Love his books!
Although, it seems like he’s getting a bad rep these days. How did that happen?
PS: I’m referring to that video that pops up on top when you google him for example.
Although, it seems like he’s getting a bad rep these days. How did that happen?
PS: I’m referring to that video that pops up on top when you google him for example.
He was deeply affected by the death of his first wife. I personally believe that he developed misogynistic traits as a way of self-defense and driven by the pain of her loss. They were deeply in love. His farewell letter to her is so beautiful and touching, and yet so pragmatic, in a way that only Feynman could be.
He is a personal hero but I do understand he was human and as such, a flawed individual like anyone else.
> “During the conference I was staying with my sister in Syracuse. I brought the paper home and said to her, “I can’t understand these things that Lee and Yang are saying. It’s all so complicated.”
> “No,” she said, “what you mean is not that you can’t understand it, but that you didn’t invent it. You didn’t figure it out your own way, from hearing the clue. What you should do is imagine you’re a student again, and take this paper upstairs, read every line of it, and check the equations. Then you’ll understand it very easily.”
> I took her advice, and checked through the whole thing, and found it to be very obvious and simple. I had been afraid to read it, thinking it was too difficult.”
http://wavefunction.fieldofscience.com/2017/04/richard-feynm...
My memory is, misogyny, cringey stories that were surely greatly exaggerated and just happen to make Feynman the smartest guy in every room, kind of a jerk in general, divorce due to claimed domestic violence, never did the work of writing a book personally but has the reputation of being a prolific author, his pop appeal makes people elevate him to the very top minds of physics when the work of others was much more impactful.
The fault lies partly with the viewers and commenters, ascribing a similar level of expertise to their platitudes and ill-informed takes on, for eg. AI, as to their actual field of expertise. But they don't exactly discourage that either, and in some cases lean into it actively. It's at least a hopeful sign that the descent into "physicist disease" isn't especially rapid in Angela's case, physics still being the primary topic on the channel, but it's still disappointing all the same.
Maybe that’s why Angela Collier doesn’t like him? Reminds me of how a lot of astronomers despised Carl Sagan.
And her video on Feynman is detailed and worth watching. She goes through evidence from court cases of Feynman strangling his wife, of how Ralph Leighton created much of this myth of Feynman by fanboying him. And she gives him the benefit of the doubt as well, presenting him as flawed, but human.
It's a terrible book, in my opinion. If you want to know why, Angela Collier says it better and in more detail than I could: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TwKpj2ISQAc
Is that the video you're referring to? Watch the video and I think you'll see why he is "getting a bad rep these days".
Very much an example of "never meet your heroes" for me.