Comment by irahul | Hacker News Reader

Comment by irahul | Hacker News Reader

What's remarkable is Feynman went to great lengths in investigating the crackpot theories, instead of outright rejecting them. I won't even bother trying doing anything he mentions in the article, except for the esalen jaccuzi thing(wink wink). And I am pretty sure I will end up as Feynman did. Geeks and there "Well, actually" http://tirania.org/blog/archive/2011/Feb-17.html

I think the point he is trying to make to audience is he is willing to accept ideas which invalidate what he knows. His believes are verifiable, and though he is willing to give yours a chance, he won't just "let it be" unless it's verifiable.

I read another of his stories in which he took the class to the gym where he had a bowling ball attached to a string hanging down the ceiling in the center of the room. He went to the opposite end with the ball, had his back by the wall, brought the ball to his nose and let it go. The ball swung to the other side, swung back, and came dangerously close to his face(well, at the same spot where he let it go - simple pendulums. duh). He told the students "I want you to know I know and believe what I am going to teach. There are no manifestations or biases - only truth"(paraphrased)

There's another Feynman bowling ball story. He was watching a younger physics prof make the same demonstration in a Caltech lecture hall. Instead of cleanly releasing the ball, she inadvertently gave it a slight shove. Fortunately for her, Feynman saw the mistake and pushed her out of the way of the returning ball which left a mark in the wall where her head had been.

The kinetic energy in the ball's motion when it returned to her face should have been no greater than that imparted by the "slight shove". Can't have been so very slight. (Or else leaving a mark in the wall was easier than it sounds.)

I just tried thwacking my nose with about as much force as I could reasonably describe as a "slight shove" in that situation. It wasn't terribly pleasant, but it wasn't very painful and did no damage.

I cordially doubt that the younger prof was in danger of anything very bad. Assuming that the rest of the story is true, I suspect that Feynman was either being (commendably) over-cautious or showing off. Perhaps both.

(There's a more unpleasant failure mode for this demonstration: If you move your head forward after releasing the ball, then it'll hit your nose earlier, when it's lower down, which if the ball is very heavy can mean quite a considerable amount of extra energy.)

A bowling ball is inelastic; whatever you thwacked your nose with (your hand?) definitely isn't. Drop an egg 1 foot onto a carpet, then try onto concrete.

Yes, fair comment. I don't think that makes more than a factor of 2 difference, though. When the impact happens, in one case the squashing is half in my nose and half in my hand, versus all in my nose if it's a bowling ball.

(The egg example makes things look worse than they are. If an egg squashes at all, it breaks. My nose can squash quite a bit before that happens.)

"I just tried thwacking my nose with about as much force as I could reasonably describe as a "slight shove" in that situation"

Good to know that this kind of scientific spirit still exists :-)

SkepticBlog had a recent post by Michael Shermer on the current activities of Esalen Institute.

http://www.skepticblog.org/2012/06/05/a-weekend-of-woo/

The "elegantly designed hot tubs (clothing optional, and most opt to go without)" are still a big feature of meetings at Esalen Institute, but Shermer finds more to discuss about the activities during his latest visit there.

AFTER EDIT to comment on another interesting comment. A top-level comment mentions, "Very cleverly, he mixes in examples of absolute crackpottery (e.g Uri Geller, reflexology) with those of somewhat researchers (e.g. the psychology student) who may be somewhat clueless in their experimental procedures but are trying to do valid science, which in our minds equate both." Feynman indeed was dubious about much of psychology as it was written about during his academic career. He was not alone. Psychologists wrote in similar terms during the same period, for example David Lykken in is article "What's Wrong with Psychology Anyway?"

http://cogprints.org/371/3/148.pdf

Your anecdote about the bowling ball is (AFAIK) incorrect, you're thinking about Walter Lewin: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaALPa7Dwdw. (starts at 1:08)

It was done by Feynman first (I had heard of it in 2007, before this video was published, when I was finding about Feynman after reading his classic "Surely you're .."). I don't think Lewin acknowledged that though

Walter Lewin's been doing it since 198x, probably earlier.

http://articles.latimes.com/1989-03-12/news/ga-1006_1_feynma...

> He first encountered Feynman as a freshman in 1961 > On the first day of class, Scott recalled,

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