If you love Richard Feynman you've got to watch this video...
... where Angela Collier will ruthlessly dissect the mythology he built around himself. You probably won't agree with everything she says, and you may hate some of it, but it will still be thought-provoking.
I didn't know about what she calls "Feynman bros": lazy male students who read Surely You Must Be Joking, Mr. Feynman! and try to adopt the flashy womanizing persona he depicts there, instead of working hard on physics. I can easily believe they exist. So if you know a youngster who likes physics, don't give them that book. Instead do what my uncle did: give them The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
I didn't know these books and indeed every book 'by Feynman' was actually written by his Caltech colleague Robert Leighton or his son Ralph Leighton based on audiotapes of lectures or conversations. I still don't know how much of a role Feynman had in crafting these concoctions.
I *did* know that he once flew into a rage and tried to choke his second wife.
I did not know he was good with children, eagerly answering letters from them, etc. It's nice that Collier points out this good side.
I *did* notice, from his anecdotes, that he put a huge amount of work into trying to seem like a manly man rather than a nerd.
I didn't fully notice that almost none of his anecdotes feature the famous physicists he worked with at the Manhattan Project. Collier points out that this leaves him free to make things up.
I think she overlooks how he eagerly *points out* that he used tricks to seem smart. He explains the tricks to show they're not so hard.
I could go on....
(1/2)
@johncarlosbaez I recall reading that Feynman thought of himself as not as brilliant as some other physicists, but able to contribute because he thought differently.
@danpmoore @johncarlosbaez
Feynman did in fact strike me as being outright proud of his supposedly low-ish IQ score of 120, and otherwise supposedly not being brilliant, yet nonetheless competing well with brilliant people like Schwinger and Tomonaga -- like he had the attitude that "look, they got the Nobel Prize by being brilliant enough to conquer super complex things, but I got it by figuring out how to simplify things to the point where I could figure them out".
Even if he was literally correct about all that (which is hard to judge), I would still call that a different form of brilliance.
@dougmerritt @danpmoore - Indeed, one of the big things I took away from Feynman's anecdotes is his insistent message that you don't need to be a "genius" to figure things out - it's not a matter of divine inspiration or magic.
However, I decided long ago that he was overplaying this, and downplaying the technical knowlege and huge amount of thought required to be a good physicist. I think he did that because he wanted to come across as an everyman, a likeable kid from Brooklyn. I think he put a huge amount of energy into playing this role.
@johncarlosbaez @danpmoore
I think you are exactly on target with that; that seems to capture Feynman quite well, judging by the books.
As a footnote, anyone even a little above average understands the impulse to try to "blend in with the crowd", whether one goes with it or not.
You, for instance, are never so immodest as to mention your own self-assessment. ;)
Not trying to give you a hard time; you're a great communicator and educator. Some things work with people, some things don't -- and all of our judgements on such things vary considerably. There is no perfect path.
@dougmerritt - I decided pretty early on that trying to fit in was pointless. In college and grad school I was often depressed about this and considered suicide, but that also seemed pointless. Then things took a turn for the better in various ways, like getting into a good relationship. And the great thing about being a professor is that nobody *expects* professors to act normal - in fact, they want you to be a bit eccentric. So that was a great niche for me.
Unfortunately university administrators are taking over. They underestimate how eccentric professors actually are. They want to make the university into a business and boss the professors around. So I quit.
(Of course I was very lucky to have enough money to simply quit! Otherwise I would have either stuck it out, or hopped to somewhere else, like the Topos Institute, which is less under the thumb of administrators. Again, I'm very lucky to have that option. But now that I'm wanting to leave the US, I'm returning to work half-time at a traditional university in Scotland.)
@johncarlosbaez @dougmerritt I'm glad to see we have certain things in common. The one thing we don't have in common but wish that we did is that I was blessed with great teachers and mentors in science, chemistry, physics, engineering, software, and plagued with terrible teachers of mathematics. It took me years and years of self-study to master mathematics I could have known by 18 years of age, had I had good teachers.
I suspect I know what was wrong. For me to learn something quickly and easily, I have to see a use for the thing I'm learning. I have a mental block against learning things for which I see no practical use. I needed math teachers that showed WHY I need to learn this method or algorithm. But they didn't do that. "Just learn it. Memorize it." This may work for some but not for me.
@shuttersparks - I never needed a practical reason to understand something as long as it made the world make more sense. Math has always done that for me: it seems more reasonable than anything else in this weird world of ours, so I've always been attracted to it.
I've rarely been able to learn an algorithm until I understood why it worked. Luckily I was never forced to. I guess they were explained to me when I was a kid in school... though frankly, I don't even remember!
Actually here's an algorithm I've memorized: the one where you use your knuckles to figure out which months have 31 days and which have fewer. I still use this, because I can't remember offhand how many days are in each month (except February), and it seems less work to remember this algorithm. My wife prefers the poem, but too many months end in "ember".
@johncarlosbaez @dougmerritt Fascinating. I've actually long wondered why I'm not a math whiz. I'm a whiz at just about everything else, everything I've undertaken, but not math, or "higher math" anyway. As an engineer I use math all the time, but my ability hit a wall at linear algebra.
It just seems odd to me that I have any problem with math at all. But I do. Of course at my age it doesn't matter anymore. Hahaha.
@johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks @dougmerritt
"In short, I don't think being a math whiz is just about math being easier for some than others."
This is, I think, an important point. Some people get farther faster for the same effort than others - but if you give up easily then you hit your ceiling sooner. Aptitude and determination both matter.
@johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks @dougmerritt
This opinion gels with my experience and observations in math and science. Many of the greatest folks become great by sticking at a problem longer than others, figuring out the details and insights through sheer force of will. One might say they are obsessive. Einstein himself often played downed his mathematical abilities, and the historical record seems to agree with his assertion that his greatest contributions came from an obsessive drive to understand nature.
@johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks @dougmerritt
I might also add that these are the same folks who understand the subject matter best and so are best able to explain it to others, as John has become so proficient at doing!
@TonyVladusich @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
You know, the surprising thing is that John was proficient at it right off the bat -- when he started communicating on Usenet anyway, I don't know about when he was, say, 10. :)
@TonyVladusich @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
Come to think of it, his proficiency at simplifying complexity to explain may have certain similarities to Feynman's proclivities discussed above.
@dougmerritt @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
Indeed, I actually believe the Feynman "myth" that he and others have promulgated is largely a psychological compensation for his (self-perceived) relatively diminutive talent w.r.t to other great physicists of his time and circle.
I can understand his need to be liked by the "everyman" because of the chip on his shoulder when he looked around himself. But it's also the very thing that made him a great physicist.
@TonyVladusich @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
The rest of what you said makes sense, but:
> a psychological compensation for his relatively diminutive talent w.r.t to other great physicists of his time and circle.
I don't think that it is a supportable position to say that he had a relatively diminutive talent.
@TonyVladusich @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
...well, unless you meant that he appeared to think that he had a relatively diminutive talent, which is certainly what he projected, even if I have doubts as to his internal thinking on that.
@dougmerritt @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
Right, amended my post to clarify. I agree that, by any measure, he was a talented physicist (I don't pay much creed to assertions about IQ, or to the concept of IQ at all, tbh.)
@TonyVladusich @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
Yep.
Having studied the subject, it's clear that although IQ means far more than is popularly supposed (the tests are generally not poorly designed nor meaningless), it does *not* equate to what it is popularly imagined to mean.
I like to say that, roughly speaking, IQ tests measure a couple dozen aspects of intelligence -- out of thousands.
Some of those phrases contradict you, but not in overall spirit.
@dougmerritt @TonyVladusich @johncarlosbaez My observation is that IQ matters but discipline and perseverance matter more. There are high IQ people out there who do nothing with it. I read about a study done back in the 90s that showed the average IQ of people in prison was higher than the general public.
@dougmerritt @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
IQ, like perception, falls prey to the fallacy of reification.
It's a point I will hammer home in my book, but the implicit assumption of "definition" in psychology and neuroscience (e.g. perception is X) without an underlying model is problematic to the point of catastrophe.
@TonyVladusich @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
I know there are any number of real issues on this and related subjects.
But don't throw the baby out with the bathwater. All topics necessarily begin informally, then slowly become more formalized, and it takes true conceptual revolutions to be fully formalized.
As you know from the history of mathematics, and physics, and your other specialities as well.
@dougmerritt @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
Of course! 😃
One of the most important constraints in theory building is to improve on what already exists!
This is why I believe "gamut relativity" is a major step forward: not only does it explain a massive body of observations in a unified way, but it also explains why previous attempts have failed (and partially succeeded in some cases).
The core problem is the fallacy of reification: the overwhelming urge to implicitly assume a concrete mapping from the physical to the perceptual world.
@TonyVladusich @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
Well, shoot, I want to say something here, but I understand your core frustration and I don't want to seem to be dismissive of your main point there.
But for the moment, all that comes to mind is the famous/infamous "all models are wrong, but some models are useful".
@dougmerritt @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
George Box's quote! One of my faves.
@TonyVladusich @dougmerritt @shuttersparks - looping back to Feynman's insecurity, I never thought he was insecure about his intellectual powers compared to the physicists he met at the Manhattan Project (Oppenheimer, Bohr, Bethe, Fermi etc.). That could be true. But I always felt he was more afraid of seeming like a nerd! That would explain all the anecdotes where he hung out with gamblers and prostitutes in Las Vegas, etc. Whatever the reason, he avoided the old European model of the "intellectual" physicist who dabbled in philosophy and played the violin, and tried to mould himself into a new kind of physicist: the American with street smarts who could pick locks, play the bongos, win fights in bars, etc.
@johncarlosbaez @TonyVladusich @dougmerritt That behavior might have been about attracting the ladies. Maybe he was unsure whether there were women who are attracted to nerds. (there are.)
I think I need to trademark the phrase: "I read somewhere that..." I read somewhere that at Los Alamos, all the physicists were so intimidated by Bohr they avoided conversation with him. But not Feynman. He was the only one that would get into loud lively debates with him.
@shuttersparks @TonyVladusich @dougmerritt - I think Feynman only became a "womanizer" after his first wife died. 16 months later he wrote:
@dougmerritt wrote: "Come to think of it, his proficiency at simplifying complexity to explain may have certain similarities to Feynman's proclivities discussed above."
I do copy tricks from Feynman. Like: eliminating unnecessary distracting verbiage. Most people are pretty bad at that, because 1) they don't make up their mind what they're trying to say, 2) they don't spend time deliberately subtracting words and sentences from what they write.
@johncarlosbaez @dougmerritt @shuttersparks
This remark is so very on point, John! I try to use words in as precise a manner as I would math. Of course, this is not possible due to the inherent ambiguity of non-mathematical language, but it really helps with communicating your ideas if you can strip down the verbiage to only the necessary words. "Subtracting words" is a very rare skill.
@TonyVladusich @johncarlosbaez @dougmerritt Or perhaps more of a habit or practice than a skill. Mark Twain was highly critical of prolixity. He would take other's writings and "fix them" to show people what was talking about. He'd sometimes take five or six paragraphs and condense it down to two sentences. It's very amusing.
@shuttersparks @johncarlosbaez @dougmerritt
Yup, I used to do the same thing when I was in academia. A student would waffle on for several paragraphs and I would rewrite what I thought they were trying to say in a sentence or two. Their expressions of amazement and gratitude always gave me a buzz!
@TonyVladusich @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
Being concise without sacrifice is definitely a high art -- but I feel that you, John, and others in this thread are pretty good at it.
I think most people aren't trying too very hard on that.
@dougmerritt @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
Yes, well, John is obviously also exceptionally talented!
My point is that there are many, many folks out there who are also talented but have not achieved a fraction of what John has.
I've often come across folks who I consider to be extremely talented but unwilling or unable to apply themselves obsessively to problems.
I'm not at all asserting that they have wasted their talent, for, with obsession comes a price. A life is finite in length and capacity, so obsession in one area must necessarily take away from other areas.
@TonyVladusich @johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks
Yes, I completely agree with all of that.
And personality and personal philosophy enter into this in ways that are often observed, but not well analyzed.
I know a chess past-grandmaster (hi CC!) who has an extremely prickly temperament that makes it impossible for him to share his enormous skills, for instance.
@TonyVladusich @shuttersparks @dougmerritt - thanks! My uncle was a physics teacher, and he gave me the Feynman Lectures, so I've wanted to explain physics since I was a kid, and I had some good role models. But if I'm good at explaining stuff, it probably also helped that I had a teaching job for 35 years, and my main hobby is explaining math and physics online. I practice every day.
Explaining calculus to freshmen who are forced to take the course is much harder than explaining black holes to an interested audience online! I was probably pretty bad at teaching for the first 5 or 10 years. One of my first teaching evaluations simply said "Fire him." But I really wanted to get good.
And that seems to be how it works with everything. I can't find it now, but there's an article I really like that explained the differences between Olympic-level swimmers and the second and third tier of swimmers. And one difference is that the best swimmers really enjoy doing all the exercises and drills that lesser swimmers find boring... probably because they are not just idly repeating the drill, but thinking all the time about how to improve.
@johncarlosbaez @TonyVladusich @shuttersparks
> One of my first teaching evaluations simply said "Fire him."
Ouch!!!
I suppose that would have been motivating, anyway.
I used to teach tech commercially (at conferences for fee, not in university), and I had studied presenting and teaching for years before that. Initially I got good reviews, but there came a day when most of a class turned in rather negative evaluations. It was crushing, but of course I also wanted to avoid that in the future, so...Sigh.
@johncarlosbaez @shuttersparks @dougmerritt
Right, so much of science and math and teaching is skill. And the best way we know of to improve a skill is practice. I think the lack of practice is why many talented folks in fields other than math assert that they are "bad at math." I mean, if you don't ride a bicycle for 30 years, you probably won't be great at cycling!
@johncarlosbaez this sounds like is an insight that Shane Parrish has regularly over at https://fs.blog/ - results come from consistency, and it’s hard to be consistent at something you hate.
@darkuncle - yes, loving it is one of first steps to getting good at it. Not mere infatuation: love!
@johncarlosbaez @dougmerritt Agreed. I am like that, patient and determined to understand no matter how long it takes most of the time. What puts me off about linear algebra (and I've approached it a couple times over the years) is the first several layers seem pretty easy and obvious. Then I reach a level that also seems pretty obvious but when I try to apply it or work on sample problems, I discover that I don't get it at all. This "rubs me the wrong way" and is off-putting / disturbing.
Plus I don't really *need* to learn linear algebra, but I'd like to. I'd like to because I think it would give me a better understanding or visualization of fields, like electric fields, and it's key to understanding Einstein's work I think. Which I'd like to but don't have a pressing need. Haha.
@shuttersparks @dougmerritt - My theory (based on nothing except knowing many people who math, or give up on it) is that at some point you met one or more obstacles that made you turn away from math rather than "lean in".
I've met lots of topics in math that absolutely stump me. For some, I just turn away - and those are topics I've never yet understood, like spectral sequences. For others, I become a mixture of excited, angry, and fascinated - and the adrenaline powers me to keep working away until I finally figure things out. I think about them in the middle of the night, and so on. When I finally crack them, this gives me a thrill. Memories of those thrills make me more inclined to get over the next hill.
In short, I don't think being a math whiz is just about math being easier for some than others. It's also about what people do when it gets tough.