Talk:Richard Feynman

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Richard Feynman is a featured article, which means it has been identified as one of the best articles produced by the Wikipedia community. If you see a way this page can be updated or improved without compromising previous work, feel free to contribute.

2001 talk

Great article! I removed the link to the Feynman picture--I don't think we have permission to use it. (Do we?) Here's the link anyway, in case we do get permission: http://www.scs-intl.com/online/images/pictures/RPFphoto.gif --Larry Sanger

I'll email them and ask if I can use it. Thanks for tidying it up. -- sodium

did feynman and einstein ever meet or collaborate?

According to his book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", on one occasion when he was still a young professor Feynman very nervously gave a lecture to a group including Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, and some other famous physicists (he called them "monster minds"). Einstein just interjected one comment at the end. Then later in his career he was invited to join the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, where Einstein was probably still working (not sure of the date...), but he rejected it b/c he would have no contact with students. Hope that helps. Mjklin

Feynman also met with Einstein at least once along with his thesis advisor, John Wheeler, to discuss research they were doing. This is mentioned in James Gleick's biography Genius.

Cocktail-party philosophers

Feynman had a deep antipathy for Cocktail-party philosophers. I am surprised that the article is linked to Category:U.S. philosophers, but if you make the tent large enough, there is surely room for an anti-philosophical atheistic man. Ancheta Wis 11:03, 15 Aug 2004 (UTC)

the most remarkable formula in mathematics

In Feynman's opinion, the most remarkable formula in mathematics is Euler's identity. See his Lectures in Physics, vol. 1. Ancheta Wis 23:48, 17 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Path Integrals

Those with graduate-level background, wishing a short companion book for Feynman & Hibbs' QM & Path Integrals book may wish to investigate the books listed in Charles F. Stevens' The Six Core Theories of Modern Physics, (MIT Press, 1995) ISBN 0-262-69188-4. Ancheta Wis 00:25, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

The character of physical law

Those with a non-technical background who are interested in Feynman's characterization of physical law may find The character of physical law lectures 1965 to be one of his most accessible and thoughtful books.

Soul

When speaking about M13, a globular star cluster, Feynman said "If you cannot see gravity acting here, you have no soul." I am omitting it from the article as it is possible that Feynman's attitude may offend a reader. In Feynman's Rainbow Feynman asks the author to examine himself after examining an electron micrograph of an atom, with much the same intent.

Quote

I removed a why quote which, if Feynman uttered it, would have formed the recursion consistently. His utterances were well-formed, from long practice across many audiences. Ancheta Wis 12:01, 23 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Other great physicists

I am omitting discussion of Feynman's relationship to other great physicists during his lifetime as this properly belongs in the history of physics to provide a more balanced viewpoint. Ancheta Wis 01:12, 18 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Functional integration

Wikipedia's Functional integration article points out that from a mathematical POV, Feynman's functional integral seems ill-founded. However, Feynman developed his mathematical intuition about the subject, as a high school student, decades before attempts at rigorous formulation. As a physicist, he did not worry about the foundation of his mathematics. This was also the case with Oliver Heaviside's operators which eventually received rigorous formulation. Ancheta Wis 11:05, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Richard Feynman (1918 – 1988) was one of the physicists of the 20th century who expanded the theory of quantum electrodynamics, one of the most successful and accurate theories of physics. During World War II, he helped in the development of the atomic bomb and was later a member of the panel which investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. A free spirit and amateur musician, he is remembered as an inspiring lecturer. Feynman was one of the recipients of the Nobel Prize in Physics for 1965 for his work on quantum electrodynamics.

Lifestyle

There is nothing about Feynman's relationship with John Lilly on this page, nor is there any mention of his explorations of consciousness in Lilly's isolation tank. The page also neglects to mention Feynman's experience with LSD and cannabis. Feynman claims to have been embarrassed by his LSD experience, but he remained an advocate of cananbis like Carl Sagan. I think this topic deserves mentioning in the biography section. --Thomas Veil 04:14, 6 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps the topic could be "lifestyle explorations" and mention his attempts to expand his brain power. I would not be surprised if he had also attempted pot, but he would never have mentioned that to his students, as that would have filtered to the authorities and hurt his income. As I never heard him mention anything like that, are you going to take an edit about this? I am not qualified. Or we can try writing it on this talk page... Ancheta Wis 10:56, 7 Sep 2004 (UTC) As you can see, the words just aren't flowing for me.

It's an interesting topic, but I'm afraid Richard Feynman was a genius prior to his recreational drug experimentation. I think it might be best if we put somethihng together from the source material itself (interviews, colleagues, autobiographical material). And, that could take some time. --Viriditas 13:20, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Lifestyle explorations

Feynman sometimes used John Lilly's isolation tank. He found that ...

As an advocate of cannabis, ...

During this period of California history, there was (and is) a strong libertarian segment of the population, where live and let live is the byword. ... Thus Feynman found that his program of active irresponsibility both justified his lack of interest in academic administration and his interests in a diverse group of non-conformists. ...

Nice edit, but I respectfully disagree. Consciousness (altered or otherwise) can be explored responsibly, and Feynman is likely to have done just that with Lilly's isolation tank, cannabis, and LSD, which btw, was most likely legal when Feynman tried it. Since this page is about the physicist Richard Feynman and not physics in particular, it would be helpful to allow some information on this topic to freely grow without being pruned. --Viriditas 01:53, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Since we are on a wiki, I look forward to your edit of the article / topic. Regards, Ancheta Wis 13:00, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Perhaps it is better to discuss whether or not such an edit should occur? The person who made the comments above my own makes a good argument against including such an edit by appealing to the historical context of drug use, which has nothing really to do with Feynman. Or does it? --Viriditas 13:08, 8 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Fact check needed

I have removed the following recent addition from the article:

It has been announced that Feynman will be honored on a U.S. postage stamp in 2005.

First, who announced that, and second, USPS (http://shop.usps.com/cgi-bin/vsbv/postal_store_non_ssl/browse_content/stampRelease.jsp) doesn't have the "American Scientists" issue mentioned at [1] (http://www.virtualstampclub.com/2005usnew.html) in its schedule for 2005. Lupo 13:53, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Four American scientists-geneticist Barbara McClintock, mathematician John von Neumann, physicist Richard Feynman and thermodynamicist Josiah Willard Gibbs-also make the April stamp lineup, as does poet, novelist, educator and three-time Pulitzer Prize winner Robert Penn Warren. Mesmerized Wizard of Oz movie fans are expected to click their heels and hypnotically say "There's nothing like his stamp ... There's nothing like his stamp..." when songwriter Yip Harburg, who wrote the lyrics to "Somewhere Over the Rainbow," is celebrated.

From [2] (http://news.corporate.findlaw.com/prnewswire/20041105/05nov2004095035.html) You can see a picture at [3] (http://prn.newscom.com/cgi-bin/pub/s?f=PRN/prnpub&p1=20041105/DCF007-b). The above seems copied directly from press-release on USPS's own site: [4] (http://www.usps.com/communications/news/stamps/2004/sr04_076.htm) Kinda weird that its not in the release schedule - perhaps date not set yet? But it looks watertight. I'm re-adding that edit.--Fangz 13:28, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

66.248.17.109

(Biography - edited for clarity and erase the biases and opinions of the author) It is ironic that the comment by 66.248.17.109 is an opinion, which is in fact incorrect. The elided sentence "he and his tubercular wife were careful, and he never contracted TB" above is a paraphrase from one of Leighton's books.

"When he spoke, it was with clarity" is one of my direct experiences. His voice basically overwhelmed a room, even when he was not the major speaker. Ancheta Wis 23:58, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I have no problem with editors, and careful writing is always welcome, but every sentence for which I was responsible is from my direct experience with him, or from a book about him. Ancheta Wis 23:58, 2 Dec 2004 (UTC)

It is clear that the more recent edits are not based on direct knowledge of this man, but are opinion. Please discuss the sentences before proceeding. The fact that he could not make progress on quantum gravity is profound, but is completely lost in the more recent edits. Why he could not make progress is real physics, which we could talk about on this page. Ancheta Wis 00:33, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Ancheta, keep in mind that Wikipedia has a no original research policy. Your idiosyncratic opinions may be valuable, but they have no authoritative source. There is no way to tag a paragraph as "written by so-and-so who knew Feynman personally", and guarantee it will never change. It's great that you can offer your own insights in improving the article, but I don't think you can expect to put a lock on anything you wrote. There may well be POV problems with such personal opinions, in any case. --Dhartung | Talk 03:54, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

I will attempt to recall the text sources, such as my references to Ralph Leighton's books; however his statement about dancing and chanting was during a lecture, which I immediately correlated with the Injun Joe references after reading the Leighton books, for example. The Ants and Martians device was something he also used in his Quantum Gravity book (the Venutians), but which I also learned from an offhand comment during a lecture. And the sure, authoritative tenor of his voice is something anyone who ever came into contact with him would know; thus, if some Wikipedian also happened to know that, then why not write it down; this is correlated with the unsureness most people feel about anything, contrasted with his sure grasp of just a little bit more than most people. When he was alive, I never asked him stuff, but we all had the reassurance that we could just ask him if we wanted, because he had a regard for us. Now he is gone. His wife had him pegged, but she is gone too. By the way, he said a lot more than what is written down, such as a method for solving any differential equation symbolically. Ancheta Wis 22:52, 3 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Nobel prize

I think that more information should be added about the Nobel prize. Paranoid 12:17, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

We could add details about the acclaim he got from his students at Hughes Research Labs, etc. What do you have in mind? How about this? (http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html)

The standards committee is starting to ask for footnotes. In preparation for this I have added the boilerplate with distinctive HREF anchors for each bib item. Anyone who has the references can add the page numbers and reposition the superscript HTML as they see fit. Please note that the HREF anchors are unique but that the serial numbering is not yet implemented as we do not yet know just what the sequence will be. Ancheta Wis 03:05, 14 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Fools and pretenders

I am restoring a sentence which was elided, but which is pertinent. There are articles in Wikipedia which have deep POV and which are not challenged because the topic is arcane and few other editors even understand. But when a topic becomes well known, then at least a few other people can understand, edit and comment, then a reasoned judgement can appear on the Wikipedia.

Feynman had a moral quality which he did not flaunt, but which he stood-up for when he had to; it is far deeper than simple views on sexuality etc, but which stood for honesty (http://wwwcdf.pd.infn.it/~loreti/science.html). He could be quite tolerant of, and even gentle to simple, even stupid people, but he did not hesitate to unmask stupid, pretentious ignorant fools when they attempted to flaunt wrong ideas. That is why clear thinking and clear presentation were so important to him. Thus some physicist with a pet idea might work hard on it, approach Feynman, and be demolished with a single sentence. That would be hard to take if you spent your entire life on that pet idea. That is why I used the term perilous. My reference is Feynman's comments on Brazil, and also on cocktail-party philosophers. Ancheta Wis 12:30, 12 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Fools and pretenders, repeated

A Fool might be someone who tells Feynman something foolish. A Pretender might be someone who thinks he knows Physics and really doesn't. Neither type was worthy of his attention. Some cases which are documented are his experiences with people wokring in Quantum Gravity (listed in the foreward of the publication of his lecture notes on the subject), and in his books co-authored with Ralph Leighton.

Note: sometimes Feynman would confess to us that if someone didn't ask him the right question in a conversation with him, Feynman would say the question to himself. But in any event, he was courteous to us, until he detected that he was talking to a fool or pretender. After that, watch out. He was perfectly nice to people who honestly did not know things, but in the obverse case, no. Ancheta Wis 00:49, 4 May 2005 (UTC)

Feynman's education

where did he go for undergraduate?>

MIT as an undergrad. He was in a science-oriented fraternity. He said his conversations with his frat brothers and classmates were part of his education. It was in college that he learned some people cannot count and drum at the same time. (He was one of the ones who can.) Did you notice that MIT was in the article?

Request for references

Hi, I am working to encourage implementation of the goals of the Wikipedia:Verifiability policy. Part of that is to make sure articles cite their sources. This is particularly important for featured articles, since they are a prominent part of Wikipedia. The Fact and Reference Check Project has more information. Thank you, and please leave me a message (http://en.wikipedia.org/w/wiki.phtml?title=User_talk:Taxman&action=edit&section=new) when you have added a few references to the article. - Taxman 17:37, Apr 22, 2005 (UTC)

Note: the {{fn|Your tag here}} template can now be used with the {{anb|Your tag here}} templates which currently tag the references. Currently, the tags are not yet anchored to the text in the article, so when the fn tags are placed next to the text, the Note tags will become visible. If any editor wishes to assign a tag, now is your chance. It would be good to stick with a convention such as Fey64a, standing for AuthorYear, for example Ancheta Wis 12:20, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

Feynman and drugs

I submit the following from page 330 of "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" in the chapter entitled "Altered States". In the paragraph where he is discussing his interest in hallucinations and images from dreams, he is quoted as follows: "... I wanted to see hallucinations. I had once thought to take drugs, but I got kind of scared of that: I love to think and I don't want to screw up the machine. But it seemed to me that just lying around in a sense-deprivation tank had no physiological danger, so I was very anxious to try it."

My interpretation of this quote is that Feynman did not experiment with LSD or perhaps any sort of mind-altering drug, and I also seem to recall reading that at some point in his life he even stopped drinking alchohol.

I submit this in response to the "Personal Life" portion of the article that says that Feynman used cannabis and LSD.

James Gleick's biography Genius states that Feynman used both marijuana and LSD, but that he was "more embarrased" by the latter. I don't have the book in front of me (can't really truck my library around while I visit family), but I believe Gleick cites the original audio recordings which later became Surely You're Joking as his source. My guess is that Feynman admitted it all to Leighton, and then during editing the LSD bit got blotted out (whether because Feynman was nervous, an editor thought it was more politic, or whatever). "Altered States" does actually admit to cannabis, on page 307:

Ordinarily it would take me about fifteen minutes to get a hallucination going, but on a few occasions, when I smoked some marijuana beforehand, it came very quickly. But fifteen minutes was fast enough for me.

If you listen to the recordings in Safecracker Suite, Feynman Volume One and so forth, they do differ from the versions in print. Most of the changes are editorial cleanup, the sort of thing you expect you'd have to do working with spoken material. (Sometimes the tape catches Feynman saying, "Oh, wait, I have to go back and explain that. . .")

On page 194 of my edition, the story "O Americano, Outra Vez!" states the following:

I never drank ever again, since then. I suppose I really wasn't in any danger, because I found it very easy to stop. But that strong feeling that I didn't understand frightened me. You see, I get such fun out of thinking that I don't want to destroy this most pleasant machine that makes life such a big kick. It's the same reason that, later on, I was reluctant to try experiments with LSD in spite of my curiosity about hallucinations.

Note that Feynman says he "was reluctant" (for a pretty sensible reason, I think) but that he never flat-out denies dropping a tab. It is possible that Feynman eventually heard stories of people who tripped on acid and came back healthy. Or, particularly if you accept Gleick's reading of Feynman's "altered states" adventures, he may just have figured that his time was running out anyway.

Best wishes, Anville 01:10, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Favourite Feynman Story (suggested for inclusion)

RF arrives by plane for a physics conference, boards a taxi and asks to be taken to the University of North Carolina. The cab driver turns around and asks, 'Is that the State University in Raleigh, or the University in Chapel Hill?' Both university are a plausible distance away, but in opposite directions, and It turns out that RF doesn't know.

RF thinks about it for a minute, then says to the cab driver, 'The conference started yesterday, so you must have picked up some of the attendees. They wear unmatched clothes and walk around without looking where they are going. Also they would be mumbling something to each other that sounds like Gumunu, Gumunu..'

'Oh, yeah!' says the cab driver. 'That's at Chapel Hill.'

from Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! --Philopedia 02:41, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

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