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I'd recommend that you watch the entire video, because the point is that he did not even write any of those books.

srean 7mo ago
I would say read up a little so that you are in a position to make up your own mind. Also compare the video recordings and published book to figure out whose material it was. It's easy to throw muck at someone who is not around to defend. And you seem to be saying that it is a reasonable thing to do in this particular case.
ecshafer 7mo ago
So someone took recordings of his stories and compiled them into a text....? What does that matter I have seen that entire video in the past, its unsubstantiated garbage that fails mild skepticism. Every point can be explained away trivially. They have an axe to grind against Fenyman / Men generally, and since this goes against the established narrative its therefore heralded as being correct and people blindly follow it.
- chrismatic 7mo ago
  I think you can come to a balanced view here where you acknowledge that Feynman was overhyped posthumously while maintaining that he was an exceptional physicist with some personal flaws. That's precisely the point of the video. It's less axe grinding and more counter-acting an inaccurate narrative.
  - mlyle 7mo ago
    He was a top 10 20th century physicist-- and the 20th century was full of rock stars-- and a Nobel Laureate. He also did more interesting work outside his core domain than you'd expect; the cooperation with Thinking Machines, the Rogers Commission, early use of computers as an instrument, institutional/advisory roles, etc. I think anyone who has read his narratives realizes the dude had some personal flaws.
mlyle 7mo ago
Yah. He didn't write the Feynman Lectures on Physics. He just came up with the unique arguments in them and gave the lectures at Caltech; it fell to Leighton and Sands to do most of the work of knitting it into a cohesive, coherent book. And his other books-- they're just his stories, trying to capture the characteristic style in which he talked, while editing it to be a cohesive written work. This criticism is maybe valid for QED-- I am not sure what fraction of that he was really involved in-- but not the rest of his body of work. Is this supposed to be bad?
- rimunroe 7mo ago
  Do you mean he didn’t write the lectures he gave to students? I know the books weren’t put together by him and were substantially edited, but I thought the original lectures as delivered by him were either all or largely his work. I once worked through part of the first volume of his lectures in the published book while listening to the recordings of him partly out of curiosity to see how much the original lectures as he gave them matched the ones which were compiled and published in written form (which I already knew was something not done by him). I came away feeling impressed one could either stick so closely to some lecture notes when lecturing and/or put together a written work which so closely matched a spoken one without coming across as being a transcript. It’s quite the accomplishment and one which I felt was a credit to everyone involved.
  - mlyle 7mo ago
    Yah, I was saying the volumes. > put together a written work which so closely matched a spoken one without coming across as being a transcript. Leighton deserves the credit for this. Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through.
    - rimunroe 7mo ago
      > Leighton deserves the credit for this. Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through. It's pretty clear he also used the recordings of the lectures themselves. Otherwise there'd be a much bigger difference between the lectures as presented in the books and the audio recordings[1] of him actually giving the lectures. Leighton deserves a lot of credit, but the lectures Feynman gave were substantially similar enough that it's absurd not to act as though he didn't co-author them. > Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through. I don't doubt his notes would be, however they also used the audio recordings of and took notes during the lectures themselves for the books. I'm not sure how much they relied on Feynman's notes themselves though. It's been about 15 years since I last read and listened to them together, but I recall the experience of the combined activity being that the book was surprisingly close to being a transcript of what he said (including references to figures which the books reproduced). This is why I thought it was impressive that the book didn't read like a transcript on its own. I rarely encountered professors who gave such well-structured lectures, but it seems like something Feynman could not only give prepared lectures in this way, but could do this off the cuff as well. [1] https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/flptapes.html https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/flptapes.html

srean 7mo ago

I would say read up a little so that you are in a position to make up your own mind. Also compare the video recordings and published book to figure out whose material it was. It's easy to throw muck at someone who is not around to defend. And you seem to be saying that it is a reasonable thing to do in this particular case.

ecshafer 7mo ago

So someone took recordings of his stories and compiled them into a text....? What does that matter I have seen that entire video in the past, its unsubstantiated garbage that fails mild skepticism. Every point can be explained away trivially. They have an axe to grind against Fenyman / Men generally, and since this goes against the established narrative its therefore heralded as being correct and people blindly follow it.

chrismatic 7mo ago
I think you can come to a balanced view here where you acknowledge that Feynman was overhyped posthumously while maintaining that he was an exceptional physicist with some personal flaws. That's precisely the point of the video. It's less axe grinding and more counter-acting an inaccurate narrative.
- mlyle 7mo ago
  He was a top 10 20th century physicist-- and the 20th century was full of rock stars-- and a Nobel Laureate. He also did more interesting work outside his core domain than you'd expect; the cooperation with Thinking Machines, the Rogers Commission, early use of computers as an instrument, institutional/advisory roles, etc. I think anyone who has read his narratives realizes the dude had some personal flaws.

mlyle 7mo ago

Yah. He didn't write the Feynman Lectures on Physics. He just came up with the unique arguments in them and gave the lectures at Caltech; it fell to Leighton and Sands to do most of the work of knitting it into a cohesive, coherent book. And his other books-- they're just his stories, trying to capture the characteristic style in which he talked, while editing it to be a cohesive written work. This criticism is maybe valid for QED-- I am not sure what fraction of that he was really involved in-- but not the rest of his body of work. Is this supposed to be bad?

rimunroe 7mo ago
Do you mean he didn’t write the lectures he gave to students? I know the books weren’t put together by him and were substantially edited, but I thought the original lectures as delivered by him were either all or largely his work. I once worked through part of the first volume of his lectures in the published book while listening to the recordings of him partly out of curiosity to see how much the original lectures as he gave them matched the ones which were compiled and published in written form (which I already knew was something not done by him). I came away feeling impressed one could either stick so closely to some lecture notes when lecturing and/or put together a written work which so closely matched a spoken one without coming across as being a transcript. It’s quite the accomplishment and one which I felt was a credit to everyone involved.
- mlyle 7mo ago
  Yah, I was saying the volumes. > put together a written work which so closely matched a spoken one without coming across as being a transcript. Leighton deserves the credit for this. Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through.
  - rimunroe 7mo ago
    > Leighton deserves the credit for this. Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through. It's pretty clear he also used the recordings of the lectures themselves. Otherwise there'd be a much bigger difference between the lectures as presented in the books and the audio recordings[1] of him actually giving the lectures. Leighton deserves a lot of credit, but the lectures Feynman gave were substantially similar enough that it's absurd not to act as though he didn't co-author them. > Feynman did share his notes, but Feynman's notes are.. an adventure.. to work through. I don't doubt his notes would be, however they also used the audio recordings of and took notes during the lectures themselves for the books. I'm not sure how much they relied on Feynman's notes themselves though. It's been about 15 years since I last read and listened to them together, but I recall the experience of the combined activity being that the book was surprisingly close to being a transcript of what he said (including references to figures which the books reproduced). This is why I thought it was impressive that the book didn't read like a transcript on its own. I rarely encountered professors who gave such well-structured lectures, but it seems like something Feynman could not only give prepared lectures in this way, but could do this off the cuff as well. [1] https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/flptapes.html https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/flptapes.html