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"the sham legacy of Richard Feynman" is about Feynman being famous because of this book rather than because of his physics. The YouTuber, an obsessed physicist

"the sham legacy of Richard Feynman" is about Feynman being famous because of this book rather than because of his physics. The YouTuber, an obsessed physicist who had spent months reading all Feynman books, provides a critical analysis and explains the cultural impact of "Surely You're Joking, Mr.Feynman!" https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc

esafak 2y ago
The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Autobiographies. As Churchill said, "For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself."
- torlok 2y ago
  Watch the video. Feynman didn't write a single book.
  - pdonis 2y ago
    I shouldn't have to watch several hours of video to see what the basis is for such an outlandish-sounding claim.
    - wk_end 2y ago
      That's fair - although it's a really great video! The section about 45m in ("The Myth of Richard Feynman) covers it in a hair under seven minutes. She notices that in the preface to "What Do You Care What Other People Think?", the author says that people have the "mistaken idea" that "Surely You're Joking..." was an autobiography. The preface, which was written from the perspective of the author of the books, is attributed to Ralph Leighton, who has a Wikipedia article about him. It turns out that he wrote the books, years later, based on stories Feynman told him at drumming circles. So it's not exactly a secret, but also not exactly publicized - Leighton's name is nowhere on the book jackets, for instance. The video goes onto explain that this is the case for anything commonly attributed to him - The Feynman Lectures, for instance, were transcribed/edited/turned into books by Robert B. Leighton (Ralph's father) and Matthew Sands. She then cites the general "never wrote a book" claim as directly coming from James Gleick's "Genius", which is a well-regarded and fact-checked biography of Feynman.
      - pdonis 2y ago
        I see. In a strict sense, yes, published books like Surely You're Joking and its sequel, The Feynman Lectures, QED, etc. weren't "written" by Feynman himself. But the statement "never wrote a book", without a lot of context (which might be in the video or Gleick's biography, but wasn't in the post I responded to), suggests that Feynman didn't create the content that's in the books, but someone else did and Feynman took credit for them. That is emphatically not the case. All of the content of those books is Feynman's. Leighton took Feynman's content, delivered orally, and put it into publishable book form. Certainly not a negligible task, and he deserves credit for it, but it doesn't mean the books aren't Feynman's content. They are. And nobody, certainly not Leighton, ever said otherwise.
        Xelynega 2y ago
        I don't think the problem people have is "Richard Feynman didn't produce content" It's "the content that people interacted with that they formed an opinion on "Richard Feynman" from was actually editorialized and published by other people" They're not trying to take credit from Feynman, theyre trying to divorce the character of "Feynman" as written by these authors from the real historical person
        pdonis 2y ago
        To the extent that the character of "Feynman" as he appears in books like Surely You're Joking is different from the real historical person, I think the difference is due to Feynman himself--the way he told the stories orally to people like Leighton. I don't think it's due in any significant measure to people like Leighton "editoralizing" when they wrote up the stories for publication. So again, I think "never wrote a book" is misleading if it gives the impression that the portrayal of Feynman in such books was not Feynman's own portrayal of himself. It was.
        Xelynega 2y ago
        That's true, i guess I'm trying to say "the portrayal of Feynman versus the reality of him" which "he didn't write any books" doesn't represent well. With some more thought, the fact that he wasn't the direct author of any books is interesting but not really that significant to his character, so i can't see much reason to point it out other than to discredit his achievements. Though if the achievement being discredited is the number of books he's seemingly written then it makes sense to a degree.
- lemonberry 2y ago
  "He lived, he died, the rest is anecdote"
dralley 2y ago
Yeah, it's hard not to see some truth in what Murray Gell-Mann said, which is that he spent as much time trying to come up with stories about himself as he did working. Also while breaking the rules might be fun, lockpicking desks & sending coded messages out of Los Alamos "for fun" is maybe not for the best.
- wholinator2 2y ago
  It wasn't for the worst either. Frankly i think it's essential for people to have experience in some mischeviety. Hacker mindset, etc, etc. I've joined a PhD program recently and you can really tell who's never done anything but study.
  - dralley 2y ago
    Yeah but most PhD programs aren't the Manhattan Project.
  - memhole 2y ago
    I would agree. I think at least in some fields a certain cleverness is needed. Mathematics is all about being clever and testing assumptions as an example.
  - Xelynega 2y ago
    You should read some of the more egregious stories that have been published with his blessing. It's not just "experience in mischeveity", it's "being a general nuisance, then everyone clapped"
ThrowawayR2 2y ago
And his Nobel Prize, the highest acclamation by his peers that exists. The people eager to tear him down seem to forget that. [EDIT] Oops, somehow this post appeared twice?
- torlok 2y ago
  The video is a critical look at the legend of Richard Feynman, not his work. You should watch it.
ThrowawayR2 2y ago
And his Nobel Prize, the highest possible acclamation by his peers. The people eager to tear him down seem to overlook that.
- speff 2y ago
  One minute and thirty seconds into the video: "Amazing Nobel Prize winning physicist"
- Xelynega 2y ago
  Who is trying to "tear him down"? All I see is people trying to point out the differences between "Richard Feynman the character" and "Richard Feynman the real person" "Richard Feynman the character" would talk about how he goes to parties and is able to befuddled people in their native languages that he doesn't speak. "Richard Feynman the person" was a nobel prize winning physicist Do his tall tales have to be true for his nobel prize to be valid? Or can he be lying for his ego while still being a good scientist?
vonneumannstan 2y ago
It's easy to dunk on someone unable to defend themselves. Some basic sanity checks: Personally recruited onto the Manhattan Project by Oppenheimer in 1943. Feynman Diagrams, fundamental to QM and became popular in the early 50s. There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom lecture was given in 1959. The Feynman Lectures on Physics were recorded at Caltech between 1961-1964 and became famous throughout the field shortly after. Nobel Prize for the development of Quantum Electrodynamics shared with Schwinger and Tomonaga in 1965 Richard Feynman: Fun to Imagine Collection came out in 1983 Surely you must be joking Mr. Feynman released in 1985. Any Physics Professor on earth would give both their legs to have the career Feynman did before he was supposedly only made relevant by his Biography.
- archermarks 2y ago
  The video is not about Feynman's actual career. That's actually the point -- the idea of Feynman people have in their minds is totally divorced from the actual person and his work.
  - vonneumannstan 2y ago
    Maybe true in the early 90s but I don't imagine really anyone in the general public is familiar with him anymore. Physicists know of him. >is about Feynman being famous because of this book rather than because of his physics.
    - wholinator2 2y ago
      People still do very much know of him. My mother is the person who introduced me to his book. I was showing some interest in science in school when it was presented to me though. Though he's probably waning from "household name" status he's likely still widely known
    - Xelynega 2y ago
      A lot of the comments on this post are references to the book "surely you're joking Mr Feynman", which was a collection of stories(with a lot of embellishment) told by Feynman. That is the "sham legacy of Richard Feynman", the fact that most people remember him for stories and not his work
furyofantares 2y ago
Wow. This is very, very good. Thanks. I LOVE the videos of how Feynman talks about physics and have read and loved many of the books she talked about. But really this whole video is, I think, spot on about them.
Dig1t 2y ago
I watched this video and honestly did not find any of her points very compelling. Her best point is basically her own subjective opinion that Feynman does not belong amongst the greatest physicists of all time like Newton and Einstein. And like yeah I guess that’s sort of true. But most of the video is just stating that Feynman’s fans are weird. Feynman is super popular because he made very impressive contributions to science AND he was charismatic and inspiring. It’s the combination of both and she mostly ignores that. Like the thing about brushing teeth and seeing things from a different point of view. She completely missed the entire point of why people think his point of view is interesting on it. Basically he’s just saying in a video that most people brush their teeth every morning, and if you view all the humans doing this from a higher vantage point, like from space, you see this line creeping across the earth and most of the people right on that line are engaged in the same ritual. It’s interesting to think about this one phenomenon from the perspective of individual humans and also from someone watching from space. She doesn’t provide a reason why this is dumb she just basically says it’s dumb and moves on to the next point. It kind of feels like she either didn’t think about it enough or is just being disingenuous. In any case I’ve found Feynman’s work and life to be inspiring since I was a teenager. He’s inspired many people to go into physics and other sciences, which she herself states in the video, but somehow she makes that out to be a bad thing by implying the Feynman fans are weird, calling them “Feynman Bros”.
- speff 2y ago
  Frankly I'm having trouble believing you watched the video if you make the assertion: > He’s inspired many people to go into physics and other sciences, which she herself states in the video, but somehow she makes that out to be a bad thing by implying the Feynman fans are weird, calling them “Feynman Bros”. There were multiple points in the presentation on her experience with Feynman fans and why they deserved the Bros title. * Having an unearned superiority complex while having misogynistic beliefs (6:50->8:23) - followed by examples of personal experiences by the video creator * Making up stories about him (1:42:XX->1:44:XX) * Thinking that negging is cool? I realize I already said misogynistic beliefs, but feel like this should be re-iterated (24:20->25:50). The example given about the Feynman and the waitress was particularly rage-inducing to me. I'm picturing my mother or wife in that scenario and some jackass doing that to them. > Like the thing about brushing teeth and seeing things from a different point of view. She completely missed the entire point of why people think his point of view is interesting on it. Basically he’s just saying in a video that most people brush their teeth every morning, and if you view all the humans doing this from a higher vantage point, like from space, you see this line creeping across the earth and most of the people right on that line are engaged in the same ritual. It’s interesting to think about this one phenomenon from the perspective of individual humans and also from someone watching from space. She doesn’t provide a reason why this is dumb she just basically says it’s dumb and moves on to the next point. It kind of feels like she either didn’t think about it enough or is just being disingenuous. This is a mischaracterization of this section of the video. 37:33-> 39:45 for anyone else who wants to make their own judgement. The point was that people watch the clip of Feynman and come out with the wrong/harmful conclusions.
zelphirkalt 2y ago
The person talking in the video lost me, when she criticized pupils asking about air resistance. Basically that was me, literally, without having known anything about Feynman. I simply asked, because I was interested in how one would calculate that, rather than the boring "use formula from book, plug in values, get result". I wanted to know more. Not because I wanted to "seem smart because I know air exists". That's such very silly take. And in fact there were many people, who would not have even thought about air possibly having an effect on a falling object. Basically she is raving on against curious students. Maybe she is herself not so curious and cannot stand it. Who knows.
- tovej 2y ago
  She's a phd in physics, I think we can safely say that she has a curious mind.
FredPret 2y ago
Someone making a 2h 48 min rant about how a dead, great physicist was "not that great" is oddly the opposite of convincing
- sympil 2y ago
  That is not all want the video is about.
gowld 2y ago
That YouTuber seems quite bitter, making videos complaining about famous scientists and complaining about people lke Worlfram and Musk who studied physics in school and then became successful in business -- not for being bad businessman or bad people (which some of them may well be), but because she's offended that they say they love physics even though she thinks they don't deserve to.
- Xelynega 2y ago
  Elon Musk has a bachelor in science and business, I feel like a PhD scientists is allowed to complain about the media going to Elon Musk for science views rather than scientists
__s 2y ago
Overall seems good, but I find it interesting she says it teaches to always be the smartest person in the room when the book often reflected Feynman as being somewhat simple, going on about reliance on mental tricks in comparison to his colleagues who he felt were much more talented. Or instances where he found himself out of his depth & got lucky (pointing at some random thing on a diagram to figure out what it is without asking, happens to get people he's with to rubber duck debug an actual problem). Which may support her observation of Feynman bros who might find this relatable This all comes back to the observation I've made working with competent people, which is that we're all stuck trying to solve problems with the computational power of a slab of meat (she later goes on to address this modesty as being underhanded) (continued watching, two hours in now, this is great work)

esafak 2y ago

The Unreasonable Effectiveness of Autobiographies. As Churchill said, "For my part, I consider that it will be found much better by all parties to leave the past to history, especially as I propose to write that history myself."

torlok 2y ago
Watch the video. Feynman didn't write a single book.
- pdonis 2y ago
  I shouldn't have to watch several hours of video to see what the basis is for such an outlandish-sounding claim.
  - wk_end 2y ago
    That's fair - although it's a really great video! The section about 45m in ("The Myth of Richard Feynman) covers it in a hair under seven minutes. She notices that in the preface to "What Do You Care What Other People Think?", the author says that people have the "mistaken idea" that "Surely You're Joking..." was an autobiography. The preface, which was written from the perspective of the author of the books, is attributed to Ralph Leighton, who has a Wikipedia article about him. It turns out that he wrote the books, years later, based on stories Feynman told him at drumming circles. So it's not exactly a secret, but also not exactly publicized - Leighton's name is nowhere on the book jackets, for instance. The video goes onto explain that this is the case for anything commonly attributed to him - The Feynman Lectures, for instance, were transcribed/edited/turned into books by Robert B. Leighton (Ralph's father) and Matthew Sands. She then cites the general "never wrote a book" claim as directly coming from James Gleick's "Genius", which is a well-regarded and fact-checked biography of Feynman.
    - pdonis 2y ago
      I see. In a strict sense, yes, published books like Surely You're Joking and its sequel, The Feynman Lectures, QED, etc. weren't "written" by Feynman himself. But the statement "never wrote a book", without a lot of context (which might be in the video or Gleick's biography, but wasn't in the post I responded to), suggests that Feynman didn't create the content that's in the books, but someone else did and Feynman took credit for them. That is emphatically not the case. All of the content of those books is Feynman's. Leighton took Feynman's content, delivered orally, and put it into publishable book form. Certainly not a negligible task, and he deserves credit for it, but it doesn't mean the books aren't Feynman's content. They are. And nobody, certainly not Leighton, ever said otherwise.
      - Xelynega 2y ago
        I don't think the problem people have is "Richard Feynman didn't produce content" It's "the content that people interacted with that they formed an opinion on "Richard Feynman" from was actually editorialized and published by other people" They're not trying to take credit from Feynman, theyre trying to divorce the character of "Feynman" as written by these authors from the real historical person
        pdonis 2y ago
        To the extent that the character of "Feynman" as he appears in books like Surely You're Joking is different from the real historical person, I think the difference is due to Feynman himself--the way he told the stories orally to people like Leighton. I don't think it's due in any significant measure to people like Leighton "editoralizing" when they wrote up the stories for publication. So again, I think "never wrote a book" is misleading if it gives the impression that the portrayal of Feynman in such books was not Feynman's own portrayal of himself. It was.
        Xelynega 2y ago
        That's true, i guess I'm trying to say "the portrayal of Feynman versus the reality of him" which "he didn't write any books" doesn't represent well. With some more thought, the fact that he wasn't the direct author of any books is interesting but not really that significant to his character, so i can't see much reason to point it out other than to discredit his achievements. Though if the achievement being discredited is the number of books he's seemingly written then it makes sense to a degree.
lemonberry 2y ago
"He lived, he died, the rest is anecdote"

dralley 2y ago

Yeah, it's hard not to see some truth in what Murray Gell-Mann said, which is that he spent as much time trying to come up with stories about himself as he did working. Also while breaking the rules might be fun, lockpicking desks & sending coded messages out of Los Alamos "for fun" is maybe not for the best.

wholinator2 2y ago
It wasn't for the worst either. Frankly i think it's essential for people to have experience in some mischeviety. Hacker mindset, etc, etc. I've joined a PhD program recently and you can really tell who's never done anything but study.
- dralley 2y ago
  Yeah but most PhD programs aren't the Manhattan Project.
- memhole 2y ago
  I would agree. I think at least in some fields a certain cleverness is needed. Mathematics is all about being clever and testing assumptions as an example.
- Xelynega 2y ago
  You should read some of the more egregious stories that have been published with his blessing. It's not just "experience in mischeveity", it's "being a general nuisance, then everyone clapped"

ThrowawayR2 2y ago

And his Nobel Prize, the highest acclamation by his peers that exists. The people eager to tear him down seem to forget that. [EDIT] Oops, somehow this post appeared twice?

torlok 2y ago
The video is a critical look at the legend of Richard Feynman, not his work. You should watch it.

ThrowawayR2 2y ago

And his Nobel Prize, the highest possible acclamation by his peers. The people eager to tear him down seem to overlook that.

speff 2y ago
One minute and thirty seconds into the video: "Amazing Nobel Prize winning physicist"
Xelynega 2y ago
Who is trying to "tear him down"? All I see is people trying to point out the differences between "Richard Feynman the character" and "Richard Feynman the real person" "Richard Feynman the character" would talk about how he goes to parties and is able to befuddled people in their native languages that he doesn't speak. "Richard Feynman the person" was a nobel prize winning physicist Do his tall tales have to be true for his nobel prize to be valid? Or can he be lying for his ego while still being a good scientist?

vonneumannstan 2y ago

It's easy to dunk on someone unable to defend themselves. Some basic sanity checks: Personally recruited onto the Manhattan Project by Oppenheimer in 1943. Feynman Diagrams, fundamental to QM and became popular in the early 50s. There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom lecture was given in 1959. The Feynman Lectures on Physics were recorded at Caltech between 1961-1964 and became famous throughout the field shortly after. Nobel Prize for the development of Quantum Electrodynamics shared with Schwinger and Tomonaga in 1965 Richard Feynman: Fun to Imagine Collection came out in 1983 Surely you must be joking Mr. Feynman released in 1985. Any Physics Professor on earth would give both their legs to have the career Feynman did before he was supposedly only made relevant by his Biography.

archermarks 2y ago
The video is not about Feynman's actual career. That's actually the point -- the idea of Feynman people have in their minds is totally divorced from the actual person and his work.
- vonneumannstan 2y ago
  Maybe true in the early 90s but I don't imagine really anyone in the general public is familiar with him anymore. Physicists know of him. >is about Feynman being famous because of this book rather than because of his physics.
  - wholinator2 2y ago
    People still do very much know of him. My mother is the person who introduced me to his book. I was showing some interest in science in school when it was presented to me though. Though he's probably waning from "household name" status he's likely still widely known
  - Xelynega 2y ago
    A lot of the comments on this post are references to the book "surely you're joking Mr Feynman", which was a collection of stories(with a lot of embellishment) told by Feynman. That is the "sham legacy of Richard Feynman", the fact that most people remember him for stories and not his work

furyofantares 2y ago

Wow. This is very, very good. Thanks. I LOVE the videos of how Feynman talks about physics and have read and loved many of the books she talked about. But really this whole video is, I think, spot on about them.

Dig1t 2y ago

I watched this video and honestly did not find any of her points very compelling. Her best point is basically her own subjective opinion that Feynman does not belong amongst the greatest physicists of all time like Newton and Einstein. And like yeah I guess that’s sort of true. But most of the video is just stating that Feynman’s fans are weird. Feynman is super popular because he made very impressive contributions to science AND he was charismatic and inspiring. It’s the combination of both and she mostly ignores that. Like the thing about brushing teeth and seeing things from a different point of view. She completely missed the entire point of why people think his point of view is interesting on it. Basically he’s just saying in a video that most people brush their teeth every morning, and if you view all the humans doing this from a higher vantage point, like from space, you see this line creeping across the earth and most of the people right on that line are engaged in the same ritual. It’s interesting to think about this one phenomenon from the perspective of individual humans and also from someone watching from space. She doesn’t provide a reason why this is dumb she just basically says it’s dumb and moves on to the next point. It kind of feels like she either didn’t think about it enough or is just being disingenuous. In any case I’ve found Feynman’s work and life to be inspiring since I was a teenager. He’s inspired many people to go into physics and other sciences, which she herself states in the video, but somehow she makes that out to be a bad thing by implying the Feynman fans are weird, calling them “Feynman Bros”.

speff 2y ago
Frankly I'm having trouble believing you watched the video if you make the assertion: > He’s inspired many people to go into physics and other sciences, which she herself states in the video, but somehow she makes that out to be a bad thing by implying the Feynman fans are weird, calling them “Feynman Bros”. There were multiple points in the presentation on her experience with Feynman fans and why they deserved the Bros title. * Having an unearned superiority complex while having misogynistic beliefs (6:50->8:23) - followed by examples of personal experiences by the video creator * Making up stories about him (1:42:XX->1:44:XX) * Thinking that negging is cool? I realize I already said misogynistic beliefs, but feel like this should be re-iterated (24:20->25:50). The example given about the Feynman and the waitress was particularly rage-inducing to me. I'm picturing my mother or wife in that scenario and some jackass doing that to them. > Like the thing about brushing teeth and seeing things from a different point of view. She completely missed the entire point of why people think his point of view is interesting on it. Basically he’s just saying in a video that most people brush their teeth every morning, and if you view all the humans doing this from a higher vantage point, like from space, you see this line creeping across the earth and most of the people right on that line are engaged in the same ritual. It’s interesting to think about this one phenomenon from the perspective of individual humans and also from someone watching from space. She doesn’t provide a reason why this is dumb she just basically says it’s dumb and moves on to the next point. It kind of feels like she either didn’t think about it enough or is just being disingenuous. This is a mischaracterization of this section of the video. 37:33-> 39:45 for anyone else who wants to make their own judgement. The point was that people watch the clip of Feynman and come out with the wrong/harmful conclusions.

zelphirkalt 2y ago

The person talking in the video lost me, when she criticized pupils asking about air resistance. Basically that was me, literally, without having known anything about Feynman. I simply asked, because I was interested in how one would calculate that, rather than the boring "use formula from book, plug in values, get result". I wanted to know more. Not because I wanted to "seem smart because I know air exists". That's such very silly take. And in fact there were many people, who would not have even thought about air possibly having an effect on a falling object. Basically she is raving on against curious students. Maybe she is herself not so curious and cannot stand it. Who knows.

tovej 2y ago
She's a phd in physics, I think we can safely say that she has a curious mind.

FredPret 2y ago

Someone making a 2h 48 min rant about how a dead, great physicist was "not that great" is oddly the opposite of convincing

sympil 2y ago
That is not all want the video is about.

gowld 2y ago

That YouTuber seems quite bitter, making videos complaining about famous scientists and complaining about people lke Worlfram and Musk who studied physics in school and then became successful in business -- not for being bad businessman or bad people (which some of them may well be), but because she's offended that they say they love physics even though she thinks they don't deserve to.

Xelynega 2y ago
Elon Musk has a bachelor in science and business, I feel like a PhD scientists is allowed to complain about the media going to Elon Musk for science views rather than scientists

__s 2y ago

Overall seems good, but I find it interesting she says it teaches to always be the smartest person in the room when the book often reflected Feynman as being somewhat simple, going on about reliance on mental tricks in comparison to his colleagues who he felt were much more talented. Or instances where he found himself out of his depth & got lucky (pointing at some random thing on a diagram to figure out what it is without asking, happens to get people he's with to rubber duck debug an actual problem). Which may support her observation of Feynman bros who might find this relatable This all comes back to the observation I've made working with competent people, which is that we're all stuck trying to solve problems with the computational power of a slab of meat (she later goes on to address this modesty as being underhanded) (continued watching, two hours in now, this is great work)