I've never had a chance to see him speak on modern footage, something I'd really want to. I like the way he teaches in the Feynman Lectures on Physics, how it explains "how", not "why", and "why not why". Since I don't like writing obituaries, I'll just point out my favorite account of his passing was in Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine, full article here.
"Telling The Good Stuff You Know
Actually, I doubt that it was "progress" that most interested Richard. He was always searching for patterns, for connections, for a new way of looking at something, but I suspect his motivation was not so much to understand the world as it was to find new ideas to explain. The act of discovery was not complete for him until he had taught it to someone else.
I remember a conversation we had a year or so before his death, walking in the hills above Pasadena. We were exploring an unfamiliar trail and Richard, recovering from a major operation for the cancer, was walking more slowly than usual. He was telling a long and funny story about how he had been reading up on his disease and surprising his doctors by predicting their diagnosis and his chances of survival. I was hearing for the first time how far his cancer had progressed, so the jokes did not seem so funny. He must have noticed my mood, because he suddenly stopped the story and asked, "Hey, what's the matter?"
I hesitated. "I'm sad because you're going to die."
"Yeah," he sighed, "that bugs me sometimes too. But not so much as you think." And after a few more steps, "When you get as old as I am, you start to realize that you've told most of the good stuff you know to other people anyway."
We walked along in silence for a few minutes. Then we came to a place where another trail crossed and Richard stopped to look around at the surroundings. Suddenly a grin lit up his face. "Hey," he said, all trace of sadness forgotten, "I bet I can show you a better way home."
And so he did."
On a side note, my Valentine's Day +/- 1 day was semi-eventful.
I spent the eve convincing a friend/acquaintance(?) to go for her date. She was against it because she felt that she had no time for a relationship, and believed that her grades would suffer because of it. (She had a point; she is in a tough college.)
I told her that she doesn't have to commit to a long-term relationship with him just because she accepted the date; to go for it to get a better idea of the guy; because she sounded interested in him - that she wouldn't want to look back years after regretting about not at least confirming it. That at least if she realized she didn't want to go out with him after the date, then it wouldn't bug her from then on. Then I argued that her grades and love were incommensurable:
"There are things which are incommensurable. No amount of money is going to buy you time; and no amount of time is going to get you back a true love."
-- Ephedyn
Noble, right? It seems like I sorted out her problem. Good. Just that I omitted the fact that I get severe depression around Valentine's Day because of Feynman's death anniversary. You know, the kind where your whole past and envisioned future unfold before you and you wonder how you compare to your idol. I had Valentine's dinner on a cardboard box, seated on the floor. My mother packed almost everything in the house into boxes - now I don't even have a table to eat dinner at home.
I went out for coffee while working on some math problems, where I spotted a small error on Spiegel's Advanced Calculus in the proof of Schwarz's inequality. Worked example 13 on Numbers wrote a sum of squares in a parameter, expanded and then collected the terms to write a quadratic form in the parameter. The collected terms in a^2 is written as A^2, where it should really be A. Vice versa, b^2 is written as B^2, where it should really be B. Really small. Though if you work out the algebra with this mistake, you'll get something grossly different from Schwarz's inequality (and wrong, too). Strangely, the error didn't affect the result... I keep seeing this sort of mistakes in textbooks and I can't explain why o_O; I met my KI head of dept from high school along the way and had a nice chat. Forgot to ask him to arrange a lecture slot for me to talk to my juniors on ethics.
I sneaked into school to play the piano, but was chased out by the guard (what was he doing there on a Sunday.... aww...) Anyway, it's looking bright again, and it's time to build a laser with my pay. ^^
Mood: Chopin, "Herorique" Polonaise in A-flat, Op. 53.
"Telling The Good Stuff You Know
Actually, I doubt that it was "progress" that most interested Richard. He was always searching for patterns, for connections, for a new way of looking at something, but I suspect his motivation was not so much to understand the world as it was to find new ideas to explain. The act of discovery was not complete for him until he had taught it to someone else.
I remember a conversation we had a year or so before his death, walking in the hills above Pasadena. We were exploring an unfamiliar trail and Richard, recovering from a major operation for the cancer, was walking more slowly than usual. He was telling a long and funny story about how he had been reading up on his disease and surprising his doctors by predicting their diagnosis and his chances of survival. I was hearing for the first time how far his cancer had progressed, so the jokes did not seem so funny. He must have noticed my mood, because he suddenly stopped the story and asked, "Hey, what's the matter?"
I hesitated. "I'm sad because you're going to die."
"Yeah," he sighed, "that bugs me sometimes too. But not so much as you think." And after a few more steps, "When you get as old as I am, you start to realize that you've told most of the good stuff you know to other people anyway."
We walked along in silence for a few minutes. Then we came to a place where another trail crossed and Richard stopped to look around at the surroundings. Suddenly a grin lit up his face. "Hey," he said, all trace of sadness forgotten, "I bet I can show you a better way home."
And so he did."
On a side note, my Valentine's Day +/- 1 day was semi-eventful.
I spent the eve convincing a friend/acquaintance(?) to go for her date. She was against it because she felt that she had no time for a relationship, and believed that her grades would suffer because of it. (She had a point; she is in a tough college.)
I told her that she doesn't have to commit to a long-term relationship with him just because she accepted the date; to go for it to get a better idea of the guy; because she sounded interested in him - that she wouldn't want to look back years after regretting about not at least confirming it. That at least if she realized she didn't want to go out with him after the date, then it wouldn't bug her from then on. Then I argued that her grades and love were incommensurable:
"There are things which are incommensurable. No amount of money is going to buy you time; and no amount of time is going to get you back a true love."
-- Ephedyn
Noble, right? It seems like I sorted out her problem. Good. Just that I omitted the fact that I get severe depression around Valentine's Day because of Feynman's death anniversary. You know, the kind where your whole past and envisioned future unfold before you and you wonder how you compare to your idol. I had Valentine's dinner on a cardboard box, seated on the floor. My mother packed almost everything in the house into boxes - now I don't even have a table to eat dinner at home.
I went out for coffee while working on some math problems, where I spotted a small error on Spiegel's Advanced Calculus in the proof of Schwarz's inequality. Worked example 13 on Numbers wrote a sum of squares in a parameter, expanded and then collected the terms to write a quadratic form in the parameter. The collected terms in a^2 is written as A^2, where it should really be A. Vice versa, b^2 is written as B^2, where it should really be B. Really small. Though if you work out the algebra with this mistake, you'll get something grossly different from Schwarz's inequality (and wrong, too). Strangely, the error didn't affect the result... I keep seeing this sort of mistakes in textbooks and I can't explain why o_O; I met my KI head of dept from high school along the way and had a nice chat. Forgot to ask him to arrange a lecture slot for me to talk to my juniors on ethics.
I sneaked into school to play the piano, but was chased out by the guard (what was he doing there on a Sunday.... aww...) Anyway, it's looking bright again, and it's time to build a laser with my pay. ^^
Mood: Chopin, "Herorique" Polonaise in A-flat, Op. 53.
3 comments:
Don't despair, Ephedyn. Feynman inspires more and more people around the globe every day, and thus his spirit lives on!
As for the errors you keep finding in textbooks - those happen because books are written, edited, typeset and printed by human beings, which (in case you haven't heard) are fallible; for example, about 800 (mostly very small) errors have been (or are being) corrected in The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
Mike Gottlieb
Editor, The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Definitive Edition
Aw, thanks for making it a point to share your words of encouragement. It does come at an important time now as I'm entering college. I'll look forward to investing continuity in his spirit, as you put it, after I've graduated with a physics degree.
Mmhmm, I'm aware of the human errors. Just felt it was quite strange to have errors where the author(s) managed to get the correct result despite a mistake in the working. It was interesting that you brought up The Feynman Lectures on Physics as an example - I never knew about the errors in the series.
I'd like to extend my thanks to your editorial team for the continued effort to improve the series, and make the missing lectures accessible to everyone. It does put a smile on my face while we're on this topic. ;)
Your thanks is very much appreciated.
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