "Snake or stick" the costs of being wrong in different ways change massively. A poor understanding of statistics in healthcare can kill significant numbers of people, similarly with economic or political interactions. Our brains are awful at complex statistics, but to be fair to them if our ancestors had waited for a double blind study on how likely a tiger was to eat you we would be here. Good work brains, but we need to stop listening to you now. Information on fear responses and the role the amygdala plays: http://labnic.unige.ch/papers/PV_cns2003_science.pdf http://labnic.unige.ch/papers/PV_cns2003_science.pdf

by sarreph 13y ago

Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman is a brilliant read. My high school Physics teacher lent it to me a few years ago; it really opened my eyes and increased my love for the subject.

kops 13y ago

I first spotted that book in 1993, when a semi-illiterate guy passed it to my dad. The book came from a person who runs a school "Feynman public school" in a place called Bharatpur in northern India. It was the best thing that happened to me in 1993 and there was quite a lot that happened that year in my life... The part that got me hooked was "he fixes radios by thinking" and then sure enough I learnt a bit of safe-cracking too :-) His lectures on physics were the most beautiful books sitting on my shelf during my school years(never read them), but in India cool kids aren't supposed to be theoretical physicists... they are supposed to be Engineers..and so here I am...

projectileboy 13y ago
Reading the Feynman Lectures on Physics is a lot to ask of anyone, even many physicists. But if you'd like to appreciate a gem, crack open Volume I and read Chapter 22 - "Algebra". He starts with the ability to count integers, and then proceeds to derive Euler's Formula. Not rigorous mathematics to be sure, but easily my favorite piece of writing (fiction or non-fiction).
- deleted 13y ago
  [deleted]
- ash 13y ago
  Link to Chapter 22 ("Algebra") online: http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_22.html http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/I_22.html
- arjunnarayan 13y ago
  Oh boy was that a good read. Thank you!

valisystem 13y ago

I just happened to finish it today. I already knew throughout the book that it would be a very important read, in several aspects. The very end is about the cargo cult in science, and it looks like he put this collection of anecdotes of his life in the sole point of illustrating the cargo cult problem, only exposed in the end. It's almost the sole time he talks extensively about science in this book (and it's why it's so awesome). Cargo cult is the result of a trap that our own brain seem to be wired to fall in. We all know or knew at some point how to avoid the trap, but it gets another perspective when reading about someone that put it in practice his entire life. Question everything, discover everything, take nothing for granted. If it's seems unrealistic, just read the book, it'll just teach you how it happens. If it's intimidating, it's by its ruthless simplicity.

IanCal 13y ago
> Cargo cult is the result of a trap that our own brain seem to be wired to fall in That's because we're over-sensitive pattern matching machines. This is good because often recognising and learning patterns quickly is extremely important, far more so than some false positives. Our amygdala, for example, responds very quickly to simple patterns ("AAAAH A SNAKE"). Slower processing can then tell us it's actually a stick. The cost of a false positive VS a false negative here are quite clear. "Cargo Cult X" is always about us recognising a pattern and just blindly following it without understanding the causal links. Our poor (innate) understanding of probabilities means we can't really combine evidence well, but we can pattern match. Worse, because we start to feel like we understand what's happening we don't delve more into the problem. Even worse than that, we start to ignore evidence that doesn't fit the pattern since those examples look like outliers, and we quickly forget how often we've seen them. As situations get more subtle than "Snake or stick" the costs of being wrong in different ways change massively. A poor understanding of statistics in healthcare can kill significant numbers of people, similarly with economic or political interactions. Our brains are awful at complex statistics, but to be fair to them if our ancestors had waited for a double blind study on how likely a tiger was to eat you we would be here. Good work brains, but we need to stop listening to you now. Information on fear responses and the role the amygdala plays: http://labnic.unige.ch/papers/PV_cns2003_science.pdf http://labnic.unige.ch/papers/PV_cns2003_science.pdf