Richard Feynman: Difference between revisions

=== This scientist's life provides examples of: ===

 

** It's rather funny to think that he opposed for years the theory of [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parity_conservation#Parity_violation parity violation in weak interactions] - which, simplifying ''very'' much, states that you can tell left from right at a subatomic level.

* [[Casanova]] - Who says all scientists are nerds?

* [[Famous Last Words]] - "I'd hate to die twice. It's so ''boring''."

* [[Hard On Soft Science]] - Very much. That is, he was interested in such areas and was very annoyed to discover that beyond the neurophysiology starts the endless swamp of speculations he as a physicist just could not take seriously. And then managed to convey his opinion on the matter to surprising number of people.

** It should be noted that he didn't intentionally flunk, he simply answered honestly. For instance, when the psychologist asked if he thought people stared at him, he said, "Yeah, probably a few staring right now," referring to the small room with people waiting who have nothing else to look at. The psychologist said that was "narcissistic tendencies with paranoia".

* [[Mouthful of Pi]] - He wanted to memorize Pi up to the 762nd digit, at which point there is a string of six nines in a row, so that he could say "...nine nine nine nine nine nine, and so on" and thus mislead people into thinking Pi was a rational number. This misconception is amplified by the fact that up to that point, the longest string of repeating digits is only 3 digits long. This sequence has been named the Feynman Point in his honor.

* [[Sucky School]] - He hunted down a lot of the dumb gobbledygook displacing any real science from the education once it was brought to his attention. Wrote ''Lucky Numbers'', ''O Americana, Outra Vez!'', ''Judging Books by Their Covers''.

{{quote| The main purpose of my talk is to demonstrate to you that ''no'' science is being taught in Brazil!}}

* [[The Rival]] - Many of his colleagues found him abrasive and unprofessional, but his two greatest rivals were Julian Schwinger (with whom he, along with Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, shared the above-noted Nobel,) and Murray Gell-Mann.

* [[Theme Tune]] - [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kgT7q8iuac This] was written about him.