Richard Feynman’s Little-Known Sketches & Drawings | Hacker News Reader

Richard Feynman’s Little-Known Sketches & Drawings

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71 pointsmyth_drannon18 comments

That last portrait really nails home the point that artistic ability isn't something innate, it requires work and dedication just like anything else. I think a lot of engineering-minded people (myself included) have this view of art as something that is inaccessible because they lack talent, but Feynman shows that that isn't really the case.

Having just seen the Van gogh exhibit in Amsterdam, currently on display with lther important impressionists in the hermitage in Amsterdam, I appreciate this too- he started painting at 27

> "My friend Dudley Wright suggested ‘Au Fait,’ which means ‘It is done’ in French."

Hum... no, it doesn't.

(For one, it should be spelled "Au fait" -- you don't capitalize every word in French, even in a title).

And it either means "by the way" if used at the beginning of a sentence, or "let's get to the point" if used in "venons-en au fait" (the "fait" is the "point"). This is sometimes shortened as "au fait!", said in an imperative tone.

I like the drawings very much, though.

Slightly relevant; if you are in New York, Edward Tuftes' gallery is currently showing his sculptures of Feynman diagrams: http://etmodern.com/ETmodern/ET_Modern.html

The best thing in that gallery is even further off topic, but well worth it; the documentary on Inge Druckrey & typography, (available to watch at the above link).

Better than anything I could draw. Here was one of the most re known physicists/smartest guys around saying...hey, I'm not really an artist but I'd love to give it a shot.

Kind of makes you wonder if that same line of the thought led to his scientific successes.

Unbridled curiosity. I highly recommend the book "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" - it's very good and insightful into how he approaches situations and how his thinking style shapes him and eventually his surroundings.

That and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?': Further Adventures of a Curious Character." Some of the best books I've read.

It should be noted that "What Do You Care ..." is comparatively more serious than "Sure You're Joking ...". Two of the longest sections involve the death of his wife during Feynman's days at Los Alamos, and the investigation of the Challenger crash.

One copy available on Amazon UK for £1,965. http://www.amazon.co.uk/The-Art-Richard-Feynman-Character/dp...

Not really that little known as every biography of his references this stuff, and it provides the source material for a number of Feynman anecdotes.

IIRC, Feynmann received some notoriety as the famous physicist who hung out at topless bars...as this was one way he found subjects for nude portraits

I love Feynman, but these aren't that good.

And yet, the story about them in Surely You're Joking is so charming.

And you can read that story online here: http://www.litmir.net/br/?b=98991&p=63. Start from the heading “But Is It Art?”. The two buttons at the center bottom are previous/next page buttons.

This was created for comments like that: https://twitter.com/shit_hn_says

Thanks! This is excellent and I'm now a follower!

There are some seriously WTF comments there:

"Affiliation with MIT right now, even as a student, looks to me like affiliation with the Nazi youth"

"PG built Viaweb in Lisp because there was no Ruby, Python or Perl back then"

Most of the drawings there are not too appealing, but I think they are from when he was just beginning. The painting looks very good to me.

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