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In Reply to: This guy might be a genius... posted by Wellfed on March 19, 2007 at 10:06:35:
Wellfed,I read, "Surely you must be joking, Mr. Feynman" years ago- probably 30 when a NASA physicist who knew Feyman recommended it. Feynman's way of looking at the physical universe had an consistent, striking incisive quality as he never accepted conventional wisdom. From a deliberately conceptually confrontational standpoint, he began from a zero point and shaped connections and advanced ideas that were based on a kind of scientific uncertainty- the idea of "facts" about anything being in a constant state of flux and open to reinterpretation. And, he had this very open quality about mistakes he would make in his romantic life while thinking it's natural that just everything that happens is conne ted in the sense it's possible to learn something applicable to an entirely different field of study.
Today, I can't remember if the anecdote was from the book or my physicist frind told it to me, but at a symposium about particle physics, someone asked Feynmann if he believed that science would ever fully understand gravity and develop a system that could be "anti-gravity". Feynman, without skipping a beat, told the questioner that anti-gravity had been developed long ago- wasn't the floor he was sitting on actually supending him above the Earth in a steady state opposition to gravity?
Over the years I've felt very lucky to have met a number of really remarkable people, but after I read and heard about Feynman as a tot, I always thought how wonderful it would be to have spent time with him as his restless pursuit of fundamental principles thorugh his open logic is a compelling method.
I always found Feynman diagrams - these are visual descriptions of the interactions of particles- intriguing visually and once did a painting of them. I learned later that Feynman drove around in a van that he had covered with these diagrams and I thought what a wonderful Zen quality that concept had achieved.
The danger with Feynman, in my view, is to take some of his comments overseriously- out of context- as Feynman's didactic tendencies sometimes steered him to focus on provokative statements that are more to do with method than content- revealing analytical thought more than anything absolute. This was a paradox of an enigmatic personality who absolutely resisted the idea that any idea is absolute!
For some reason, I've long had this sense that the artistic counterpart of Feynman was Glenn Gould- someone else who never allowed himself forced feeding of any concept.
Feynman a genius? Surely you must be joking?
Cheers,Bambi B
PS: Say, this is the first time I've ever looked at this forum and it's interesting always- I'll have to stop by more often!
Follow Ups:
...a friend of mine, a well-known Positive Feedback contributor and CalTech graduate, lived for several years just down the block from his house in Pasadena, and the neighbors were still aghast at the way he kept the place.But as Bert Lahr amiably remarked, upon discovering his beautiful girlfriend was a guy, "We can't all be perfect."
Clark,Feynman apparently had an interesting personality. Where Gould was reclusive and introverted, contacting the World only when he had total control of the circumstances and the event could be crafted in private- he even did an interview in which he interviewed himself! How's that for one of the great benefits of schizophrania?- Feynman was seemingly opposite to Gould- outgoing and in a strange adolescent way an extroverted romantic. But, their common intensity and egocentricism of those two great minds both steered them to amazing creativity in their very different fields of pursuit- this by ignoring conventions and criticism.
We grow up don't we always speaking of the madness of artists and the "mad scientist" and I'm convinced that all creativity must contain a large proportion of madness- one is always suspending reality and substituting a non-linear alternative. I should like to write a book: "How to get the best from your mild Psychoses".
Cheers,
…is done by neurotics; they alone founded our religions and created our masterpieces." — Marcel Proust (source unknown)David Aiken
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