Talk:Richard Feynman

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

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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.

Motion of Planets

After reading and listening to Feynman's Lost Lecture, I have become very dubious about this curious character. This book and recording provides an undisguised and revealing example of the man trying to explain science to undergraduates at Cal Tech. He was supposed to explain why the inverse-square law results in an elliptical orbit. He didn't. Worse, he moved quickly from that subject to an unrelated discussion of the behavior of particles in an atomic nucleus. His talk contained a few speaking errors and even one totally illogical statement concerning a person's ability to understand being determined at the beginning of time. Has Feynman been overvalued because of his eccentricities? Is this another "Emperor's New Clothes"? Lestrade 13:07, 2 October 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

That sounds a little harsh. I've read (but not heard) some of his lectures and they are very good; of course, some editing has gone into it, but it's nothing like how you describe. Also, he seemed to be popular with his students; usually lecturers that bad would be booed off stage already! Enochlau 14:16, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

His seeming popularity may have been the apparent result of many characteristics: jocularity, ebullience, etc.. In the early 1960s Cal Tech students would not have booed a lecturer, especially one who gave tests. Feynman himself admitted to something like a fraud. He said that he solved the Nobel Prize-winning renormalization problem by "sweeping it under the rug." That is, he used creative mathematics to rid the answer of bothersome infinities.

Lestrade 17:02, 2 October 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

As the Old Mathematics Professor of George Polya's experience used to say: "My method of solving problems is to go around them." It appears that you would prefer that Fermi's method be used to attack a problem (in other words, straight over the difficulty). If you are looking for a derivation of the motion of the planets satisfying a conic section, you might try Shames' engineering mechanics book. The Caltech students are very smart and would have seen that derivation already. As far as I know, the conventional mathematical proof was not one of Feynman's priorities. But I must admit I do not feel like spending money on the tape or book to address your critiques. Now I am curious. Feynman used numerical integration to demonstrate the elliptical orbit, in his red books. Are you saying he used a completely different scheme? What was it? If you are saying he used none, might it be because Robert Leighton re-used the numerical integration scheme that Feynman alluded to? As I understand it, the lost lecture was part of the lecture series, and Leighton would have heard it. Ancheta Wis 18:53, 2 October 2005 (UTC)

Feynman claimed to be using Euclidean geometry. He assumed that Newton also used Euclidean geometry. But, Newton actually used his own geometry, which utilized curvilinear figures, as well as nascent and evanescent limits. Also, Feynman stated that his demonstration included properties of Apollonius's conic sections, which he found to be difficult and quickly abandoned. Feynman is said to have devoted some time to the study of Newton, but he may have only studied the works on optics.

Lestrade 03:51, 3 October 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

If I may add my opinion - you're completely missing the point. Feynman's thinking here is that if one truly understands an idea, then one can describe it simply. If I recall correctly, he even mentions this at the beginning of the lecture, though it has been a year or two since I've listened to it. This lecture is already fairly widely known to have missed its mark with respect to what it tries to prove. The presence or lack of speaking mistakes says nothing of the man's ability to understand physics. Besides, he's from Queens (no offense to other folks from Queens). I think that Feynman has been valued quite correctly (note his Nobel Prize, work on the Challenger Disaster, and work on the atomic bomb - to name just a few). His use of creative mathematics, which in my opinion you have implied is a shortcoming, was in fact one of his strengths, which he admits in several of his popular works.

It would have been better if he had actually shown students how the inverse-square law necessarily results in an elliptic orbit, as advertised. Instead, he gave them a demonstration in public obfuscation. Feynman must have know that the inverse-square law could lead to hyperbolic and parabolic motions of planets , as well as elliptic. It is my opinion that, at the end of his lecture, not one student would have known why the inverse-square law results in an elliptic orbit. This can all be ignored with the assertion that calculus easily proves it, thus implying that anyone who doesn't see the Emperor's New Clothes, has defective perception.

Lestrade 12:56, 4 October 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

I'm unsure what your difficulty with this is. This lecture is known not to accomplish what it set out to accomplish. You're not stating anything new here. Making a generalization on Feynman's (or anyone's) character as a result of one lecture is suspect. Archimedes sought to calculate the number of grains of sand that would fill the universe in his Sand Reckoner. He got that wrong. In light of Archimedes' accomplishments, that can be overlooked. The situation is the same for Feynman. Have you read the other lectures that were prepared for the undergraduates?

My difficulty is with someone professing to explain an important topic and then not explaining it. Couple this with the convention that we must all pretend that the non-explanation was a great success. It may be lèse majesté to communicate this difficulty because of the general adulation for the speaker. I haven't read other lectures by Feynman. I am not discussing other lectures. Is it bad manners to analyze and dissect this lecture?

Lestrade 18:39, 4 October 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

Not at all, just bear in mind that it has been done. There are numerous documents even on the web dissecting this lecture already. I'm just unsure why you're posting it to an encyclopedia talk page. I'm not sure if I would consider deriving elliptical orbits with Euclidean geometry to be a topic of unsurpassed importance. And as I said before, there are existing critiques on this lecture - no one is pretending the explanation is a great success. I respect Feynman a great deal, but I've wondered in the past if this lecture was "lost" because of its failure to explain the topic - though that feels like tinfoil hat speak to me. It's not bad manners to analyze and dissect this lecture, I just question your choice of venue and motives.

As an addition to my previous comment, I see that there's an entry for the lost lecture which we're discussing - perhaps you should make an addition to the page with criticism and a summary of the problems with his derivations and conclusions. Right now it's just a brief summary of what the lecture is - it could use some fleshing out.

Thanks for the suggestion. I didn't know that Wiki had a page on it. Lestrade 12:15, 5 October 2005 (UTC)Lestrade

Nor did I until yesterday. It's linked in this article, second from the bottom in Books on Physics.

Arline or Arlene?

Google gives similar numbers for Arline Greenbaum vs Arlene Greenbaum, but the Arline number may be boosted by Wikipedia itself. In "What do you care what other people think?" Feynman himself calls her Arlene.

Gribben, Mehra, and Gleick all use Arline.

I did some additional digging. The original source materials spell her name "Arline" (source - J.Gleick, private correspondence). _What do you care..._ and _Surely You're Joking_ are transcribed audio histories, which were transcribed from recordings and then reviewed by Feynman - who by nature was not terribly concerned with consistencies of spelling. (source - R.Leighton, private correspondence). I also checked _Perfectly Reasonable Deviations_; the letters there use "Arline". Based on this, I recommend using the spelling "Arline" in this article. -- Danil

I just wrote an explanation into the article because I think this is pretty important (and a source of a lot of confusion). -- Starwiz 18:20, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

In my opinion, the spelling issue is not all that important and the extra explanation excessive. I would just spell it correctly and leave it at that, or insert "(sometimes incorrectly spelled Arlene)". Clarityfiend 07:42, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Apparently, Feynman tended to use "Arlene," while Arline herself spelled it with an 'i.' I'm quite sure he name was legally "Arline" - it was Feynman that tended to spell it with an 'e.' -zachol 05:40, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

In Don't You Have Time to Think? (Feynman's personal correspondence, Penguin Books 2006; the same as Perfectly Reasonable Deviations..., I believe) Arline is explicitly used, including letters written by Feynman. Could be an editorial decision, though. Or not. 194.157.147.7

Cleanup

There are a few parts of this article that should be cleaned up so that this article doesn't appear on FARC, since I don't know much about the subject I thought I'd make suggestions here:

1. Whats up with the references? There are some in text notes and no corresponding reference list. All the works in Works by Feynman have links but are not actaully linked from the text.
2. Quotes should be moved to Wikiquote and removed, the second link to Wikiquote should be removed too.
3. The personal life section is bitsy, and short sections need to be merged
4. The three fair use images shoudl be tagged {{fairusein}} and fair use rationales need to be provided.

--nixie 10:56, 5 January 2006 (UTC)

I oppose removing the quotations about understanding. They are fundamental knowledge which will not propagate unless they are associated with this article, which is the most accessible article on the web. --Ancheta Wis 01:30, 13 February 2006 (UTC)

Feynman's IQ

Note that his relatively low IQ score as a youth is particularly counterpoised by his Princeton entrance exams, which would be enough to get him into a high IQ society. --24.253.120.206 21:08, 9 Feb 2006 (UTC)

Manhattan Project

The sections states that:

they did not "do the physics right"

Does anyone know what that means, or what it's referring to? FireWorks 02:45, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

He never told us. But his (un-used) solution involved the inverse half derivative $D^{-1/2}\,f(x)$ where $D={\frac {d}{dx}}\,$. To his classes, it was an aside to an entertaining problem: "What is one-half factorial?", which was part of the question "What are the eigenfunctions for $D^{-1/2}\,$?". His entire agenda was to get us to play with things, to conduct research. --Ancheta Wis 10:17, 14 February 2006 (UTC)

So, I guess my question is, who is "they", and who said that they didn't "do the physics right", and whose solution was used? If that sentence is staying in the article, then these should be clarified. FireWorks 02:54, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

"They" would have been in the Theoretical divison (T). (Feynman was in the Computation section T-6 of division T; he was the one who said they did not "do the physics right".) The Project had equations to be solved on blackboards. Stan Ulam in his autobiography mentions being terrified by those equations, as he was expected to solve them, being a mathematician (Ulam had a collaborator for his own computations -- C.J. Everett from the University of Wisconsin-Madison, who wore out his slide rule doing computations). But to repeat, Feynman's solution was unused in the Project; Feynman was a junior physicist at the time, and was not responsible for formulating the incorrect differential equation. --Ancheta Wis 03:18, 25 February 2006 (UTC)

reference

"Feynman said he felt just as much respect for Bohr's reputation as anyone else, but that once anyone got him talking about physics, he couldn't help but forget about mere social considerations and just openly try to figure out how the physics worked."

I removed the words "mere" and "just openly" because it seemed kind of obviously POV and there was no citation indicating it was a quote. so the paragraph reads

"Feynman said he felt just as much respect for Bohr's reputation as anyone else, but that once anyone got him talking about physics, he couldn't help but forget about social considerations and try to figure out how the physics worked."

...which I still think should be sourced by author. In fact, a lot of things need to be sourced, but this one, just for starters. --Jentizzle 11:59, 16 February 2006 (UTC)

OK, I found it. The story's on page 116 of "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!". Bohr's son Aage is the one who told Feynman afterwards. He also did the same thing with Hans Bethe. The clearest quote is actually from the Bethe anecdote, on page 95: You see, when I hear about physics, I just think about physics, and I don't know who I'm talking to, so I say dopey things like "no, no, you're wrong," or "you're crazy." I'm too new at this to know how to add the reference though. Clarityfiend 07:33, 27 February 2006 (UTC)

Arlene's illness

The article says that Arlene had tubercolosis.

This is quite an important point, not just a biographical detail. Richard himself describes it in one of his books, but I've forgotten which, and I've also forgotten the details. Perhaps somebody will correct the article?

Arlene was initially misdiagosed (tubercolosis???), or could not be diagnosed. Richard spent time with medical books and worked out correctly what she had (Hodgkins disease?) while the doctors were still floundering. Richard says in his book that that is where he got his lifelong distrust for what the experts say. 213.208.107.91 00:31, 8 March 2006 (UTC)

Thank you for the note. I see that the article has been corrected to note that she was diagnosed with tuberculosis (not that she actually had it).

Actually you've got it reversed. In fact, the misdiagnosis was Hodgkins disease. The illness was tubercolosis. This is clear from the biographies. 203.76.194.70 21:44, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Partons versus quarks

The newest addition attributes quarks to Feynman. I would like to revise the sentence to either say partons or omit quarks altogether. --Ancheta Wis 09:55, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

omit Trödel 12:46, 18 March 2006 (UTC)

Stylistic Problems with this article

Maybe I'm crazy, but this article reads to me like a biography or an obituary, not an encylopedia entry.

For example: at the end of the Biography section: "His habit of direct characterization would sometimes disconcert more conventional thinkers; for example, one of his questions when learning feline anatomy was: "Do you have a map of the cat?" (referring to a zoological chart). When he spoke, it was with clarity."

Or in the Manhattan Project section: "Feynman was also sought out by the famous physicist Niels Bohr for one-on-one discussions. He later found out why. Most physicists were too much in awe of Bohr to argue with him, but Feynman had no such inhibitions, vigorously pointing out anything he considered to be flawed in his thinking."

It reads like a story, not an encylopedia entry.

Maybe it's just me, and Lord knows I couldn't do better. Just had to say something.

Maybe I’m crazy, but “this article reads to me like a biography,” followed by an example “at the end of the Biography section” is pretty funny. — Daniel Brockman 20:57, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Fair enough, and I thought about that when I wrote it. But I assume you know what I mean. — Antar 15:53, 27 March 2006 (UTC)

I think this article is one of the better examples of how encyclopedia entries can be encyclopedic yet far more readable and lucid than your average encyclopedia article. enochlau (talk) 21:34, 26 March 2006 (UTC)

Grammatical error?

"Interestingly, Feynman once borrowed the car of physicist Klaus Fuchs in order to visit his sick wife, who was later discovered to actually be a spy." So his wife was later discovered to actually be a spy? News to me. JaWiB 03:59, 28 March 2006 (UTC)

I think adding a comma, to make it "Interestingly, Feynman once borrowed the car of physicist Klaus Fuchs, in order to visit his sick wife, who was later discovered to actually be a spy." would've made it correct. Current version is fine, though. -zachol 05:44, 14 June 2006 (UTC)

Precise dates

I notice that there are not many precise dates for parts of his life like "The Caltech years" or "Later years". In fact I don't seem to be able to find out when he was signed up to the Manhattan project, when he started teaching at Caltech etc. Could someone who knows these dates add them, possible in the subheadings: ==The Caltech Years (1900-2020)== etc Stevage 10:05, 7 April 2006 (UTC)

Somebody else will have to do clean up, but here is some raw data -- Danil

• Feynman left Princeton for Los Alamos 28 March 1943 (Mehra)
• Feynman arrived at Cornell beginning of November 1945 (Mehra)
• Feynman joins Caltech autumn of 1950 (Mehra)
• Rio sabbatical 1951-1952 Academic year (Mehra)

Error about Caltech

"Feynman did much of his best work while at Caltech, including research in:

• Quantum electrodynamics. The theory for which Feynman won his Nobel Prize is known for its extremely accurate predictions[citation needed],[2]. He helped develop a functional integral formulation of quantum mechanics, in which every possible path from one state to the next is considered, the final path being a sum over the possibilities.[3]

"

Feynman QED work was published before he left Cornell for Caltech in 1950. There was one paper in 1951 on the operator calculus. Whole story can be found at: 'Feynman and the visualization of space-time processes.' Silvan S. Schweber. Reviews of Modern Physics, v58(2), p449, April 1986.

Could someone write a separate section on his QED work? It shouldn't be in the Caltech section. It's unarguably his most important work, and the story of its development is interesting on its own. The roles of Schwinger, Tomonaga, and Dyson can be referenced. 203.76.194.70 22:03, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Map of the Cat == zoological chart?

From the article:

for example, one of his questions when learning feline anatomy was: "Do you have a map of the cat?" (referring to a zoological chart).

In Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, part 2, it says that Feynman wanted to look for the map because he didn't know about the positions of the muscles relative to the nerves and the cat. It was the librarian who said "You mean a zoological chart!".

However, searching for zoological chart on search engines gives me taxonomy charts, not anatomy charts, so I'm getting the impression that the librarian was wrong to assume to that a map of the cat was a zoological chart. Maybe the article should be changed to mention "anatomy chart" or some other relevant term instead? --KJ 03:08, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

Edited to mention "anatomical chart." --KJ 00:12, 8 May 2006 (UTC)

Quotations

I think it may be wise for the quotes on Feynman's page to be taken down since there is a Wikiquote to house all of his man's great quotes. Please decide if we should or not.--Shawn 04:36, 14 May 2006 (UTC)

I took the quotes off but put them as a just in case:

Quotations

• "Dear Mrs. Chown, Ignore your son's attempts to teach you physics. Physics isn't the most important thing. Love is. Best wishes, Richard Feynman."
• "Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation."
• "Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."
• "Mathematics is not real, but it feels real. Where is this place?"
• "The same equations have the same solutions." (Thus when you have solved a mathematical problem, you can re-use the solution in another physical situation. Feynman was skilled in transforming a problem into one that he could solve.)
• "When you are solving a problem, don't worry. Now, after you have solved the problem, then that's the time to worry."
• "The wonderful thing about science is that it's alive."
• "All fundamental processes are reversible."
• "What does it mean, to understand? ... I don't know."
• "What I cannot create, I do not understand." (Taken from his chalkboard after his death.)
• "Know how to solve every problem that has ever been solved." (Taken from his chalkboard after his death.)
• "But I don't have to know an answer. I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose—which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly. It doesn't frighten me."
• "To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature ... If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in."
• "I cannot define the real problem, therefore I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem." (about Quantum Mechanics)
• "I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring" (last words).

--68.107.198.227 00:57, 16 May 2006 (UTC)

I don't recall the exact quote on the futility of Biblical religions orthodoxy: "The stage has become so vast to contain the drama". It's somewhere in the preface of his letters, 2005 or 2006, edited by the daughter Michelle and quoted by a colleague. The exact phrasing ? Bardon Dornal 12:52, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

• "English is a lousy language." -- an offhand comment in class, one day. --Ancheta Wis 10:17, 3 June 2006 (UTC)

Shouldn't there be references for these quotes? (Cj67 17:21, 17 June 2006 (UTC))

public-domain photo

Currently, the article is using a copyrighted color photo of Feynman under fair use in the lead. I believe the famous photo of Feynman playing the bongos is actually public domain, and therefore might be more appropriate for wp. A copy of the photo is here: http://www.bnl.gov/bnlweb/pubaf/pr/photos/2005/feynman-300.jpg . The BNL page gives a photo credit to Tom Harvey, but I think that's incorrect; the book Feynman's Tips on Physics, Addison-Wesley, 2006, uses it on the cover, and states that the photographer is unknown, and that the photo is from ca 1962. I'm sure AW (which is continuing to make money on Feynman's stuff) would love nothing better than to be able to show the photo was copyrighted, and I'm sure they did a routine copyright search on the photo before using it on the cover. Works published in the US before 1964 had to have their copyrights renewed after 28 years, or they expired, and since I assume AW did a copyright search, it sounds like the photo's copyright was not renewed. (Searching for copyright renewals of photos is pretty difficult.) In any case, the legal aspects of the bongo photo seem much safer than the legal aspects of the color one, so I'm going to go ahead and replace it.--24.52.254.62 22:48, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

The photo of Feynman playing the bongos that appears on the cover of "Feynman's Tips on Physics" was a present from Richard Feynman to Ralph Leighton. The original print hangs in Leighton's office. It is reproduced in "Feynman's Tips on Physics" by courtesy of Leighton, as stated on the copyrights page of the book. Regardless of the photo's legal status, permission should be sought to reproduce it as a courtesy to Leighton. Ralph Leighton can be contacted through the Feynman Lectures website: http://www.feynmanlectures.info. Michael A. Gottlieb (co-author,"Feynman's Tips on Physics") 2 June, 2006

I disagree that it's discourteous not to ask permission from Leighton. It's the same situation as reproducing a Van Gogh painting without permission from the current owner of the original canvas who has it hanging over his couch. If we knew who the original photographer was, it would be courteous to credit him or her.--24.52.254.62 22:54, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

Side Issue- Does anyone else find it ironic that Feynman's wikipedia entry is headed by a picture of him playing the bongos, while he himself refused to allow Encyclopedia Britannica to use this photo in their article on him? (This is from Gleick) Iluvcapra 23:56, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

See #Drum image. —Keenan Pepper 15:30, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Good article

I would like to promote this article to Good article status. It's a great and interesting text, even though there is large room for Peer review to do something with this and even make it a featured article. However, before any of that, we have to solve issues with these images:

• Image:Nobel feynman.jpg -- old fair use tag, need to be updated.
• Image:Feynman caltech 1974.png -- non-commercial only. This one should be deleted.

❝Sverdrup❞ 23:44, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

• I tried to take care of this. Nick Mks 18:19, 7 June 2006 (UTC)
• I was not satisfied with Image:Nobel feynman.jpg being used here. It is a copyrighted image to the Nobel Prize Association, it is not a promotional image, and there are free alternatives available. So that means it doesn't qualify for fair use here. For some other fair use images I have added fair use rationales on the image pages. I think those are very valid.--Konstable 13:44, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Promoted - I am promoting this article to GA status.--Konstable 13:44, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

onegoodmove

The link to the "subj based clips" of the Finding thinhgs out video seems to be broken. Are they no longer hosting the video? Can the link be removed? --81.105.251.160 03:00, 15 June 2006 (UTC)

Feynman's invented notation

It would be a great idea if someone could add examples of what Feynman's ideosyncratic notation looked like. I've read that he thought sinx was amiguous, so he must have created something of his own. --85.206.189.220 19:14, 27 June 2006 (UTC)

He learned the concept from his father, who taught him that ideas transcend words and notation. This is clearly stated in the Ralph Leighton books. (Others using the same concept include Robert Lee Moore, where independent derivation of mathematical concepts was nurtured by decades of teaching, based on the axiomatic method, and then developing the concepts in a collegial atmosphere, in a remote school, the University of Texas. Thus the Texas students, instead of arcsin(x) might be given the notation Q(x) so that they couldn't even cheat by looking up something from a book. ) But back to your request; Feynman would sometimes write exponents as subscripts rather than superscripts; for example some number in a table, like Avogadro's number $6.02*10^{23}$ might have been written $6.02_{23}$; it was perfectly understandable to read from the blackboards; other examples, which are documented in the Feynman lectures in Physics, are the use of Blackboard bold to denote vectors, rather than the vinculum over a symbol. Another was a high-school question of his which was to find an expression for the half-derivative such that

${\sqrt {D}}=D^{1/2}\,$

where D is the derivative, an operator (rather than a function or a number)

$D={\frac {d}{dx}}\,$

He learned this habit of mind in high school (to use an independent notation), which he attempted to impart to his students with ideosyncratic notation, merely trying to free their minds from the grip of authority. This notation was shorthand, of course, for something to be applied consistently, as in any mathematical notation. --Ancheta Wis 01:23, 28 June 2006 (UTC)

Pronunciation

pronounced FINE-man; /ˈfaɪnmən/ in IPA)

Hi, I reverted FINE-min to FINE-man. I think FINE-man is better because "-man" has a schwa in fireman and policeman, akin to Feynman. (Most unstressed syllables in English have a schwa, regardless of the spelling.) --Kjoonlee 02:20, 2 July 2006 (UTC)

Drum image

Feynman says very clearly in WDYCWOPT that he hated being associated with that picture of him drumming. Does anyone know of another image we could lead with? Perhaps one made on the occasion of the Nobel Prize? Gazpacho

Come to think of it, that might have been in Gleick's biography instead. Gazpacho 17:22, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

That's not quite it, as I remember (and my memory is good). He was contacted by some (Swedish?) encylopedia who wanted to use the picture to (roughly speaking) show that theoretical physicists were actual human beings and that's what he didn't like -- pandering to some prejudice about scientists as inhuman calculating machines -- and so he refused permission to use the picture, ending his reply letter with "... I am human enough to tell you to go to hell." It wasn't the picture itself he disliked. 137.82.188.68 01:24, 18 August 2006 (UTC)

About his religion

Was he really atheist? I've listened to him speaking about God in some of his lectures about physics.

Yes, he says in either SYJ or WDYCWOPT that by a certain age he was a committed atheist. Gazpacho 17:23, 25 July 2006 (UTC)

Incorrect Quotation

Feynman did not say "computer models are a disease" ... this is an untrue statement from one of Michael Crichton's books that has been repeated all over the net ... what Fenyman said was: "There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It's a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you 'play' with them! "

Javaman, the "computer models" misquotation does not appear in the article. I can vouch for your statement about "play", and how Nick Metropolis had fallen under its spell, as well. So from the pov of the article, we need do nothing. --Ancheta Wis 20:34, 30 July 2006 (UTC)

Regular pot smoker?

I read in many places that Feynman was a regular pot smoker. Dr Lester Grinspoon comented in his book "Marijuana Reconsidered" that Feynman acknowledged his ongoing user of cannabis. Though, the only true source i've found (Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman) only describes one marijuana experience, at John Lilly's sensory deprivation tanks.

Any ideas, with sources or citations, that confirm that he was a regular pot smoker, as Carl Sagan was?

Skepticism About Superstrings

I've been struggling through two recently-published books critical of string/superstring theory. Both of them quote comments Feynman made shortly before his death. Apparently, his anti-string comments are well known, an irritant to some and a rallying point for others. Shouldn't they be included here? Or maybe they have been but I missed it? --Christofurio 23:16, 3 September 2006 (UTC)