More pieces of Feynman
Published February 13, 2004
That was one tape I kept."
I suppose flying off the handle is not the sole duty of business public relations specialists.
If you're still with me, I wanted to quote some more Feynman and then throw a question out to everybody. This is another passage from the book I'm "reading" (listening to), "The Pleasure of Finding Things Out" ( ). It's from a 1979 interview he did with Omni magazine:
Omni: Will a historian of science someday trace the careers of your students as others have done with the students of Rutherford and Niels Bohr and Fermi?
Feynman: I doubt it. I'm disappointed with my students all the time. I'm not a teacher who knows what he's doing.
Omni: But you can trace influence the other way. Say, the influence on you of Hans Bethe or John Wheeler.
Feynman: Sure. But I don't know the effect I'm having. Maybe it's just my character. I don't know. I'm not a psychologist or sociologist. I don't know how to understand people, including myself. You ask, 'How can this guy teach? How can he be motivated if he doesn't know what he's doing?'
Well, as a matter of fact, I love to teach. I love to think of new ways of looking at things as I explain them, to make them clearer. But maybe I'm not making them clearer. Probably what I'm doing is entertaining myself. I've learned how to live without knowing. I don't have to be sure I'm succeeding, as I said before about science.
I think my life is fuller because I don't know what I'm doing. I'm delighted with the width of the world."
I've seen CalTech in my site stats before. Do any of you have a Feynman story you'd like to share? I'm not really an "historian of science," but I'd like to hear from some of Feynman's former students to see how far his influence stretched. If nothing else, we can all at least read some more bongo-playin' "Feynman stories."
Related Post:
Driving under the influence of Feynman
Related Small Times story
Nanotech for the Common Man
- More pieces of Feynman
- Published: February 13, 2004
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- Filed Under: Books: Biography, Books: History, Books: Nonfiction, Books: Science, Culture: Media
- Writer: Howard Lovy
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I didn't go to Cal Tech, and I'm not a physicist, but my husband did his graduate work in physics at Cornell, where Feynman also once taught. He never had any close contact with him, but he attended some of Feynman's lectures which he says were the best physics lectures he's ever heard. They always provided a fresh angle and new way of thinking about things. The problem was that you had to already have a good grasp of the subject to get anything from Feynman's lectures. The consensus among students who were new to physics (i.e. "physics-for-poets" students) was that it was hard to learn anything from him for the first time. Which backs up Feynman's own observation about his teaching.
Feynman went to the same High School I attended -- Far Rockaway -- about two, three years ahead of me, and I had the same physics teacher he had. Name was Bader, a very understanding guy even when I screwed things up. Perhaps some of his influence rubbed off on me. Feynman's sister Joan was in the same class as me. She also became a physicist but I've no idea where she is now.
What's this got to do with me or nanotechnology? Just about nothing. I get most of my science genes from my father, who was a "rocket scientist" in the 1940s. They called them plain engineers then. But perhaps I got my lifelong interest in far-out engineering from my dad. I went on to write comedy scripts and a blog.
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Thanks for introducing us to Feynman (those of us who were not acquainted with him or his work). Fascinating stuff. I will have to read up on him and his work.