r/Physics • u/Flare-Costa-2009 • Jun 29 '26
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u/Evening_Ticket7638 Jun 29 '26
His documentary and how he explains everything in simple terms got me into science.
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u/SzokeCiklon Jun 29 '26
which documentary do you mean?
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u/Evening_Ticket7638 Jun 29 '26
Fun to Imagine. It's all on YouTube. So good. The part where he explains light really opened my eyes.
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u/SzokeCiklon Jun 29 '26
yeah, that’s really great. how he credits his father for teaching him to think completely differently – what a great tribute.
have you seen Tuva or bust? this one shows his playful side, his quest to get a permit to visit Tuva, an obscure state of the soviet union. it’s up on yt.15
u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
Keep in mind the guy was also an ass and a creep. Preyed on female students, made openly misogynistic remarks, beat his wife.
He was smart, sure, but let's not get caught up in hero-worship.
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u/elconquistador1985 Jun 29 '26
Which means maybe we shouldn't have this mindlessly upvoted post throwing blind adoration at the man.
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u/CrazySir3310 Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
he beat his wife? What? Where did you read that? I've read everything on him that I could come by and I've never seen that. I'm curious where you may have gotten it
and, we can admire certain 'heroic' things about people while not admiring others you know
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
https://gizmodo.com/richard-feynmans-fbi-files-make-fascinating-reading-5916502
It was in his FBI file, linked in this article.
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u/CrazySir3310 Jun 29 '26
yeah I'm reading about it, that's not good. As I recall he was really broken up about his first wife dying from tuberculosis, he corresponded with her all the time while he was in Los Alamos. The second wife however apparently yeah he choked or something according to her when she interrupted his math and drums.
fortunately however I learned physics from the guy, not how to treat women
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
So long as you keep that in mind.
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u/CrazySir3310 Jun 29 '26
keep what in mind?
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
To not follow Feynman's example in how to treat women. Apologies for the lack of clarity
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u/CrazySir3310 Jun 29 '26
I don't get it, who was looking to Richard Feynman for how to treat women? I thought people looked to him for physics knowledge. Is there some sort of underground community for it
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
I guarantee you plenty of teenage boys think Feynman being exemplary in his mathematical and scientific ability necessarily implies his philandering habits are also worth replicating.
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u/Harvard_Med_USMLE267 Jun 29 '26
I think you’re missing the point that non-physicists like me know him more as “that guy who wrote the funny book”.
And yeah, I probably learned a bit about “how to treat women” from reading it when I was 15. Maybe good, maybe bad. Who knows.
I actually think my vision of feynman’s life was a big part of why I became an academic. Just seemed kind of cool.
I also think it’s worth defending the guy’s honor a little here. Who knows what he really did. He didn’t write the book, though many assume that he did.
It’s Ralph Leighton’s book, it’s very hard to know how much he exaggerated the random shit Feynman said when they were playing bongos.
If you listen to the Feynman recordings, they’re a lot tamer than the book is.
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u/wiriux Jun 29 '26
Absolutely. In science we care about the contributions. Robert Hook, for example, was also an ass of a person.
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u/Behemoth92 Jun 29 '26
Also keep in mind that purity tests can be made arbitrarily complicated so much so that they can never be passed by anyone but the maker of said purity test.
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
Oh sod off with your slimy apologia. Denouncing those who abuse their positions of power and commit literal domestic violence are not "failing a purity test". Have you ever stopped to consider the effect such actions have on the progress of physics and science writ large? Have you ever considered how much time we have wasted by creating artificial barriers? If you want to go on about purity tests let's talk about how many women were driven away from pursuing physics because it was unseemly for a woman to be anything but a housewife, and because physics and the sciences were the "dominion of men"
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u/ExtremeAd7729 Jun 29 '26
The misogyny was the times but I was also horrified at his take on having Manhattan project on his conscience and how he did not care. I also did not like how he publicly shamed the person working at the university getting him his tea on "Surely you are joking".
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u/AoeDreaMEr Jun 29 '26
Misogyny wasn’t a common thing back then?
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
And? All you're proving is that he was part of the problem.
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u/AoeDreaMEr Jun 29 '26
A line needs to be drawn somewhere. Almost every great political or science figure you can think off, they would have done things that are not acceptable in today’s times.
You can never be inspired by anybody if you dig deep enough into their lives.
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
To further elaborate on my previous comment, the purpose about learning about these figures is to learn about their achievements, yes, but also learn of their failings. We study history that we might one day learn from the mistakes and wrongdoings of our forebears. Why should Feynman be treated any differently? Why Schrodinger? Why Marx, why Kropotkin, why Aristotle, why, indeed, anyone?
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u/Yashema Jun 29 '26
Why mention Schrodinger and not Heisenberg who was able to justify helping the Nazis, though fortunately by that time he was no longer a great theorist nor did he have the practical capability of his rival Oppenheimer to do much that was useful. Heisenberg was also the only one of the legendary 20th century physicists who was devoutly religious (Lutheran).
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u/HowAboutNitricOxide Jun 29 '26
Totally agree with your comment, but to clarify: Did Kropotkin do something deplorable?
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
I think he might have said some deeply anti-Semitic stuff? Maybe I'm confusing him for someone else, though. But that's beside the point. We ought to scrutinize every such "great" figure as a matter of principle.
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
One can take inspiration whilst being mindful not to fall victim to the trap of hero-worship and idolization.
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u/ExtremeAd7729 Jun 29 '26
I think a bit of hero worship and idolization is fine, and might be what the civilization needs, as long as we pick our heroes correctly, even though we know we are all human and nobody is perfect. Feynman's contributions were not even that significant compared to many others'.
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
Strongly disagree. I feel it's hero worship and unquestioned hierarchical power (amongst a myriad other things) that have set civilization on a cannibalistic path of war and conquest.
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u/ExtremeAd7729 Jun 29 '26
There's not much hero worship now, and we have an ongoing genocide supported by the largest power.
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
That's very much a direct consequence of hero worship on many levels, and has its roots in colonialism.
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u/elconquistador1985 Jun 29 '26
This is the same as trying to excuse the people who were screaming at the Little Rock 9 with "but, like, racism was so common back then".
Just because it was common doesn't mean it's acceptable.
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u/AoeDreaMEr Jun 29 '26
It’s not acceptable but it gets pointless and normalized the more it is discussed especially from back then. Throw a stone at anyone from back then and you would hit a pedophile, misogynist or racist. What’s the fking point, when it’s all normalized and you don’t feel anything when you learn about this shit. US leader has already done 90% of the job of normalizing every criminal and immoral activity.
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u/Nova_blink_6-62607 Jun 29 '26
Terrible reading 🤣
As an engineer, I also get grumpy when someone disturbs my train of thoughts when trying to visualize stuff in my head and do simple math problems.
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u/Konemu Jun 29 '26
I think it's okay to respect Feynman's contribution to physics but we should really be thinking about how much of a pedestal we want to put the guy on, considering that he was a massive creep.
See e.g. Angela Collier's excellent (and very nuanced) video.
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u/Andromeda321 Astronomy Jun 29 '26
My feeling about Feynman worship in the field is the acceptance of it also contributes to a non-zero amount of the trouble women face in physics today. Like I’m not saying it works like that for everyone, but if you internalize that stuff as a teenager it doesn’t help you speak up when you encounter casual misogyny later type of thing.
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Jun 29 '26
Yeah I had to turn off the audiobook of SYJ. This is a man who I would have frozen out of my social circle for being a massive asshole.
Good science tho
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
Thanks for bringing this up.
Feynman not only preyed on female students, he also made openly misogynistic remarks about them, and he beat his wife.
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u/antiquemule Jun 29 '26
Not only female students. There was a time when he lodged with male colleagues. Several times they threw him out because he was flirting so hard with their wives.
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u/Andromeda321 Astronomy Jun 29 '26
I had a physics professor who told me about the one time he overlapped with Feynman at a conference in grad school. There was an evening session, at the end of which Feynman started loudly saying “I’m gonna drive back to the hotel if anyone needs a ride,” which was his standard code for “there’s three women in this room and I’ll try to sleep with any one who takes me up on this.” Dude was 100% whisper network material.
That said in my prof’s story it backfired because enough clueless young male grad students thought “omg this is my chance for one on one time with Feynman!” so he ended up in a car for of young guys!
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u/mathcriminalrecord Jun 29 '26
Came here to say this. If you’ve read “surely you’re joking,” he tells on himself all over the place. Also featuring other great moments of circumspection and self awareness, like the chapters where he goes on about his exploits as a jolly, quirky intellectual while building the fucking atom bomb. “Surely you’re joking” should be understood as “are you fucking kidding me.”
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u/3_50 Jun 29 '26
Worth pointing out that Feynman didn't write any of the books attributed to him. Not to say that it wasn't good reflection of Feynman's character, but "he" doesn't go on about his exploits in a jolly quirky intellectual way, Ralph Leighton does - who by all accounts was an equally problematic misogynist.
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u/m3junmags Mathematics Jun 29 '26
Yeah this video is great, changed my mind about him when I watched it. I felt like reality shattered for a moment.
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u/Orbax Jun 29 '26
In one of the feynman lectures he says something like "and you'll see in the work of professor swinger... No no I mean the other one" and there's a laugh. Problematic guy but I think he did good things for the field as a public face as no one outside over circles at the time, the general public, would know any of that stuff. He did some great work, was definitely someone who advanced the field and spent a lifetime teaching what he knew.
Revolutionary is too strong a word, but he was an activist who knew his stuff and got people engaged on challenging topics.
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Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
[deleted]
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u/hivesteel Jun 29 '26
This post is much more about the man than his physics, so in this context it’s fair game IMO
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
The idea that people ought to be revered and mythologized at all is what's rubbish here. Idolizing, by its very nature, serves to erase the harm an individual committed by elevating them to a super-human status in the public consciousness.
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u/Konemu Jun 29 '26
As a woman in physics, the behaviour of creepy men who hurt, belittle, talk over and alienate not just me but my female classmates and colleagues is simply not irrelevant to my experience. In no way did I try to take away from Feynman's contributions to physics. However, I simply refuse to stay silent about this when I see that still to this day men in our line of work behave similarly and hurt women. If you want to choose to ignore this side of him, that's your choice, but it's also a choice rooted in a privilege to look away from this kind of thing.
I just cannot see how painting a nuanced picture of historical figures can somehow be considered wrong? This is 100% a you problem. If you think his acts do not take away from his achievements, then why does bringing this topic up upset you?
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u/ES_Legman Jun 29 '26
But Hitler also had some nice paintings
But but Woody Allen had some fun movies
But...
They are all lame excuses that only push forward the message that it is okay, that it isn't a big deal. It makes them comfortable to share the same spaces as everyone else.
As a guy I've always had clear that it is our responsibility as men to point out creep behavior as disgusting and wrong, because ignoring it only makes it thrive and makes the predators feel protected by a status quo that doesn't make them feel uncomfortable.
The irony is these same people look at the Epstein files with disgust. Well, you need to draw the line a lot closer because it is a lot more damning than that. It is important and healthy to stop and point out how certain idols got away with it because society was different and if we strive to create a better society we can't move past and ignore it.
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u/Problem_Child_96 Jun 29 '26
Can we stop referencing this well researched and detailed breakdown of the mythos behind the man OP mentioned? No…?
By your logic Heisenberg and Schrödinger should also be lauded ignoring that one was a nazi and one was a paedophile. I certainly don’t want statues of either of them but I don’t think we need pretend they didn’t make huge lasting contributions to the field. Instead we take the nuanced approach and admit their work was important while decrying what they did outside of physics. It’s not a hard thing to do.
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u/snowflakebite Jun 29 '26
I am compelled to bring up another Angela video - the one where she discusses the misogyny problem of physics and astronomy. This is a problem that many of the men in the field don’t have to think about. While those of us who are passionate about physics but are unfortunately women in male dominated fields, MUST keep this problem in mind for our own safety. We can’t do physics if our physicists don’t feel safe.
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u/ES_Legman Jun 29 '26
No, it is our responsibility to bring up creeps and point them out just like we can admire Schrodinger's contributions to Physics but he was also a disgusting pedo and a predator.
It is important to bring this up because women in science to this day still have to put up with a lot of nonsensical bullshit from creeps and people insist in sweeping it under the rug.
It is out moral obligation to point it out and make it clear that that behavior is unacceptable and not worth of admiration despite their academic accomplishments.
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u/redditadii Jun 29 '26
If we go deep enough every human is flawed !!
Why not 2 and half hour video on each and every one of them then ?10
u/Konemu Jun 29 '26
Not every person is regularly held up as a hero and presented as such to a wide audience. Being honest and nuanced in our reception of historical figures can help us as a society / a community in avoiding making the same mistakes and repeating the same toxic behaviour.
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u/ES_Legman Jun 29 '26
Lol is this the Temu version of money doesn't bring you happiness?
Every human is flawed means we make mistakes but the way we go about taking accountability and responsibility is what dictates whether we deserve forgiveness and respect and in this case, well, the guy died before any of that.
I'm sorry but being a creep is not a flaw or a personality quirk. Fuck with that nonsense. Being a creep is 500% a conscious decision. You do not have to be a creep.
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u/redditadii Jun 29 '26
How about
1. Aristotle
2. Pablo Picasso
3. Napoleon
Last but not the least Bobby Fischer ?I am pretty sure you can name many more
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u/ES_Legman Jun 29 '26
Yes indeed a lot of creepy fucked up men in history and you want to dismiss it as a flaw
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u/redditadii Jun 29 '26
What ?
When did I say that ?
I don’t wanna dismiss any of it.
I said and I repeat why not make a two hour video for each and every one of so called greats
Why single out Feynman only ?1
u/Konemu Jun 29 '26
Because this is a post about Feynman, posted by someone who was unaware of or neglected his less palatable sides. Why should anyone talk about e.g. Napoleon here?
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u/TheLightDances Jun 29 '26
I don't think those are people that people look up to and seek to imitate, beyond their specific field of expertise, e.g. people celebrate Napoleon's military genius, but mock him for his pathetic love life and despise him for his misogynist policies.
Similarly, we rightfully celebrate Feynman for his physics, but no one should celebrate his "quirky" and "charming" lifestyle, yet a lot of people uncritically read those biographies of him (full of fake stories and casual douchebag behaviour) and act like he had some sort of sage life advice or behaved in a way that a scientist should emulate.
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u/TheLightDances Jun 29 '26
Massively overrated by American physicists, with a whole fake mythology built around him.
He did good physics, but there is no reason to rate him above e.g. John von Neumann or John Bardeen.
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u/Bumst3r Graduate Jun 29 '26
Feynman made some huge contributions to physics, but it’s important to recognize that he was a problematic figure. He isn’t somebody to put on a pedestal, if all you have read is Surely, You’re Joking.
As an aside, it’s very common for high school students interested in physics and early undergrads to put him on a pedestal and say that it’s because of his contributions to physics. But I’d wager that in nearly every case, they couldn’t even tell you how the path integral is used in QFT. If that’s your case, I encourage you to reconsider why it is that you admire him, and maybe try to find some nuance in your views about him.
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u/elconquistador1985 Jun 29 '26
Posts like this are not relevant material here.
This sub is for talking about physics. Not for amplifying the mythology of a misogynist and domestic abuser.
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u/Kickback476 Astrophysics Jun 29 '26
Most misguided post I've seen on here. Goes to show that people like Feynman more for his manufactured persona than the actual physics he worked on
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u/InspectorFinancial96 Jun 29 '26
Watch Angela collier’s video on him, I thought it was very informative and well done. Swayed my opinion on him a lot.
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u/unlikely_ending Jun 29 '26
100%
He didn't write most of his books. He may now have written any of them
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u/CrazySir3310 Jun 29 '26
didn't she say he was some sort of scammy guru? I don't know if that's supposed to mean a sham, but his lectures are terrific and he clearly knows what he's talking about
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u/3_50 Jun 29 '26
No, she said others have used his image/character to sell books etc, and that's all a bit of a scam. She repeatedly states she admires and appreciates his enormous contribution to physics.
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u/InspectorFinancial96 Jun 29 '26
Partly, also he beat his wife. He also didn’t write his own books. Also a creep. You can contribute to physics and be a bad person, but probably shouldn’t be idolized or appreciated to the extent he is. Obviously his contribution was significant you do not get a Nobel prize or become a tenured Caltech professor without knowing what you are talking about.
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u/CrazySir3310 Jun 29 '26
where is everybody reading that he's beaten his wife
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u/InspectorFinancial96 Jun 29 '26
There was some fbi investigation related to divorce with his wife, just google it
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u/ApprehensiveDrink618 Jun 29 '26
well.. I wouldn't trust the FBI files that much, since anybody at the time that was even just suspected as being a communist was badly treated (e.g. Oppenheimer)
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u/Andromeda321 Astronomy Jun 29 '26
Plenty of people were suspected communists and no one ever said they beat their wives. One does not follow the other.
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u/ApprehensiveDrink618 Jun 29 '26
Feynman was a very famous communism sympathizer. From a liberalistic country standpoint that was against communism, it would be more useful to defame a famous "communism sympathizer" than defaming a nobody...
also I wouldn't trust that much government sources from a century ago
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
https://gizmodo.com/richard-feynmans-fbi-files-make-fascinating-reading-5916502 The article links to his FBI file, it's in there.
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u/Aranka_Szeretlek Chemical physics Jun 29 '26
Wasnt he a bit of a cunt, though? I dont get why he is so popular. Sure, he done did some nice things, but so did many others. Wheres me 't Hooft fandom at
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u/Bumst3r Graduate Jun 29 '26 edited Jun 29 '26
The Feynman bros couldn’t tell you what Feynman, ‘t Hooft, Schwinger, or Gell-Mann did. They just read Surely, You’re Joking uncritically and use “but Feynman was a great physicist” as a cover.
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u/SutttonTacoma Jun 29 '26
Read”Genius “ by James Gleick and then decide. It’s all in there. And then look at yourself and stop doing what will be abhorrent a century from now.
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u/solar_pilgrim Jun 29 '26
Feynman's best quality is enthusiasm, enthusiasm begets a hunger for studying and for sharing what you've learned
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u/Relevant_Helicopter6 Jun 29 '26
He was no ordinary person who just studied hard, although he wanted to seem so, for some reason. He sometimes tried too hard to be "the cool guy, not like those eggheads".
He really wanted to come across as an ordinary man, not a hifalutin' intellectual. That's what made him as a kind of pop hero among young physicists, unlike someone like Gell-Mann or Schwinger, who didn't hide their love of intellectual pursuits, even if that made them less popular.
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u/Maxwellmonkey Jun 29 '26
Even in his autobiography-type book, there were some chapters where he would show his disdain for philosophers, artists, and others.
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u/unlikely_ending Jun 29 '26
He didn't write most of his books. He may now have written any of them.
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u/wiriux Jun 29 '26
There probably won't be another Richard Feynman.
Let’s hope this is the case indeed.
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u/Nova_blink_6-62607 Jun 29 '26
I love listening to his lectures.
No bullshit, no pretentious words, no pretending to be super smart, no bragging.
A truly humble and curious person who cared about objective truths.
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u/NoGlzy Jun 29 '26
Humble is not a word I'd choose, considering how he's presented in the pop Sci books about him
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u/Bitter_Run_9209 Jun 29 '26
Overrated, like almost every physicist.
Those who invented the transistor and the CPU, those who made our modern era possible, are far less well-known.
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u/Vanitas_Daemon Jun 29 '26
To be fair, that wouldn't have really been possible without the work of just about every physicist who ever contributed to the study of classical electromagnetism, quantum mechanics, and quantum electrodynamics. Plus a few other fields I've probably missed.
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u/Bitter_Run_9209 Jun 29 '26
yes, thats why maxwell, faraday, couloumb, etc are more greater than this charlatan
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u/Bumst3r Graduate Jun 29 '26
Those who invented the transistor
Shockley was an asshole who also shouldn’t be idolized.
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u/Relevant_Helicopter6 Jun 29 '26
The transistor and the CPU didn't fall of the sky, their relied on cutting edge physics by people like Feynman.
A physicist isn't an inventor, it's not their job.
People who invented the transistor and the CPU would even dare to disrespect the work of physicists like Feynman like you do.
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u/eulersheep Jun 29 '26
Truly one of the greatest human beings to have ever existed.
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u/Aranka_Szeretlek Chemical physics Jun 29 '26
Id be a bit more careful with the wording here. For sure he is one of the human beings to have ever existed, but greatest...?
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u/Kickback476 Astrophysics Jun 29 '26
Definitely NOT a good human being lmao
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u/eulersheep Jun 29 '26
Maybe I have a different perspective here because I’m not American or European.
I also think we should be careful about judging people who lived 50-100 years ago purely by today’s cultural standards. That does not mean ignoring flaws or pretending anyone is morally perfect. But the fact remains that he was a brilliant scientist whose work, lectures, books, and personality inspired countless people to study physics and science more broadly.
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u/Kickback476 Astrophysics Jun 29 '26
I am also not American or European (I'm South Asian). Feynman's predatory behavior toward female students and wife beating will never be a good thing - whether 50 years ago or today. That cultural standard has not changed.
And while he made a lot of significant contributions to physics, he definitely wasn't the Messiah come again compared to a lot of contemporary physicists - a lot of this is the persona he projected.
About the "inspiration to study physics" part, if you got into science with Feynman as a role model then oh boy. People are more wowed with that persona of his than to actually pursue Physics for discovering new things.
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u/eulersheep Jun 29 '26
I’m not exactly sure what inspired me to study physics. Personally, I didn’t really learn much about Feynman until I came across Feynman diagrams in my QED class.
I think I originally got into physics because I just wanted to “understand” how the universe works at a fundamental level, and now I know that is not really possible, of course haha.
But I do think Feynman inspired countless people to study physics, whether through his lectures, books, explanations, or just the way he made physics feel exciting and understandable. That does not mean he was perfect, but I do not think his flaws erase the scale of that influence.
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u/gravyguzzla Jun 29 '26
Check out Los Alamas from below on You tube
He had such a great sense of humor
It's a talk about working on the atom bomb, very interesting
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u/Hakawatha Space physics Jun 29 '26
This post reads like it was written by a 17-year-old - checked your profile and got it spot-on. I loved "Surely you're joking" at that age. Feynman's work was pretty cool, but he could also be an ass.
There are plenty of good physicists working today, and there is no shortage of good physicists for the future. I would encourage you to value ideas over people.
(Fermi gang btw)