Minor correction: Feynman’s first wife died of tuberculosis, while he was working @Los Alamos with the Manhattan Project. The love letter he wrote her after she died is one of the most touching things I’ve ever read.
The important insight into Feynman's character is that he loved her so much that he knowingly married a woman with a highly contagious respiratory disease which was fatal at the time. He put love above risk.
I took a physics class in Oakland University in Michigan a few years ago. When the professor asked if anyone knew about Feynman, only one person and myself raised hands out of 100 students. The myth about Feynman is that he is well known.
@@eshaanmandal5150 I hope he is...because it sounds really disappointing that 2 out of 100 people IN A PHYSICS CLASS know about Feynman...this shows that they went to study physics not by desire but by force...
I had Feynman as a professor at Caltech and I think he wasn't a math person, but at a very high level. He was interested in applied math and not the pure proof-based math of the sort favored by those trying for the Fields Medal. But of course, he was eminently interested in applied math and how to use it to work out problems in physics, etc. Like other physicists at Caltech, he would sometimes jokingly say, "As physicists we just assume all equations are differentiable."
That's not a minor correction - Doctors figured out how to cure TB about the same time she was dying of it but the cure didn't become available until several years later.
@@markcarey67 That is in fact a minor correction, what he is trying to correct is the affirmation "Feynman's first wife had polio", by saying that he is pretty sure that it was tuberculosis, not polio.
Feynman is so likable because he was able to translate hardcore quantum stuff into normal language. He would visualize the smallest subatomic details and make sense out of it for anyone to understand. So he was not only a great scientist, he was a genius teacher as well.
Lex, Grant is a wonderful intuitive unfiltered speaker. I hope you do many interviews with him. I think the genius of your interview style is that you are an excellent catalyst. You ask questions and give responses and explanations that really open up your guests. They’re so engaged that they just gush.
Feynman actively cultivated that as part of his reputation. Wolfram talks about how he would work on a problem doing calculations all night and then once he got the answer he would work even harder to figure out the insightful approach by working backwards. Then he would give the impression that the insightful path in was the only way it ever made sense to him. While Wolfram appreciated it as entertainment, Gell-Mann spoke about it as annoying, and the showmanship was the main reason they never got along.
Yeah. When he and his adviser Wheeler released a paper with deep math in it, at least some of the physicists who read it thought Feynman did the math as they thought Wheeler couldn't do that deep math.
@@The_Quaalude literally the person speaking in this clip. If the name is unknown to you, you might know him as 3Blue1Brown, although the voice is easily recognisable. He's a great math educator on TH-cam.
@@losboston That's a contradiction in terms. But honestly, all orbits precess to some degree due to perturbations from other planets so it's kinda silly to treat mercury as the one exception.
I’ve encountered this problem in Engineering, but I think by no means it is slowing you down. I tried to imagine what the “learning curve” of someone who always tries to self-discover would look like. And it seemed to me like it resembles an exponential function of time, while a “reader” learns gradually, like a straight line with some slope to it, usually related to the time invested and the amount of info. Then it becomes obvious that the feeling of being “slowed down” by thinking things through is just a matter of the beginning, cause once your learning curves cross, they will never touch again. And I think Feynman figured it out, and he trusted the process to become who he is
@Shah Bhuiyan why are you not answering huh? Dude was just joking and you attacked him clearly because you are an inferior human being that wants to elevate oneself by belittling others.
I still remember these 2 pages in which Feynman, just starting from th Coulomb equation and the Heisenberg uncertainty inequalities deduced the approximate radius of the hydrogen atom. And this makes you touch that quantum mechanics is not kind of a luxury of the mind, but the right explanation of the very consistence of matter, its tangibility. Kind of magic, uh?
I read the introductory chapter of Feynman's lecture and I was like how someone can explain something in such a crystal clear way no one can explain better than him
I’ve never really heard that many people know about Feynman even in an academic setting. But his method and ability to understand subjects and describe them is amazing.
- Recognize the complexity behind Feynman's iconography (Start: 0:33) - Reevaluate Feynman's contributions beyond his public persona (Start: 0:48) - Acknowledge Feynman's deep love for mathematics and science (Start: 1:37) - Embrace Feynman's method of personal reinvention in problem-solving (Start: 2:28) - Consider adopting Feynman's approach to mastering concepts through rediscovery (Start: 3:09) - Balance the need for reinvention with efficiency in learning and research (Start: 3:21)
Yea it's pretty crazy to hear someone say something like Feynman was not a math person. Really? The guy that after decades of people trying and failing managed to figure out QED?!
What I like about Feynman is that he claimed to dislike philosophy, but when you dig into him, you find a philosopher of science on the level of Mach and Popper. In this way, he was like Einstein and Bohr, except unlike Einstein and Bohr who knew that what they were doing was philosophy, Feynman never wanted to admit it.
It seems to be fashionable for physicists to be arrogantly anti-philosophy, in their physics-beats-everything way. Which is stupid since there are important questions which are not scientifically answerable, which nevertheless can't easily be waved away. You need some kind of philosophy to get yourself out of bed in the morning.
@@anthonyflack5826 not really, I think it's down to a misconception about philosophy. I assumed that philosophy degrees were about keeping your mind open, exploring all sorts of schools of thoughts, and then debating (?) or comparing them. Maybe they are, I'm not sure and I haven't checked. But I think most people believe this is what a philosophy degree, or real philosophy, entails. What I would do when I was young instead was only pick out the schools of thought interesting to me, or ones that furthered my world view. And it seems that's also what most people do too (just a guess). I don't think philosophy is about picking and choosing, it's a lot harder than that. And people who study philosophy for philosophy's sake are very different from people who pick and choose a school of thought/write down their own way of seeing the world. That's what I assume lots of people claim they hate or dislike it. They don't dislike philosophizing to support their view of the world or challenge it in a direction it was already sort of swaying to, they hate actual philosophy because the act of philosophy for philosophy's sake doesn't interest them, and looking at schools of thought you weren't already interested in, or don't reflect your personality, feels boring to them.
@@anthonyflack5826 The issue is twofold: 1. Those questions for which science has no answer are either boring or out of scope (e.g. is this beautiful etc) 2. The questions which science can't answer, philosophy can't answer either. Physicists have a strong bias in that we have seen everything "intuitively obvious" or "rationally justifiable" crumble away before our very eyes by the realization that the world has no obligation to behave in a way that makes sense to us. It's perfectly natural and encouraged to be skeptical of an activity that by its very nature is unfettered from experimental verification. Would I go as far as some and decry philosophy as worthless? Not necessarily. It has been valuable in pointing the way to questions that can be useful to ask. But, and this is important, the ultimate goal of philosophy in this light is to melt away and disappear. To turn subjects that are the subject of philosophy into subjects of other fields that can actually be studied in a way that produces usable reliable knowledge. Natural philosophy stopped being natural philosophy and became physics, and that's a great success story for philosophy. Moral philosophy and ethics, on the other hand, remain philosophy even after thousands of years of intensive study and lack unambiguous answers to even the simplest problems. That's a great failure.
This is kind of misguided. He definitely clarified at some point in his life that he didn't like philosophy insofar as it was word games, or "rules about chmess." He clearly had no qualms about thinking deeply through things and was indeed an extremely philosophical person, as you say.
@@isodoubIetTo say that the questions of "What is beauty?" one of the most profound and deeply human questions to ever be formulated is "boring" is perhaps the most embarassing thing someone could ever say. To say that the question that gripped Aristotle, Kant, Leibniz and others, all of them great scientists/mathematicians is boring is idiotic. You and all who think so are lowly to it! Philosophy can't answer what Science can't either? Science can't even prove its method to be adequate within its own system! What experiment will you devise to show that making experiments and analysing data is a way to procure the truth? You can't unless you appeal to circular reasoning. The scientific method is born out of philosophy and is only one way of getting to the truth next to many others.
Richard felt Arlene’s symptoms pointed to TB but her doctors initially believed otherwise. His family was extremely disturbed over their marriage given her disease but Richard knew marriage was the only option to allow him to care for her. All this is discussed in Feynman books.
These two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Yes, he was a philanderer, brilliant and also loved his first wife. He was also sometimes disturbingly condescending towards women and also supported women in science. You can be all those things. He was admirable in some ways and deplorable in some.
If you find anything about Feynman deplorable, my advice to you is to try to spend a smaller percentage of your life deploring things. Usually when you spend time hating other humans' flaws, you're making things worse, not better. I'm probably just picking on your choice of words here.
@@NanClaymore Isn't the opposite just as true? If you only ever look for the good you aren't looking at reality. SM makes that point that Feynman is human, like all of us.
Agreed, people are "round" characters, you do some great, some good, some bad, some evil. People try and look at only the actions of any person that fit in one of those categories then ignore the actions that fit into the other three.
@@NanClaymore Hmm. Perhaps like you said we're simply arguing semantic vocabulary but I absolutely deplore all human greed, including my own. Doesn't mean it's the only thing I think about when considering someone.
3:03 SUPER important you will develop a superb understanding if you rediscover everything by yourself But if you're cramming for an exam it might not be optimal use of your time
It might not be optimal use of your time in general. Even Feynman and others like him will still read some things in the conventional way. The method described is just one often used tool for learning something well.
Not a math guy? He's the only reason I've ever heard of differentiating under the integral sign, and I majored in math! (Not at first; that was physics, but still...)
Dyson and Feynman were a different class of scientists and mathematicians. They embraced rigor and philosophy in their work. Feynman's letter to his dead wife captured this dichotomy. The science of death and finality, coupled with the philosophy of love for a strong woman. To think critically and to love truly, is one of life's greatest goals.
That's total bullshit. You simply didn't read Feynman's papers. He was perfectly willing to take mathematical leaps. His path integral, for instance, doesn't converge. To a mathematician the whole construction is ill-defined. It can still be made to work and part of his genius was to allow for such strange leaps of mathematical faith. A rigorous mathematician would have thrown the entire idea out in a minute.
Obviously physicists don't really care for rigor as much as mathematicians, but even with that in mind, Feynman was not even the physicist level of rigorous. He did some decent work, but is mostly famous for pop sci, and in the modern times, misogyny.
Oh wow weird, I also like the personal ownership (also the humbling moment when you learn more and better methods others have found) the understanding and appreciation is also much deeper of the better methods
Even if you read "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman", you will note how very much in love he was with the beauties of mathematics when you see his competition with the Japanese gentleman in Brazil, where he explains approximations of various mathematical calculations. Even on such a basic level, Feynman loved mathematics. How on Earth is anyone meant to read a physics paper without knowing differential equations, and how is anyone meant to write one without knowing them intimately.
Rational Feynman: The cliche one that everyone loves Real Feynman: The one we get to know through his wife letters Complex Feynman: Guess we'll never know
Yes, you can. Read his physics papers. Do not read his textbooks. They are total junk. They tell you one thing about him: he sucked at teaching, most likely because he didn't care.
the bit about his first wife was included in "you must be joking, mr. feynman (vol. I) I was touched by it when I first read it. there was a picture of them together as well.
WRT "Feynman doesn't like math" - In "The Character of the Physical Law" Feynman writes that unlike other sciences, math is "built-into" physics. For example with Chemistry, you have the concept of chemical bond which is not mathematical, and you can explain a lot by working out the consequences of this concept. But in Physics, the basic principles can be expressed only using math.
That is utterly false. Physics is not mathematics and Feynman was the last person on Earth to use mathematics in physics as it is being used by mathematicians.
@@schmetterling4477 Well, I read "The Character of Physical Law" many years ago, and don't remember the exact wording. I've looked it up on Wikipedia - chapter 2 is called "The relation of mathematics and physics". If my memory serves me correctly, this chapter explains pretty much what I've written. That is not to say that Physics is Mathematics, and Feynman certainly tried to distill the physical reality from the Mathematical equations. But he did, as far as I recall, make that statement in that book, in that chapter, that Mathematics to Physics is not some "syntactic sugar" and you cannot reduce the mathematical equations through which physical laws are expressed into some non-mathematical model. Even when a gifted lecturer like Feynman explains Physics to non-mathematical persons, he does not make the presumption of "teaching Physics" because to Feynman, Theoretical Physics is about calculating the expected results of experiments, no more, no less.
Этот фрагмент показывает как важны мысли и переживания связанные со смертью. Так то в первом интервью Персонаж говорил что не часто думает о смерти, а тут прям оно
I do think Feynmans attitude towards math was somewhat unusual amongst modern physicists, in the sense that he approached it with a healthy dose of irreverence. He didn't see math as this thing that older and wiser people gleamed out of the platonic cave for him to guide him towards physical insight; but as what it actually is; a tool to play with, in order to structure and render precise your ideas about the physical world. I think his anecdote about the Banach-Tarski paradox illustrates this well. The idea that the conclusions arrived at by the axioms chosen by some set-theorists locked up in an ivory tower with complete disdain for the relation of those axioms to the physical world, is to be taken seriously by a physicist, is something he had little patience with. As admired as Feynman is, few of our contemporaries really take that lesson to heart, in my opinion, but thats far too long a topic for a youtube comment im affraid.
In Surely You're Joking Feynman talks about studying advanced calculus by himself as a little kid so I don't know how someone would read that book and come out with the impression that he wasn't really a math person. He was also always pretty much the smartest kid in the classroom and never struggled for job offers. Compare that to Einstein for example who was relatively mediocre in his graduation class, had several doctor thesis' rejected and wasn't accepted a job as an assistant in any university at first despite applying to several.
I love the subtle, but clear, Pepsi Co. product placement in these Lex videos. Now I don't appreciate the subtle attempts to manipulate me into buying Pepsi Co. products BUT it's way better than having to listen to somebody plug a beverage. That and Pepsi is better than Coke, but I'm on to you, Lex Fridman Podcast Videos.
It's because most people see math as just calculation: rote, static, often concrete, all about numbers, and so archetypically a combination of sensing and thinking (ST). This is in stark contrast to what _mathematics_ actually is: abstract, intuitive, unending, constantly being created and reframed, often detached from anything “real”, and borderline philosophical despite its partial foundations in logic (archetypically intuitive-thinking: NT). In contrast, the scientific method is much better at fulfilling the aforementioned ST role in the world. So, she was probably correctly archetyping Feynman as somewhat anti-ST but thought that entailed being anti-calculation, when in reality it was more an aversion to the work of science.
A lot of physicists make fun of pure mathematicians, and vice-versa. But their intimately related fields, so anyone sufficiently good at physics must know some pretty advanced math. And as a mathematician myself, I don't know that it's possible to understand profound far-reaching bits of math without liking them. So a bit of interdisciplinary good-natured ribbing is just to do with the slightly different mindsets inherent in the two persoectives
3:46 we know from current neuroscience that you may gain subconsciously things you may not be consciously aware of in thinking through problems from scratch.
Some scientists have "NIH" -- Not Invented Here. If they didn't invent it, they're not interested in it. But absolutely, we have to take personal ownership of our own learning and research.
Not true it is good to rediscover/reinvent. When you read a paper and it is beautiful and clear, you copy it, you do not reinvent. When you read a paper that looks important and it's obfuscated and wonkish, a show-off rather than a show-tell, _then_ you need to reinvent and DIY.
You’re a f..lippin hero, Grant! I very much appreciate both these men, even if they provide perspectives quite differently. Wish one of the two of them, or stat quest, would explain gmm to me 😅
Am I the only one who is a big fan of 3blue1brown but didn't realize this guy is THAT GUY until half of the clip...I even felt the voice sounds familiar...
@@BulentBasaran A true genius might not know. A person who thinks themself one, likely has read many books. I was called a genius in college by friends who I thought were far more intelligent than myself. For about 4 years I discussed topics at the local coffeehouse with Ph.Ds, etc. Amazing how many shared time in the morning with a carpenter. 😁 One day, two friends in the 60s--- both professors and businessmen, told me this: "You are our teacher and we are your students." I was writing at night on messageboards; but I never shared my writings with anyone in the coffeehouse. They helped me be a better writer in a changing world.
Yeah, this mythology of people like Einstein and Feynman being "bad" at math is so ridiculous on its face. Like Feynman, Einstein had mastered differential and integral calculus by 15. Feynman clearly had little interest in proving theorems about axiomatic structures the way mathematicians do, but why would he? He was a physicist after all, and not only was he a master calculator, but an inventor of practical mathematical tools (like his diagrammatic technique for quickly analyzing the terms in perturbation expansions). Fun fact: In 1939, Feynman was the top scorer by a large margin on the notoriously difficult Putnam exam, a national mathematical competition so difficult the median score is often zero. Bad at math?? My eye!
Minor correction: Feynman’s first wife died of tuberculosis, while he was working @Los Alamos with the Manhattan Project.
The love letter he wrote her after she died is one of the most touching things I’ve ever read.
Misspoke unfortunately, but it isn't minor.
The important insight into Feynman's character is that he loved her so much that he knowingly married a woman with a highly contagious respiratory disease which was fatal at the time. He put love above risk.
That letter broke my heart. You dead are so much better than anyone else alive...
I took a physics class in Oakland University in Michigan a few years ago. When the professor asked if anyone knew about Feynman, only one person and myself raised hands out of 100 students.
The myth about Feynman is that he is well known.
Surely you're joking, right?
@@eshaanmandal5150 I hope he is...because it sounds really disappointing that 2 out of 100 people IN A PHYSICS CLASS know about Feynman...this shows that they went to study physics not by desire but by force...
Lol if Feynman isn't well known among physics students, I can't imagine who is!
@@aditimuthkhod1252 Figure it out, Einstein!
That’s so random, I live a mile away from OU lol
One thing that Mr Sanderson shares with Mr Feynman is the ability to explain complex subjects in terms a less mathematical person can understand.
really someone who takes the inspiration to heart
I was wondering why "Mr. Sanderson" sounded malicious cool and badass, then I realised it rhymes with "Misterr Aaandersonnn"
not necessarily
@@PompiScopes
But effectively, in quite a few ways, yes.
Better he turnsthem into mathematical people (whatever that is)
I flatly disagree that he's "not like him at all." The ability to explain complex things simply is rare and valuable, and this guy has it.
He's aware he is a great teacher and he is intelligent but all of us also knows that and that is humbling enough.
@@omniyambot9876 u r the og boy
@@omniyambot9876 this guy is on the same step
Yup
I had Feynman as a professor at Caltech and I think he wasn't a math person, but at a very high level. He was interested in applied math and not the pure proof-based math of the sort favored by those trying for the Fields Medal. But of course, he was eminently interested in applied math and how to use it to work out problems in physics, etc. Like other physicists at Caltech, he would sometimes jokingly say, "As physicists we just assume all equations are differentiable."
So what you're saying is, he was more of a QED guy than a QED guy
@@higgsbosonberg4316 exactly
Which Feynman are you talking about.
Minor correction: pretty sure his first wife had tuberculosis, not polio.
Yes Tuberculosis.
That's not a minor correction - Doctors figured out how to cure TB about the same time she was dying of it but the cure didn't become available until several years later.
@@markcarey67 That is in fact a minor correction, what he is trying to correct is the affirmation "Feynman's first wife had polio", by saying that he is pretty sure that it was tuberculosis, not polio.
@@markcarey67 people still die of tuberculosis but just not written as such (say bacterial pneumonia)
*had covid
Feynman is so likable because he was able to translate hardcore quantum stuff into normal language. He would visualize the smallest subatomic details and make sense out of it for anyone to understand. So he was not only a great scientist, he was a genius teacher as well.
Lex, Grant is a wonderful intuitive unfiltered speaker. I hope you do many interviews with him. I think the genius of your interview style is that you are an excellent catalyst. You ask questions and give responses and explanations that really open up your guests. They’re so engaged that they just gush.
This guy surely loves Feynman so much so that he went on to rock same hairstyle as Mr. Feynman 😀
This guy .. really ... You don't know him ... Ok now you know him
😂😂
undoubtedly both are awesome ❤️❤️❤️
lol I doubt it
And still rocking it. 💙💙
Wait common public think Richard Feynman is not a math guy...?? Hmmm I never knew that. It's so obvious that he's passionate and great in math
Feynman actively cultivated that as part of his reputation. Wolfram talks about how he would work on a problem doing calculations all night and then once he got the answer he would work even harder to figure out the insightful approach by working backwards. Then he would give the impression that the insightful path in was the only way it ever made sense to him. While Wolfram appreciated it as entertainment, Gell-Mann spoke about it as annoying, and the showmanship was the main reason they never got along.
If memory served me right, he was placed first in Putnam Math Competition, which is notoriously difficult and the median score is almost always zero.
dont sht urself bruh
Yeah. When he and his adviser Wheeler released a paper with deep math in it, at least some of the physicists who read it thought Feynman did the math as they thought Wheeler couldn't do that deep math.
I saw him as a physics guy before I started my maths undergrad
As someone that greatly admires Richard Feynman, I am glad that we someone as gifted as Grant Sanderson today.
@@Anonymous-wp7lm lol
Who?
@@The_Quaalude literally the person speaking in this clip. If the name is unknown to you, you might know him as 3Blue1Brown, although the voice is easily recognisable. He's a great math educator on TH-cam.
@@maleldil1 who's the other guy?
"In today's video, I want to show you something really cool in .", Grant Sanderson (3blue1brown).
A beautiful example of Feynman "discovering it for himself" is his proof that the planets must follow elliptical paths around the sun.
Mercury disagrees
Good one! However, I wonder if it is still elliptical, just precesses?
Given Einstein's general relativity, is any planetary orbit an ellipse, or only a very close approximation?
@@BulentBasaran No need to summon general relativity for it to be an approximation... it's just a simplified model anyways.
@@losboston That's a contradiction in terms. But honestly, all orbits precess to some degree due to perturbations from other planets so it's kinda silly to treat mercury as the one exception.
He's right when he speaks about how self-discovery slows you down , at the same time being so much fun. Wish there were a solution to this.
I’ve encountered this problem in Engineering, but I think by no means it is slowing you down. I tried to imagine what the “learning curve” of someone who always tries to self-discover would look like. And it seemed to me like it resembles an exponential function of time, while a “reader” learns gradually, like a straight line with some slope to it, usually related to the time invested and the amount of info. Then it becomes obvious that the feeling of being “slowed down” by thinking things through is just a matter of the beginning, cause once your learning curves cross, they will never touch again. And I think Feynman figured it out, and he trusted the process to become who he is
I think it slows you down in the short term, but it offers better understanding in the long term
maybe start early and have that sense of self-awareness early would help and have a focus
As soon as Grant spoke I was like: "Hey, I know this voice!!" : D
Feynman's QED is one of my favorite books. It's a great intro to Quantum physics.
why no one is talking about grant's emergent bicep???
because it has nothing to do with the topic and isn't relevant
And why isn’t anyone talking about his wedding ring?!!
I knew this comment was going to be there somewhere!
Pause
@@kingplunger1 lmao
I like Feynman.
I don't like The Super Bowl.
@Shah Bhuiyan wow, take a chill pill bruh, I was just kidding, I love skateboarding and ping pong
@Shah Bhuiyan you are the edgy one here, just assuming that hes trying to be the superior guy
@Shah Bhuiyan why are you not answering huh? Dude was just joking and you attacked him clearly because you are an inferior human being that wants to elevate oneself by belittling others.
I still remember these 2 pages in which Feynman, just starting from th Coulomb equation and the Heisenberg uncertainty inequalities deduced the approximate radius of the hydrogen atom. And this makes you touch that quantum mechanics is not kind of a luxury of the mind, but the right explanation of the very consistence of matter, its tangibility. Kind of magic, uh?
This is a common exercise in first year problem sets.
@@appa609 ... now! This shows that 'common' differs from 'valueless' ;-)
HarDiMonPetit I agree it's cool. Just pointing out it's not that difficult.
@@appa609 its not that difficult at this point of time but isn't necessarily previously
HUP --> reduced Compton wavelength, divide by fine structure constant. Done. It is kinda neat, tho.
I read the introductory chapter of Feynman's lecture and I was like how someone can explain something in such a crystal clear way no one can explain better than him
I’ve never really heard that many people know about Feynman even in an academic setting. But his method and ability to understand subjects and describe them is amazing.
not sure how someone could have read surely you're joking and not realized how good feynman was at math...in his head.
- Recognize the complexity behind Feynman's iconography (Start: 0:33)
- Reevaluate Feynman's contributions beyond his public persona (Start: 0:48)
- Acknowledge Feynman's deep love for mathematics and science (Start: 1:37)
- Embrace Feynman's method of personal reinvention in problem-solving (Start: 2:28)
- Consider adopting Feynman's approach to mastering concepts through rediscovery (Start: 3:09)
- Balance the need for reinvention with efficiency in learning and research (Start: 3:21)
Feynman was a genius in the true sense of the word...He mastered physics as well as the depths of understanding needed & was bored.
Yea it's pretty crazy to hear someone say something like Feynman was not a math person. Really? The guy that after decades of people trying and failing managed to figure out QED?!
Topped Putnam by a long margin btw
First I hear of it too. The guy was one of the most gifted calculators this world has ever seen, and that's how he's known to physicists.
Never heard of Grant Sanderson. I am deeply impressed of the awareness of his short introduction in this video. Wished to see more of him.
What I like about Feynman is that he claimed to dislike philosophy, but when you dig into him, you find a philosopher of science on the level of Mach and Popper. In this way, he was like Einstein and Bohr, except unlike Einstein and Bohr who knew that what they were doing was philosophy, Feynman never wanted to admit it.
It seems to be fashionable for physicists to be arrogantly anti-philosophy, in their physics-beats-everything way. Which is stupid since there are important questions which are not scientifically answerable, which nevertheless can't easily be waved away. You need some kind of philosophy to get yourself out of bed in the morning.
@@anthonyflack5826 not really, I think it's down to a misconception about philosophy. I assumed that philosophy degrees were about keeping your mind open, exploring all sorts of schools of thoughts, and then debating (?) or comparing them. Maybe they are, I'm not sure and I haven't checked. But I think most people believe this is what a philosophy degree, or real philosophy, entails.
What I would do when I was young instead was only pick out the schools of thought interesting to me, or ones that furthered my world view. And it seems that's also what most people do too (just a guess). I don't think philosophy is about picking and choosing, it's a lot harder than that. And people who study philosophy for philosophy's sake are very different from people who pick and choose a school of thought/write down their own way of seeing the world. That's what I assume lots of people claim they hate or dislike it. They don't dislike philosophizing to support their view of the world or challenge it in a direction it was already sort of swaying to, they hate actual philosophy because the act of philosophy for philosophy's sake doesn't interest them, and looking at schools of thought you weren't already interested in, or don't reflect your personality, feels boring to them.
@@anthonyflack5826 The issue is twofold:
1. Those questions for which science has no answer are either boring or out of scope (e.g. is this beautiful etc)
2. The questions which science can't answer, philosophy can't answer either.
Physicists have a strong bias in that we have seen everything "intuitively obvious" or "rationally justifiable" crumble away before our very eyes by the realization that the world has no obligation to behave in a way that makes sense to us. It's perfectly natural and encouraged to be skeptical of an activity that by its very nature is unfettered from experimental verification.
Would I go as far as some and decry philosophy as worthless? Not necessarily. It has been valuable in pointing the way to questions that can be useful to ask. But, and this is important, the ultimate goal of philosophy in this light is to melt away and disappear. To turn subjects that are the subject of philosophy into subjects of other fields that can actually be studied in a way that produces usable reliable knowledge. Natural philosophy stopped being natural philosophy and became physics, and that's a great success story for philosophy. Moral philosophy and ethics, on the other hand, remain philosophy even after thousands of years of intensive study and lack unambiguous answers to even the simplest problems. That's a great failure.
This is kind of misguided. He definitely clarified at some point in his life that he didn't like philosophy insofar as it was word games, or "rules about chmess." He clearly had no qualms about thinking deeply through things and was indeed an extremely philosophical person, as you say.
@@isodoubIetTo say that the questions of "What is beauty?" one of the most profound and deeply human questions to ever be formulated is "boring" is perhaps the most embarassing thing someone could ever say. To say that the question that gripped Aristotle, Kant, Leibniz and others, all of them great scientists/mathematicians is boring is idiotic. You and all who think so are lowly to it! Philosophy can't answer what Science can't either? Science can't even prove its method to be adequate within its own system! What experiment will you devise to show that making experiments and analysing data is a way to procure the truth? You can't unless you appeal to circular reasoning. The scientific method is born out of philosophy and is only one way of getting to the truth next to many others.
Richard felt Arlene’s symptoms pointed to TB but her doctors initially believed otherwise. His family was extremely disturbed over their marriage given her disease but Richard knew marriage was the only option to allow him to care for her. All this is discussed in Feynman books.
i love Grant Sanderson. hes one of the few that talks a lot about the process of human learning and intuition, which are extremely powerful concepts
I was his student and he supervised my dissertation. Trust me; he was a Math Guy.
Wow. That’s awesome. What was the topic of your dissertation?
These two things aren’t mutually exclusive. Yes, he was a philanderer, brilliant and also loved his first wife. He was also sometimes disturbingly condescending towards women and also supported women in science. You can be all those things. He was admirable in some ways and deplorable in some.
If you find anything about Feynman deplorable, my advice to you is to try to spend a smaller percentage of your life deploring things. Usually when you spend time hating other humans' flaws, you're making things worse, not better. I'm probably just picking on your choice of words here.
@@NanClaymore Isn't the opposite just as true? If you only ever look for the good you aren't looking at reality. SM makes that point that Feynman is human, like all of us.
@@NilsDougan you can recognize flaws without deploring. "Feynman is human, like all of us". Yes. And no, you don't need to deplore all of us.
Agreed, people are "round" characters, you do some great, some good, some bad, some evil. People try and look at only the actions of any person that fit in one of those categories then ignore the actions that fit into the other three.
@@NanClaymore Hmm. Perhaps like you said we're simply arguing semantic vocabulary but I absolutely deplore all human greed, including my own. Doesn't mean it's the only thing I think about when considering someone.
3:03 SUPER important
you will develop a superb understanding if you rediscover everything by yourself
But if you're cramming for an exam it might not be optimal use of your time
It might not be optimal use of your time in general. Even Feynman and others like him will still read some things in the conventional way. The method described is just one often used tool for learning something well.
Not a math guy? He's the only reason I've ever heard of differentiating under the integral sign, and I majored in math! (Not at first; that was physics, but still...)
Maybe that says more about you than about him..? ;)
@@PHMNABANEET_SHARMA maybe that says more about physics education in India than it does about him?
@@somefuckstolemynick Feynman was a great physicist.
@@kugelblitz-zx9unand when have I claimed anything else?
@@somefuckstolemynick i said that bcuz maybe you wanted everyone who comments to say something about feynman.
Dyson and Feynman were a different class of scientists and mathematicians. They embraced rigor and philosophy in their work. Feynman's letter to his dead wife captured this dichotomy. The science of death and finality, coupled with the philosophy of love for a strong woman. To think critically and to love truly, is one of life's greatest goals.
That's total bullshit. You simply didn't read Feynman's papers. He was perfectly willing to take mathematical leaps. His path integral, for instance, doesn't converge. To a mathematician the whole construction is ill-defined. It can still be made to work and part of his genius was to allow for such strange leaps of mathematical faith. A rigorous mathematician would have thrown the entire idea out in a minute.
Obviously physicists don't really care for rigor as much as mathematicians, but even with that in mind, Feynman was not even the physicist level of rigorous.
He did some decent work, but is mostly famous for pop sci, and in the modern times, misogyny.
Oh wow weird, I also like the personal ownership (also the humbling moment when you learn more and better methods others have found) the understanding and appreciation is also much deeper of the better methods
Even if you read "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman", you will note how very much in love he was with the beauties of mathematics when you see his competition with the Japanese gentleman in Brazil, where he explains approximations of various mathematical calculations. Even on such a basic level, Feynman loved mathematics. How on Earth is anyone meant to read a physics paper without knowing differential equations, and how is anyone meant to write one without knowing them intimately.
I love your insights about "trying to solve all problems himself".
This is probably his strongest but also his weakest point.
hi NoName
Rational Feynman: The cliche one that everyone loves
Real Feynman: The one we get to know through his wife letters
Complex Feynman: Guess we'll never know
Yes, you can. Read his physics papers. Do not read his textbooks. They are total junk. They tell you one thing about him: he sucked at teaching, most likely because he didn't care.
@@schmetterling4477 Maybe you suck at learning
For a physicist and mathematician , The way the deepness of these fields are their whole life goes like in sparkles of wonder
the bit about his first wife was included in "you must be joking, mr. feynman (vol. I) I was touched by it when I first read it. there was a picture of them together as well.
Incredible how his voice is identical to his videos, the same flow of words and stuff
being as articulate as grant is a state to aspire to
Feynman was a beast, he rediscovered calculus as a kid
WRT "Feynman doesn't like math" - In "The Character of the Physical Law" Feynman writes that unlike other sciences, math is "built-into" physics. For example with Chemistry, you have the concept of chemical bond which is not mathematical, and you can explain a lot by working out the consequences of this concept. But in Physics, the basic principles can be expressed only using math.
That is utterly false. Physics is not mathematics and Feynman was the last person on Earth to use mathematics in physics as it is being used by mathematicians.
@@schmetterling4477 Well, I read "The Character of Physical Law" many years ago, and don't remember the exact wording. I've looked it up on Wikipedia - chapter 2 is called "The relation of mathematics and physics". If my memory serves me correctly, this chapter explains pretty much what I've written. That is not to say that Physics is Mathematics, and Feynman certainly tried to distill the physical reality from the Mathematical equations. But he did, as far as I recall, make that statement in that book, in that chapter, that Mathematics to Physics is not some "syntactic sugar" and you cannot reduce the mathematical equations through which physical laws are expressed into some non-mathematical model. Even when a gifted lecturer like Feynman explains Physics to non-mathematical persons, he does not make the presumption of "teaching Physics" because to Feynman, Theoretical Physics is about calculating the expected results of experiments, no more, no less.
@@urisimchoni3936 No, that is not what theoretical physics is about, either. :-)
@@schmetterling4477 th-cam.com/video/obCjODeoLVw/w-d-xo.html
That's what I was trying to express, Feynman does it better of course.
I really enjoyed this video quite a bit. Always love to hear perspectives, especially on an icon such as Richard Feynman.
Feynman was always curating his legacy.
Not really. He was simply rambling all the time.
3:08 i can feel that .....this literally happens to me.
This man’s voice is just melodic
That 1946 letter raises an echo in my brain:
"I woke up this morning and I wrote down this song / I just can't remember who to send it to."
Fred
That letter made me cry lol
You should read the whole thing, search for it online.
Этот фрагмент показывает как важны мысли и переживания связанные со смертью. Так то в первом интервью Персонаж говорил что не часто думает о смерти, а тут прям оно
God I hate this guy so much, it’s this feeling of distrust, like he’d throw you under the bus over nothing
I do think Feynmans attitude towards math was somewhat unusual amongst modern physicists, in the sense that he approached it with a healthy dose of irreverence. He didn't see math as this thing that older and wiser people gleamed out of the platonic cave for him to guide him towards physical insight; but as what it actually is; a tool to play with, in order to structure and render precise your ideas about the physical world. I think his anecdote about the Banach-Tarski paradox illustrates this well. The idea that the conclusions arrived at by the axioms chosen by some set-theorists locked up in an ivory tower with complete disdain for the relation of those axioms to the physical world, is to be taken seriously by a physicist, is something he had little patience with. As admired as Feynman is, few of our contemporaries really take that lesson to heart, in my opinion, but thats far too long a topic for a youtube comment im affraid.
In Surely You're Joking Feynman talks about studying advanced calculus by himself as a little kid so I don't know how someone would read that book and come out with the impression that he wasn't really a math person. He was also always pretty much the smartest kid in the classroom and never struggled for job offers.
Compare that to Einstein for example who was relatively mediocre in his graduation class, had several doctor thesis' rejected and wasn't accepted a job as an assistant in any university at first despite applying to several.
Grant, I think you and Feynman have another thing in common. You also likely have young mathematicians today aspiring to be like you.
Be sure to listen to Feynman's 1975 lecture _Los Alamos From Below._ It's as fascinating as it is hilarious.
I love the subtle, but clear, Pepsi Co. product placement in these Lex videos. Now I don't appreciate the subtle attempts to manipulate me into buying Pepsi Co. products BUT it's way better than having to listen to somebody plug a beverage. That and Pepsi is better than Coke, but I'm on to you, Lex Fridman Podcast Videos.
Hey - let's keep it real. She didn't have polio, she had tuberculosis.
If Robert Pattinson and Feynman could talk on TH-cam
It's because most people see math as just calculation: rote, static, often concrete, all about numbers, and so archetypically a combination of sensing and thinking (ST). This is in stark contrast to what _mathematics_ actually is: abstract, intuitive, unending, constantly being created and reframed, often detached from anything “real”, and borderline philosophical despite its partial foundations in logic (archetypically intuitive-thinking: NT). In contrast, the scientific method is much better at fulfilling the aforementioned ST role in the world. So, she was probably correctly archetyping Feynman as somewhat anti-ST but thought that entailed being anti-calculation, when in reality it was more an aversion to the work of science.
I can't hear that voice without thinking about a family of pi symbols with faces and emotions.
This was too short !
Well, Feynman made fun of mathematicians a bit in his Surely You're Joking book, so it looks like he dislikes pure math at least.
A lot of physicists make fun of pure mathematicians, and vice-versa. But their intimately related fields, so anyone sufficiently good at physics must know some pretty advanced math. And as a mathematician myself, I don't know that it's possible to understand profound far-reaching bits of math without liking them. So a bit of interdisciplinary good-natured ribbing is just to do with the slightly different mindsets inherent in the two persoectives
3:46 we know from current neuroscience that you may gain subconsciously things you may not be consciously aware of in thinking through problems from scratch.
Lex turning into golden frieza
Didn't Richard Feynman ace Putnam Maths competition? With little prep?
Could you atrribute the Feynman photo (author: The Nobel Foundation)?
Feynman name is itself is level of batman !!
“What do you guys think about the new rule changes in the NFL?” “Well, Super Bowl.”
Some scientists have "NIH" -- Not Invented Here. If they didn't invent it, they're not interested in it. But absolutely, we have to take personal ownership of our own learning and research.
nobody talking about how ripped grant is
Not true it is good to rediscover/reinvent. When you read a paper and it is beautiful and clear, you copy it, you do not reinvent. When you read a paper that looks important and it's obfuscated and wonkish, a show-off rather than a show-tell, _then_ you need to reinvent and DIY.
You’re a f..lippin hero, Grant! I very much appreciate both these men, even if they provide perspectives quite differently. Wish one of the two of them, or stat quest, would explain gmm to me 😅
I’d like to see lex and grant go blunt for blunt
Wasn't it tuberculosis not polio?
What books you advice to code, algorithms and general computer science?
I am looking for the same , anyone ?
Try Coursera classes on functional programming specialization. Or edX intro to functional programming.
State to aspire to ❤️
She didn't have polio, she had tuberculosis.
Lex and Grant are both Feynman to me in their respective works, 🤘🤘
Has this guest ever read about quantum electrodynamics? If he read it he would have realized Feynman's genius.
Am I the only one who is a big fan of 3blue1brown but didn't realize this guy is THAT GUY until half of the clip...I even felt the voice sounds familiar...
Man in black interviewing SpaceX
Damn that letter hurts.
i love him man!!! Feynman
Who the hell thinks a theoretical physicist wasn’t a math person?
Not Polio, it was Tuberculosis.
Richard Feynman, the scientist TH-cam is fond of. Any other scientist in the room?
Those who do not understand Feynman:
Lex podcast: *reads in physics
I don't know your new address
She didn't have polio. She had tuberculosis. That lack of rigor ruined this for me. bye.
everything is energy, basically shes "alive" in a different "form"
I can't believe Feynman iq was 120.
That iq test must be flawed.
His own assertion: "I am no genius. I love it and worked hard at it." It's positive obsession :-)
@@BulentBasaran A true genius might not know. A person who thinks themself one, likely has read many books.
I was called a genius in college by friends who I thought were far more intelligent than myself. For about 4 years I discussed topics at the local coffeehouse with Ph.Ds, etc. Amazing how many shared time in the morning with a carpenter. 😁
One day, two friends in the 60s--- both professors and businessmen, told me this: "You are our teacher and we are your students."
I was writing at night on messageboards; but I never shared my writings with anyone in the coffeehouse. They helped me be a better writer in a changing world.
"State to aspire to".
sponsored by aquafina
Two guys who are clueless talking about a man they're not fit to shine the shoes of.
Anyone else think the water bottle looks photoshopped into place?
2:23 Entering a more personal relationship with a problem?
3B1B brought the "Gun Show!"
We no longer have scientists, only mathematicians.
Not a math guy? I present the scene in the bar with the abacus guy...
Yeah, this mythology of people like Einstein and Feynman being "bad" at math is so ridiculous on its face. Like Feynman, Einstein had mastered differential and integral calculus by 15. Feynman clearly had little interest in proving theorems about axiomatic structures the way mathematicians do, but why would he? He was a physicist after all, and not only was he a master calculator, but an inventor of practical mathematical tools (like his diagrammatic technique for quickly analyzing the terms in perturbation expansions). Fun fact: In 1939, Feynman was the top scorer by a large margin on the notoriously difficult Putnam exam, a national mathematical competition so difficult the median score is often zero. Bad at math?? My eye!