Richard Feynman: Difference between revisions

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|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
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|content=Why am I brought up on the names Einstein, Dirac, Heisenberg, Feynman, Weinberg, etc ....and not flippin' Yang??? Yang=Da Man.
|content=Why am I brought up on the names Einstein, Dirac, Heisenberg, [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]], Weinberg, etc ....and not flippin' Yang??? Yang=Da Man.
|timestamp=1:59 AM · Aug 12, 2009
|timestamp=1:59 AM · Aug 12, 2009
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|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
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|content=Fascinated by Feynman fans who don't realize he would have humiliated them just to steal their wives at the end of the seminar.
|content=Fascinated by [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] fans who don't realize he would have humiliated them just to steal their wives at the end of the seminar.
|timestamp=2:32 PM · Sep 5, 2009
|timestamp=2:32 PM · Sep 5, 2009
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|content=Q: Was Feynman initially incapable of explaining his theory at a technical or a sociological level? (e.g. w/ Bohr, Oppenheimer)
|content=Q: Was [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] initially incapable of explaining his theory at a technical or a sociological level? (e.g. w/ Bohr, Oppenheimer)
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|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
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|content=Here's something I never got. Why did Feynman need Dyson to explain his theory? Did he? Or did he just need a non-Feynman?
|content=Here's something I never got. Why did [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] need Dyson to explain his theory? Did he? Or did he just need a non-Feynman?
|timestamp=5:39 AM · Sep 23, 2009
|timestamp=5:39 AM · Sep 23, 2009
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|usernameurl=https://x.com/EricRWeinstein
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|content=I understand the Dyson added value by tying together Schwinger with Feynman. But it seems like RF couldn't get past the resistance.
|content=I understand the Dyson added value by tying together Schwinger with [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]]. But it seems like [[Richard Feynman|RF]] couldn't get past the resistance.
|timestamp=5:43 AM · Sep 23, 2009
|timestamp=5:43 AM · Sep 23, 2009
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|content=Q1: Why did Feynman ask to be removed from the National Academy of Sciences?  
|content=Q1: Why did [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] ask to be removed from the National Academy of Sciences?  
Q2: How common is that?
Q2: How common is that?
|timestamp=3:59 AM · Sep 27, 2009
|timestamp=3:59 AM · Sep 27, 2009
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|content=Debating whether to remind actual physicists of the role of experimenters in the Tau-Theta circus. Feynman's take: http://www.gorgorat.com/
|content=Debating whether to remind actual physicists of the role of experimenters in the Tau-Theta circus. [[Richard Feynman|Feynman's]] take: http://www.gorgorat.com/
|timestamp=10:52 PM · Nov 11, 2009
|timestamp=10:52 PM · Nov 11, 2009
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|content=Oppenheimer's famous repeating of Wigner's calling Feynman 'a second Dirac' somehow managed to do no service to any of these heros. #nofecta
|content=Oppenheimer's famous repeating of Wigner's calling [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] 'a second Dirac' somehow managed to do no service to any of these heros. #nofecta
|timestamp=5:37 PM · Dec 1, 2009
|timestamp=5:37 PM · Dec 1, 2009
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|content="There have been many conferences in the world since, but I've never felt any to be as important as this." -R.Feynman on Shelter Island 1947
|content="There have been many conferences in the world since, but I've never felt any to be as important as this." -[[Richard Feynman|R.Feynman]] on [[Shelter Island Conference (1947)|Shelter Island 1947]]
|timestamp=3:09 PM · Feb 9, 2010
|timestamp=3:09 PM · Feb 9, 2010
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|content=How GREAT science really looks at the brink. Wrong/Uncredentialed/Glorious. Teller-Gamow-Feynman on genes: http://bit.ly/dcbIxa
|content=How GREAT science really looks at the brink. Wrong/Uncredentialed/Glorious. Teller-Gamow-[[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] on genes: http://bit.ly/dcbIxa
|timestamp=2:34 AM · Feb 16, 2010
|timestamp=2:34 AM · Feb 16, 2010
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|content=Lamentably, ZZ Top took its name from bluesmen BB King/ZZ Hill rather than a Feynman diag. scattering heavy hadrons by neutral currents.
|content=Lamentably, ZZ Top took its name from bluesmen BB King/ZZ Hill rather than a [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] diag. scattering heavy hadrons by neutral currents.
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|content=The battle for primacy in physics between Hamilton & Lagrange was largely decided by Richard Feynman. But ZZ Top didn't hurt.
|content=The battle for primacy in physics between Hamilton & Lagrange was largely decided by [[Richard Feynman]]. But ZZ Top didn't hurt.
|timestamp=12:16 PM · Feb 24, 2010
|timestamp=12:16 PM · Feb 24, 2010
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|content="In what sense is what happens at one place in a string independent of what happens at another?" -Feynman's last BBoard http://bit.ly/FStrng
|content="In what sense is what happens at one place in a string independent of what happens at another?" -[[Richard Feynman|Feynman's]] last BBoard http://bit.ly/FStrng
|timestamp=5:05 AM · Mar 3, 2010
|timestamp=5:05 AM · Mar 3, 2010
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|content="Take a risk w/ your lives that you will never be heard of again, & go off in the wild blue yonder & see if you can figure it out."R.Feynman
|content="Take a risk w/ your lives that you will never be heard of again, & go off in the wild blue yonder & see if you can figure it out."[[Richard Feynman|R.Feynman]]
|timestamp=5:34 AM · Mar 9, 2010
|timestamp=5:34 AM · Mar 9, 2010
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|content=Ron Unz was one of the smartest & most arrogant young people I met in HS.  
|content=Ron Unz was one of the smartest & most arrogant young people I met in HS.  


One lunch, Feynman ate him for breakfast: http://bit.ly/aUmlvz
One lunch, [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] ate him for breakfast: http://bit.ly/aUmlvz
|timestamp=4:22 AM · May 12, 2010
|timestamp=4:22 AM · May 12, 2010
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|content=If I recall correctly, "Foo" in pig latin is the name Feynman used to sign his artworks. #foocamp #foo
|content=If I recall correctly, "Foo" in pig latin is the name [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] used to sign his artworks. #foocamp #foo
|timestamp=5:58 PM · Jun 25, 2010
|timestamp=5:58 PM · Jun 25, 2010
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|content=Feynman's 10 year correspondence oddessy to resign from the National Academy of Sciences (1959-1969): http://bit.ly/9Axzu9
|content=[[Richard Feynman|Feynman's]] 10 year correspondence oddessy to resign from the National Academy of Sciences (1959-1969): http://bit.ly/9Axzu9
|thread=
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|content="I detest the National Academy of Sciences. I didn't have the guts to resign as Feynman did." -Freeman Dyson ABD, (All But Dissertation)
|content="I detest the National Academy of Sciences. I didn't have the guts to resign as [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] did." -Freeman Dyson ABD, (All But Dissertation)
|timestamp=6:02 PM · Jul 21, 2010
|timestamp=6:02 PM · Jul 21, 2010
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|content=The subordination of the insobordinate elite:  
|content=The subordination of the insobordinate elite:  
"That Feynman is becoming a real pain"
"That [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] is becoming a real pain"
http://bit.ly/moDE (as appendix F)
http://bit.ly/moDE (as appendix F)
|timestamp=10:34 PM · Sep 1, 2010
|timestamp=10:34 PM · Sep 1, 2010
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|content=Oddly, a mural to R. Feynman is built directly into the Ross 'dress for less' at 449 Shoppers Ln Pasadena CA, visible in Google StreetView,
|content=Oddly, a mural to [[Richard Feynman|R. Feynman]] is built directly into the Ross 'dress for less' at 449 Shoppers Ln Pasadena CA, visible in Google StreetView,
|timestamp=11:48 AM · Feb 8, 2011
|timestamp=11:48 AM · Feb 8, 2011
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|content=@BikeMath @CIA Dunno. It's often amazing what a single toxic person can do: R Feynman, M Davis, J Watson, W Pauli, etc... Not a short list.
|content=@BikeMath @CIA Dunno. It's often amazing what a single toxic person can do: [[Richard Feynman|R Feynman]], M Davis, [[Jim Watson|J Watson]], W Pauli, etc... Not a short list.
|timestamp=8:06 PM · Dec 12, 2016
|timestamp=8:06 PM · Dec 12, 2016
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|content=@Aaron__FF Jim Watson rules for succeeding in science. Feynman and Einstein's prose. Double helix and 8th day of creation. Shape of space.
|content=@Aaron__FF Jim Watson rules for succeeding in science. [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] and [[Albert Einstein|Einstein's]] prose. Double helix and 8th day of creation. Shape of space.
|timestamp=7:18 AM · Jan 27, 2017
|timestamp=7:18 AM · Jan 27, 2017
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|content=Arguably the second greatest physicist of the 20th century as drawn by another in the top tier (some would argue, top 5). Quite an honor.
|content=Arguably the second greatest physicist of the 20th century as drawn by another in the top tier (some would argue, top 5). Quite an honor.


The pair (Dirac & Feynman) are pictured at right. Dirac's odd leaning posture always reminds me: introverts need space from extroverts. https://t.co/P0Bjnuy6Hu
The pair ([[Paul Dirac|Dirac]] & [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]]) are pictured at right. Dirac's odd leaning posture always reminds me: introverts need space from extroverts. https://t.co/P0Bjnuy6Hu
|timestamp=10:52 PM · May 31, 2018
|timestamp=10:52 PM · May 31, 2018
|media1=Dejz0BtU0AA3yT6.jpg
|media1=Dejz0BtU0AA3yT6.jpg
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|content=@rcanacci @skdh Begin with Dirac, Einstein, Yang, Maxwell, Noether, Newton, Hamilton, Stuckelberg, Feynman as principle authors of the most fundamental equations and principles. And I'm not sure I am not stretching it slightly to appear broad minded.
|content=@rcanacci @skdh Begin with Dirac, Einstein, Yang, Maxwell, Noether, Newton, Hamilton, Stuckelberg, [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] as principle authors of the most fundamental equations and principles. And I'm not sure I am not stretching it slightly to appear broad minded.
|timestamp=8:34 PM · Jun 28, 2018
|timestamp=8:34 PM · Jun 28, 2018
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|content=Was not expecting to bump into one of the most inspiring scientists of our time. Freeman Dyson’s trajectory is a life to study. In particular his defeat of Oppenheimer’s opposition to Feynman’s Sum-Over-Historys at the @the_IAS taught me a lot about how great minds spar. https://t.co/WVBS8FFSyo
|content=Was not expecting to bump into one of the most inspiring scientists of our time. Freeman Dyson’s trajectory is a life to study. In particular his defeat of Oppenheimer’s opposition to [[Richard Feynman|Feynman’s]] Sum-Over-Historys at the @the_IAS taught me a lot about how great minds spar. https://t.co/WVBS8FFSyo
|timestamp=6:20 PM · Oct 16, 2018
|timestamp=6:20 PM · Oct 16, 2018
|media1=DppjjoRU0AA4gB1.jpg
|media1=DppjjoRU0AA4gB1.jpg
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Great Brain Series</br>
Great Brain Series</br>
Surely Your Joking Mr Feynman</br>
[[Richard Feynman|Surely Your Joking Mr Feynman]]</br>
Pippi Longstocking Series</br>
Pippi Longstocking Series</br>
The Double Helix</br>
The Double Helix</br>
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|content=@willwilkinson @seanilling It’s not all Feels. Look at E8 and tell me how you “feel”. Who came up with that? Killing? Freudenthal? Lie? No way. Not even Grothedieck and Witten with Feynman and Von Neumann’s help. None of us know what it is. Is hemoglobin socially constructed? Who asks this? No one I know.
|content=@willwilkinson @seanilling It’s not all Feels. Look at E8 and tell me how you “feel”. Who came up with that? Killing? Freudenthal? Lie? No way. Not even Grothedieck and [[Ed Witten|Witten]] with [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] and Von Neumann’s help. None of us know what it is. Is hemoglobin socially constructed? Who asks this? No one I know.
|timestamp=6:42 AM · May 9, 2019
|timestamp=6:42 AM · May 9, 2019
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|content=Thoughts on where we are and why we are stuck. Also, the parable of Feynman and the Rogers Challenger Commission. https://t.co/uSXbLAaxVV
|content=Thoughts on where we are and why we are stuck. Also, the parable of [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] and the Rogers Challenger Commission. https://t.co/uSXbLAaxVV
|timestamp=10:08 PM · Apr 25, 2020
|timestamp=10:08 PM · Apr 25, 2020
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Isadore Singer</br>
Isadore Singer</br>
R Gomory</br>
R Gomory</br>
R Feynman</br>
[[Richard Feynman|R Feynman]]</br>
And on &amp; on &amp; on...
And on &amp; on &amp; on...
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|content=“Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel prize.” -[[Richard Feynman|Richard P Feynman]]  
|content=“Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel prize.” -[[Richard Feynman|Richard P Feynman]]  


[[Morals|Moral]]: A little Feynman is a dangerous thing.
[[Morals|Moral]]: A little [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] is a dangerous thing.
|timestamp=3:44 PM · Mar 13, 2021
|timestamp=3:44 PM · Mar 13, 2021
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|content=They were smart. We were smart. They had Spassky, We had Fischer.  They had Shostakovich, we had Van Cliburn. Vysotsky v Dylan. Landau v Feynman.
|content=They were smart. We were smart. They had Spassky, We had Fischer.  They had Shostakovich, we had Van Cliburn. Vysotsky v Dylan. Landau v [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]].


That was a long time ago now.
That was a long time ago now.
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|content=This is a description of how [[Richard Feynman|Feynman’s]] brilliant “Sum Over Histories” technique went over at the Pocono conference in the spring of 1948. Feynman wasn’t able to explain what he was doing to even the world’s very top experts in Theoretical Physics!
|content=This is a description of how [[Richard Feynman|Feynman’s]] brilliant “Sum Over Histories” technique went over at the Pocono conference in the spring of 1948. [[Richard Feynman|Feynman]] wasn’t able to explain what he was doing to even the world’s very top experts in Theoretical Physics!


And how did he explain failure?
And how did he explain failure?
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|timestamp=2:55 PM · Dec 15, 2021
|timestamp=2:55 PM · Dec 15, 2021
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=== 2022 ===


=== 2025 ===
=== 2025 ===


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|content=Yes. I’m saying that the Jim Simons, Richard Feynman, Jim Watson, Steven Weinberg, Sidney Coleman, Ken Arrow, Linus Pauling, Isadore Singer, Joshua Lederberg, Steve Smale, Paul Samuelson, Mark Ptashne, John Milnor, model of homegrown American scientific genius is being destroyed.
|content=Yes. I’m saying that the [[Jim Simons]], [[Richard Feynman]], [[Jim Watson]], [[Steven Weinberg]], [[Sidney Coleman]], [[Ken Arrow]], [[Linus Pauling]], [[Isadore Singer]], [[Joshua Lederberg]], [[Steve Smale]], [[Paul Samuelson]], [[Mark Ptashne]], [[John Milnor]], model of homegrown American scientific genius is being destroyed.
|timestamp=8:17 AM · Nov 15, 2025
|timestamp=8:17 AM · Nov 15, 2025
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|content=Is anyone concerned about this? It sure doesn’t seem it.
|content=Is anyone concerned about this? It sure doesn’t seem it.


Science needs academic freedom. It needs resources. It needs independence.  
Science needs [[Academic Freedom|academic freedom]]. It needs resources. It needs independence.  


Fauci and Collins would have been impossible if we were healthy.
Fauci and Collins would have been impossible if we were healthy.

Revision as of 06:27, 10 January 2026

Richard Feynman

2009

Why am I brought up on the names Einstein, Dirac, Heisenberg, Feynman, Weinberg, etc ....and not flippin' Yang??? Yang=Da Man.

1:59 AM · Aug 12, 2009


New topic: the importance of "Kung Fu Panda".

3:34 PM · Aug 22, 2009

To begin with, like a Beethoven symphony, Kung Fu Panda is meant to be accessed on multiple levels with "Believe in yourself" as the lowest.

3:38 PM · Aug 22, 2009

The voice performances (w/ exception of Jolie) are all strong. Dustin Hoffman is fantastic. Jack Black solid, McShane and Duk Kim brilliant.

3:53 PM · Aug 22, 2009

But what makes Kung Fu Panda the film of the decade (ergo century, ergo millenium) is that it alone tackles a central issue of science.

4:10 PM · Aug 22, 2009

Driving Kung Fu Panda is the tension between dual modes of learning: Knowledge Transfer and Discovery. As innovator, Oogway is heirless.

4:26 PM · Aug 22, 2009

But Oogway who has a star mentee is not content with the fate of Dirac, Einstein, Feynman, etc... in not leaving an innovator-successor.

4:29 PM · Aug 22, 2009

[I know taking Kung Fu Panda seriously will lose followers....but I don't care about those eyeballs as the issue and film are too important]

4:31 PM · Aug 22, 2009

So while Oogway is master to Shifu who is/was master to both Tai Lung and Tigress he chooses to elevate the ostensibly inexplicable Panda.

4:36 PM · Aug 22, 2009

In fact, Panda has demonstrated two features in strapping himself to a firework propelled chair: a willingness to innovate and break rules.

4:38 PM · Aug 22, 2009

The film then shows the presumed successor (Tigress) as willing to break rules but previously shows this liniage to be prestige focused.

4:40 PM · Aug 22, 2009

Think of the Panda as having a major & minor advisor. The major advisor (Oogway) he meets only twice. To the minor advisor falls training.

8:44 PM · Aug 22, 2009

So university based PhD advising is based on the failed Shifu-Tigress model. But great science seeks the added Oogway-Panda dimension.

9:00 PM · Aug 22, 2009

Recommendation: If you must compare "Kung Fu Panda" to "Godfather I" or "War and Peace" do it on a Saturday in late August. #mytwocents

4:45 AM · Aug 23, 2009


Ever heard an organized religion complain that G-d would never slap some butt ugly quartic potential on the world to give it mass?

2:33 AM · Sep 2, 2009

To Dave Bacon: "Butt ugly" referred to the present motivation for the Higgs terms as intellectual spackle. Soft mass won't likely stay ugly

3:39 AM · Sep 2, 2009

Higgs mass is akin to the once poorly motivated "neutral currents" rejected by Feynman as merely invoked for renormalizabilty. Now: not so.

3:49 AM · Sep 2, 2009

Challenge to my physics followers: what could possibly make the Mexican Hat quartic gorgeous, natural and canonical? #daretodream

3:53 AM · Sep 2, 2009

Imagine before Watson-Crick I asked you: "Go nuts. What could possibly make Chargaff's Equimolar rules gorgeous, motivated and canonical?"

3:56 AM · Sep 2, 2009


Fascinated by Feynman fans who don't realize he would have humiliated them just to steal their wives at the end of the seminar.

2:32 PM · Sep 5, 2009


Here's something I never got. Why did Feynman need Dyson to explain his theory? Did he? Or did he just need a non-Feynman?

5:39 AM · Sep 23, 2009

I understand the Dyson added value by tying together Schwinger with Feynman. But it seems like RF couldn't get past the resistance.

5:43 AM · Sep 23, 2009

Q: Was Feynman initially incapable of explaining his theory at a technical or a sociological level? (e.g. w/ Bohr, Oppenheimer)

5:56 AM · Sep 23, 2009


Q1: Why did Feynman ask to be removed from the National Academy of Sciences? Q2: How common is that?

3:59 AM · Sep 27, 2009


Debating whether to remind actual physicists of the role of experimenters in the Tau-Theta circus. Feynman's take: http://www.gorgorat.com/

10:52 PM · Nov 11, 2009


Oppenheimer's famous repeating of Wigner's calling Feynman 'a second Dirac' somehow managed to do no service to any of these heros. #nofecta

5:37 PM · Dec 1, 2009

2010

"There have been many conferences in the world since, but I've never felt any to be as important as this." -R.Feynman on Shelter Island 1947

3:09 PM · Feb 9, 2010

Cost of 1947 Shelter Island Conference : $850.

Fixing Quantum Electrodynamics: Priceless.

3:24 PM · Feb 9, 2010


How GREAT science really looks at the brink. Wrong/Uncredentialed/Glorious. Teller-Gamow-Feynman on genes: http://bit.ly/dcbIxa

2:34 AM · Feb 16, 2010


The battle for primacy in physics between Hamilton & Lagrange was largely decided by Richard Feynman. But ZZ Top didn't hurt.

12:16 PM · Feb 24, 2010

Lamentably, ZZ Top took its name from bluesmen BB King/ZZ Hill rather than a Feynman diag. scattering heavy hadrons by neutral currents.

12:41 PM · Feb 24, 2010


"In what sense is what happens at one place in a string independent of what happens at another?" -Feynman's last BBoard http://bit.ly/FStrng

5:05 AM · Mar 3, 2010


"Take a risk w/ your lives that you will never be heard of again, & go off in the wild blue yonder & see if you can figure it out."R.Feynman

5:34 AM · Mar 9, 2010


Ron Unz was one of the smartest & most arrogant young people I met in HS.

One lunch, Feynman ate him for breakfast: http://bit.ly/aUmlvz

4:22 AM · May 12, 2010


If I recall correctly, "Foo" in pig latin is the name Feynman used to sign his artworks. #foocamp #foo

5:58 PM · Jun 25, 2010


"I detest the National Academy of Sciences. I didn't have the guts to resign as Feynman did." -Freeman Dyson ABD, (All But Dissertation)

6:02 PM · Jul 21, 2010

Feynman's 10 year correspondence oddessy to resign from the National Academy of Sciences (1959-1969): http://bit.ly/9Axzu9

6:08 PM · Jul 21, 2010


The subordination of the insobordinate elite: "That Feynman is becoming a real pain" http://bit.ly/moDE (as appendix F)

10:34 PM · Sep 1, 2010

2011

Oddly, a mural to R. Feynman is built directly into the Ross 'dress for less' at 449 Shoppers Ln Pasadena CA, visible in Google StreetView,

11:48 AM · Feb 8, 2011

2016

@BikeMath @CIA Dunno. It's often amazing what a single toxic person can do: R Feynman, M Davis, J Watson, W Pauli, etc... Not a short list.

8:06 PM · Dec 12, 2016

2017

@Aaron__FF Jim Watson rules for succeeding in science. Feynman and Einstein's prose. Double helix and 8th day of creation. Shape of space.

7:18 AM · Jan 27, 2017

2018

Arguably the second greatest physicist of the 20th century as drawn by another in the top tier (some would argue, top 5). Quite an honor.

The pair (Dirac & Feynman) are pictured at right. Dirac's odd leaning posture always reminds me: introverts need space from extroverts. https://t.co/P0Bjnuy6Hu

10:52 PM · May 31, 2018


In "Lost in Math", @skdh has written a necessary book that I've always hoped someone would never write. It lays out the argument that "Beauty" is a dangerous Siren for physics, which is almost always true. Except, unfairly, for a tiny top tier.

Beauty, it seems, loathes equity. https://t.co/t5QSsDJFyR

8:25 PM · Jun 28, 2018

@rcanacci @skdh Begin with Dirac, Einstein, Yang, Maxwell, Noether, Newton, Hamilton, Stuckelberg, Feynman as principle authors of the most fundamental equations and principles. And I'm not sure I am not stretching it slightly to appear broad minded.

8:34 PM · Jun 28, 2018


Was not expecting to bump into one of the most inspiring scientists of our time. Freeman Dyson’s trajectory is a life to study. In particular his defeat of Oppenheimer’s opposition to Feynman’s Sum-Over-Historys at the @the_IAS taught me a lot about how great minds spar. https://t.co/WVBS8FFSyo

6:20 PM · Oct 16, 2018

If you want a great introduction to the unusual thinking and sui generis wisdom of this man, you could do worse than his article on “Missed Opportunites”:

https://t.co/UOG2KErxl6

6:44 PM · Oct 16, 2018

2019

Under no circumstances should you give this material to kids:

Great Brain Series
Surely Your Joking Mr Feynman
Pippi Longstocking Series
The Double Helix
The Phantom Tollbooth
Old Mad Magazines
Songs by Tom Lehrer
All the Trouble in the World
Harrison Bergeron
The True Believer

1:54 AM · Apr 3, 2019


Got to geek out on the death of Sydney Brenner.

This is one of my favorite documents. A letter from Gamow to Crick about Richard Feynman & Edward Teller contemplating homoerotic (see drawing) overlapping codon models of the as yet unknown genetic code. Brenner debunked all such!

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1:50 AM · Apr 6, 2019

What a world. How exciting Science was. Can you imagine a world in which such big questions were comparatively elementary and wide open? Huge minds were so boldly imaginative. Playing. Like kids. Feynman/Gamow/Teller/Crick/Rich/Brenner.😼

And just a few decades ago.

Yesterday.

1:50 AM · Apr 6, 2019


@willwilkinson @seanilling It’s not all Feels. Look at E8 and tell me how you “feel”. Who came up with that? Killing? Freudenthal? Lie? No way. Not even Grothedieck and Witten with Feynman and Von Neumann’s help. None of us know what it is. Is hemoglobin socially constructed? Who asks this? No one I know.

6:42 AM · May 9, 2019

2020

Thoughts on where we are and why we are stuck. Also, the parable of Feynman and the Rogers Challenger Commission. https://t.co/uSXbLAaxVV

10:08 PM · Apr 25, 2020


Tom Lehrer
Noam Elkies
@LauraDeming
@MarcusduSautoy
@patrickc
@lishali88
@peterthiel
@thegoodtomchi*
@SamHarrisOrg
@joerogan
@tylercowen
@MsMelChen
James Simons
Jared Diamond
@StephenAtHome
@tferriss
@FutureJurvetson
@naval
Jimmy Kaltreider
@mkonnikova
@pmarca
Etc...

[no family]

2:09 AM · Oct 22, 2020

Freeman Dyson
@brookedallas
Sydney Coleman
@adamgazz
@balajis
@stephstem
Kevin Harrington
Jordan Greenhall
Daniel Schmachtenberger
@nntaleb
@annakhachiyan
@seanonolennon
@DavidYezzi
Raoul Bott
@DouglasKMurray
@jordanbpeterson
Isadore Singer
R Gomory
R Feynman
And on & on & on...

2:24 AM · Oct 22, 2020

2021

I have waited 55 years to see the richest man in the world stick it to “The Richest Man...IN THE WORLD!”

Also: imagine that the world’s wealthiest person can solve differential equations and knows what a Lagrangian is. Love this.

Mazal tov to @elonmusk for not giving a shit.

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4:33 PM · Jan 7, 2021

Hamiltonians have +2V the potential of Langrangians and a play!

7:16 PM · Jan 7, 2021

Huh. I also have a preference for Hamilton due to geometric quantization using pre-quantum line bundles to explain Heisenberg (cf Woodhouse). Legendre & Feynman not withstanding.

In LA. We should talk “beyond Mars” before 4/1. I could really use your..uh..brain. Fine either way.

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9:06 PM · Jan 7, 2021

We’ve never spoken. Lex and Joe have my contact info. I wanna get way outta here. Like yesterday.

9:11 PM · Jan 7, 2021


“Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel prize.” -Richard P Feynman

Moral: A little Feynman is a dangerous thing.

3:44 PM · Mar 13, 2021


Neil deGrasse Tyson is picking on the wrong guy.

Richard Feynman was remarked upon as being very articulate & seemingly naturally gifted at everything (other than Piano), and famously had great Rhythm. Now what if he had been black?

I am sure Neil gets a lot of BS. Not from BK.

12:52 AM · Jul 23, 2021

It’s tough when you see patterns invisible to the 🌎. Ask any tall woman, and she will tell you all the comments she hears every day. Or any Sikh wearing a Turban. Or any soul who is blind. Or any gay couple with kids..

Brian is well aware of Neil’s hard work. Weird interchange.

12:52 AM · Jul 23, 2021


They were smart. We were smart. They had Spassky, We had Fischer. They had Shostakovich, we had Van Cliburn. Vysotsky v Dylan. Landau v Feynman.

That was a long time ago now.

Oddly, some things now actually make me miss the Cold War with Soviet Russia:

https://t.co/OiKVU6bbjw

7:57 AM · Sep 29, 2021


“If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.” - Feynman

Feynman was not able to simply explain a great deal of things to many people. Including experts. I know that many of you find that shocking.

But Internet’s take is wrong here.

6:39 AM · Dec 15, 2021

If you cannot explain something in simple terms, you don't understand it.

ProfFeynman-X-post-955081219108061185-DUEhSM9U0AYiz-b.jpg
2:14 PM · Jan 21, 2018

Even the great Feynman said a great many meretricious things about science. Mostly because he wanted to speak in a powerful and overly simplistic fashion that lay people loved. “Hey, if I can’t understand you, it’s because YOU don’t get it! Ha.”

Except that isn’t how this works.

6:39 AM · Dec 15, 2021

This is a description of how Feynman’s brilliant “Sum Over Histories” technique went over at the Pocono conference in the spring of 1948. Feynman wasn’t able to explain what he was doing to even the world’s very top experts in Theoretical Physics!

And how did he explain failure?

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6:39 AM · Dec 15, 2021

Very simply: “My machines came from too far away.”

The Internet needs to grow out of its expectation that it can use what is possibly Feynman’s dumbest quote to dismiss those it cannot quickly understand. But it won’t. Why? Because the quote is both powerful and totally wrong.

6:39 AM · Dec 15, 2021

Disagree? Great. Prove it!

Step I: Get someone who understands “The Families Index Theorem on Manifolds with Boundary” to fully explain it simply to you.

Step II: Explain it to us all!

I look forward to conceding to you. Until then? Maybe go easy on Feynman’s dumbest take?

6:39 AM · Dec 15, 2021

If you still love repeating that Feynman quote despite the greater context provided, here’s some material. Ask your expository heroes to explain it.

Good luck. Because, if I’m not wrong, you’re gonna need it


[Until then, here’s a primary source:

https://imo.universite-paris-saclay.fr/~bismut/Bismut/1990e.pdf]

🙏

6:39 AM · Dec 15, 2021

Note: The quote in the original tweet has a typographical error. It should be:

"Hell, if I could explain it to the average person, it wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize."—Richard Feynman. As Quoted in “People”, 22 July 1985.

6:47 AM · Dec 15, 2021

@Eluminat1 Witten? Dirac? Did they make the cut?

6:53 AM · Dec 15, 2021

@karlbykarlsmith Not as I understand it. Feynman’s diagrams are just an indexing scheme for series terms albeit a provocative one. The apparent classical localization of position & momentum is taking place in the indexing diagram, NOT in the quantum propagator which the diagrams sum to construct.

7:02 AM · Dec 15, 2021

@NukeBeach Ultimately it required more time, more conferences, and Dyson, Bethe, and Wilson to put the full Theory in a form where it was accepted.

7:05 AM · Dec 15, 2021

@rolfascending @travislambirth Great. Just apply your critique in the terms you understand it to the challenge problem of the thread so I can fully appreciate the point of what you are saying. Thanks.

8:36 AM · Dec 15, 2021

@theoctobear It’s a test. Show us what it means to explain a proven theorem in simple terms. So easy. Find the experts who understand it and have them explain it in these simple terms that all interested parties can understand. Piece of cake I would think.

8:40 AM · Dec 15, 2021

@robnormal That’s the beginning. Then that the listeners be *highly* motivated. Also intelligent. Also, that no listeners are trying not to understand. Etc

Pretty soon it’s stone soup. You’re no longer explaining things quickly at a party but you’re now teaching QFT courses at university.

2:55 PM · Dec 15, 2021

2025

Yes. I’m saying that the Jim Simons, Richard Feynman, Jim Watson, Steven Weinberg, Sidney Coleman, Ken Arrow, Linus Pauling, Isadore Singer, Joshua Lederberg, Steve Smale, Paul Samuelson, Mark Ptashne, John Milnor, model of homegrown American scientific genius is being destroyed.

8:17 AM · Nov 15, 2025

Is anyone concerned about this? It sure doesn’t seem it.

Science needs academic freedom. It needs resources. It needs independence.

Fauci and Collins would have been impossible if we were healthy.

It is not safe to make scientists into mere employees.

It’s way too dangerous.

8:17 AM · Nov 15, 2025

It’s as if we, the U.S., hate being the worlds premier homegrown scientific community. All it takes is reversing self inflicted damage. That’s it. That’s all.

We seem to hate our own scientists.

It makes no sense. At least to me.

8:33 AM · Nov 15, 2025


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