Who would you say is todays Richard Feynman?
I would say it's professor Leonard Susskind [1] - interestingly he was also a Feynman's friend. Any other suggestions?
I would say it's professor Leonard Susskind [1] - interestingly he was also a Feynman's friend. Any other suggestions?
Recently, the only Physicsy field with new fundamental results is quantum computing/information. But the vast majority of the field is not about building a new predictive theory of nature. On the computer science end, Scott Aaronson is a candidate for a mini-Feynman. But there isn't anyone I can think of on the Physics end who stands super tall above his peers.
But even if that space was available. It will take truly great minds to learn centuries worth of physics, without fundamentally biasing themselves by the orthodox philosophy, so they can actually rewrite the philosophy of physics.
Realistically, I think what can happen is that we find some new field (not even in physics), which acts as a fertile ground for new philosophy. And once it is developed there, someone imports it to fundamental Physics.
Metaphysics. The various phenomena that people talk/complain about constantly, yet insist doesn't exist if you start to investigate it.
This fruit is low hanging, but it needs new techniques to pick it because enthusiastic pickers proclaim that it isn't there (despite whining about it constantly) and various other bizarre behaviors.
A recent example would be can machines think which used to be philosophical and is now becoming practical.
People said that in the 1800s, and they said it in Ancient Greece too.
> On the computer science end, Scott Aaronson is a candidate for a mini-Feynman.
Sorry, but Scott is nothing like Feynman. I wouldn't even call him a nano-Feynman.
Mr. Aaronson has knowledge of a lot of fields. He surely knows more than I about many things. But he's not very well rounded, he's far more certain of his rightness with far less reason to be, and he makes some pretty big errors, with undue confidence, on a regular basis. His thinking isn't nearly as integrated, and his writing is nowhere near the same level.
He's closer to Sheldon Cooper than he is to Feynman.
Ouch. I don't even know much about Scott Aaronson and yet I felt that one.
Feynman was right, too. His point was that people really do follow the herd too much - and he's 10,000% correct. It's good to know why you do things, especially when you do them two or three times a day for your entire life.
Also, it's good to get to the root of the issue. People who don't eat industrial grain based diets have better teeth than we do, without every having met a toothbrush in their lives.
It really takes a certain personality, a genuine enthusiasm, and their imitators don't really have it.