50 thoughts on “Richard Feynman Needs His Orange Juice”
Elliot
Yahoo,
Since I was there and you weren’t I guess I you’re just going to have to trust me on this one.
e.
Ben
Overbearing scientists who behave badly toward junior people do it because they are jerks who haven’t learned better or are insecure. Not because they are being Feynmanesque. Blaming it all on Feynman relieves these people of responsibility for their own actions. Don’t do that.
I challenge you to name a verifiable source that Feynman “was intensely obnoxious and rude to virtually all speakers.” (In fact, Feynman did not suffer arrogant fools lightly, but most seminar speakers, at least at Caltech, are not of that ilk.)
Regarding The Feynman Lectures on Physics, which you refer to as “sophomoric” (What do you expect? It was written for freshmen and sophomores.): The Feynman Lectures on Physics is the most popular physics textbook ever written; still in print after 45 years, it has been translated into over a dozen languages, and has sold many millions of copies around the world. I can well believe that YOUR time was “wasted” reading The Feynman Lectures, but that is not a reflection on the book.
I think there are two Feynmans. There is the Feynman of the lectures and the Feynman of the autobiographies.
The latter Feynman I think wears very poorly, although it does provide a handy social-behavior model for the men — let’s be honest — who were emotionally stunted in high school (I was one.) Sort of one part Thoreau, one part (highly torqued) Ayn Rand really.
But the former Feynman’s awesomeness I think is unassailable? I read a paper of his on superfluidity many years later in graduate school — looking for insight on a related issue — and I was really amazed at how he carried over the insouciance of his lectures into more formal material.
Farhat
What’s the thing with Yahoo’s obsession with Feynman’s sex life here? Its like someone deviates one iota from the guilt-filled sex path laid down by the God from above and suddenly you have no value whatsoever. Yea, he liked sex with many partners and got to have it. Get over it.
Dany
Yahoo:” You can rupture my eardrums now”
Me too. I perceive it as kaka-phonia. So what?
Yahoo:” Feynman eventually had his comeuppance, as related here http://ysfine.com/feynman/ by someone who was there”
You blame R.P.Feynman obnoxious and rude but you in addition are arrogant ignorant since that “someone” is Y.Ne’eman whose contribution in physics even more substantial that that of R.P.Feynman. And he was also piece of cake.
Regards, Dany.
String Theorist
Feynman *was* rude and obnoxious. I have heard that from too many senior people that I respect, for it to be not true. People who defend him on that and attack yahoo are not getting the point.
Sorry to be so melodramatic, but dammit, I can handle the flames. 🙂
ST.
Dany
String Theorist:” People who defend him on that and attack yahoo are not getting the point.”
I consider all that discussion initiated by Yahoo outrageous. For me R.P.Feynman is real hero (in images used in my country): he put his mind and his body on the thorny barrier to let the others pass. Tragically, the only contribution which is invariant under time translations he refused to publish.
If you have to go through that palaver just to order orange juice, then how long would it take you to order a full breakfast? I know it’s too late now, but Feynman should have gone to the MacDonalds or Starbucks in Oxford or Cambridge, which I frequent, where the task could be accomplished in a fraction of the time.
Dany
I have no idea what was Yuval’s association but in our country A. Einstein is a very popular singer.
Regards, Dany.
hey
Dear Chris Oakley, I took a look at your website, and it seems like you are still using the dark ages view of renormalization, a la Feynman and Schwinger!! Ever since Wilson, we do understand where quantum field theory fits in.
Maybe you should read up on effective field theories?? Nobody really thinks quantum field theory IS the fundamental theory these days (even though sometimes it can be). Just that at suficiently low energies, everything LOOKS like a quantum field theory. So the issues about its fundamental-ness that you raise -which incidentally are very good questions that took a long time for humans to figure out- are not a problem anymore.
Just thought I will point it out in case you are actively thinking about these things…
2. You are right – by and large people now longer worry about the fact that they are unable to derive their QFT calculational tools from first principles. Is that their problem or mine?
2. You are right – by and large, people now no longer worry about the fact that they are unable to derive their QFT calculational tools from first principles. Is that their problem or mine?
hey
> 1. Why don’t you identify yourself?
Because the world is out to get me? Because I don’t want the professors to know that I am wasting time on blogs when THEY are wasting time on blogs? Because my real name is longer to type than “hey”? Because I am a closet string theorist? (We are the persecuted underdogs these days, you know?)
There are all these excellent reasons, but the only point relevant to this conversation is WHAT was said, not WHO said it. Content, over cosmetics.
> 2. You are right – by and large, people now no longer worry about the fact that they are unable
> to derive their QFT calculational tools from first principles. Is that their problem or mine?
Yours. People stopped worrying about it BECAUSE they understood what renormalization was about. So they are in fact able to derive “QFT calculational tools from first priciples”. You are trying to see quantum field theory like Feynman and company did. That is, without a cut-off. So when the cutoff is forced on you by the infinities, it upsets you. And indeed there, you have reason to be upset. The essential (and a posteriori extremeley natural) insight of Wilson was that QFT should be understood with a cutoff because we cannot pretend to understand short distance physics. What I am saying is that QFT is only an effective description at low energies and therefore, you are applying it outside its regime of validity when you are trying to extrapolate it to extremely high energies and complaining about infinities.
But I think there is one context in which your desire for a QFT without a cutoff, might have some validity. This is in the context of QCD (or any theory with UV fixed point), because QCD even though a QFT is well-defined as a theory at all scales! But still we do need a cutoff (to be differentiated from the scale at which the theory is defined) to handle UV divergences, for example in perturbative QCD. So one might ask why we need to do this since QCD should work at all scales. My answer would be that the Wilsonian path integral for QCD should be thought of as given to us from the deep UV, and the “giving” has to be thought of as happening at some scale. Physically speaking, the only thing that we have any right to talk about from our low-energy misery is the effective action with degrees of freedom corresponding to short distance physics ALREADY integrated out. The scale at which this integrating out happens is the UV cutoff of the theory.
In any event, it was nice talking to you. Perhaps you are too invested in your pet theories to change your mind, cut your losses etc., but who knows? Perhaps you are!
hey
The last sentence of my previous message should read:
Sorry, but I have got rather tired of arguing with anonymous people on blogs. Identify yourself, and I will try to answer your points. Otherwise, forget it.
hey
No, there was nothing you needed to answer. I already got your points from your website.
You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.
Good luck!
Dany
Hey:”No, there was nothing you needed to answer. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.”
Chris, let him die quietly, if he want to.
Regards, Dany.
hey
Dany, yes, democracy is what decides facts. So all it takes for you and Chris is to get some other dudes to join in your “QFT is nonsense” cult and you can start your own research institute. I knew a kid in my college who was convinced that calculus is wrong because he was confused by infinitesimals. Maybe you should appoint him as the director.
What I find hilarious is the kind of excuses that people use when confronted with the ridiculousness of their claims. Please tell me, how exactly is my anonymity relevant to my arguments? Except to give Chris an easy escape path? I meant what I said: I want to stay anonymous because I do not want my professors to think that I am wasting my time fighting crackpots on the internet.
Even though, clearly, thats precisely what I am doing right now.
The jury should please note that this is the first time in the entire conversation that I was being a teeeeeny bit offensive, despite the abject silliness of Chris Oakley’s claims about QFT. I think I have a right to be a bit frustrated.
I will try to resist posting further: I started this off-topic blather, and its fair that I should take the initiative to end it.
“hey” is saying not that I am wrong – I seriously doubt that he has studied my papers anyway – he is just saying that I am uncool. The peculiar arrogance of HEP theorists is that, to them, “uncool” and “wrong” are are just different ways of saying the same thing. So maybe he has a future in the subject.
“Effective” field theory – that he thinks I know nothing about – makes no claims about being axiomatic. As he points out, it is just a ragbag of suppositions concerning scaling behaviour that helps one obtain ad hoc models accurate only within carefully-defined limits, and, as such, is very unsatisfying state of the physics art. It will eventually die in the same way, and for the same reasons that Bohr’s model of the single-electron atom died. But by applying labels like “crackpot” (so far only received from Lubos Motl – and discounted accordingly) to someone who is trying to find something better is just pathetic.
Dany
Chris,
Bohr’s model died when something better was suggested. He is just a kid. Let him study physics in his own way. I agree with him that your requirement for identification is irrelevant. Sadly, he is already dude but don’t understand that.
Regards, Dany.
P.S. I remember studying your papers already at 80th.
I never met Feynman so I don’t know what he was like in person or as a person. But I do admire his physics and enjoy reading his books. What I and I believe many other people find inspirational about him is 1) a sense of life as an adventure, with all sorts of unexpected things possible and waiting to be enjoyed: 2) a direct, honest approach to life, based on a willingness to admit that there are a lot of things we don’t know and may never know, but we’re not going to pretend that we do know just to feel good or important.
As far as him being obnoxious or arrogant, I don’t think that can be the whole story. His recently published correspondence reveals quite an empathic, warm person sensitive to the feelings of other people and ready to assist when he could. I don’t think you can easily “fake” your correspondence over a period of many years.
Yahoo,
Since I was there and you weren’t I guess I you’re just going to have to trust me on this one.
e.
Overbearing scientists who behave badly toward junior people do it because they are jerks who haven’t learned better or are insecure. Not because they are being Feynmanesque. Blaming it all on Feynman relieves these people of responsibility for their own actions. Don’t do that.
Yahoo,
I challenge you to name a verifiable source that Feynman “was intensely obnoxious and rude to virtually all speakers.” (In fact, Feynman did not suffer arrogant fools lightly, but most seminar speakers, at least at Caltech, are not of that ilk.)
Regarding The Feynman Lectures on Physics, which you refer to as “sophomoric” (What do you expect? It was written for freshmen and sophomores.): The Feynman Lectures on Physics is the most popular physics textbook ever written; still in print after 45 years, it has been translated into over a dozen languages, and has sold many millions of copies around the world. I can well believe that YOUR time was “wasted” reading The Feynman Lectures, but that is not a reflection on the book.
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I think there are two Feynmans. There is the Feynman of the lectures and the Feynman of the autobiographies.
The latter Feynman I think wears very poorly, although it does provide a handy social-behavior model for the men — let’s be honest — who were emotionally stunted in high school (I was one.) Sort of one part Thoreau, one part (highly torqued) Ayn Rand really.
But the former Feynman’s awesomeness I think is unassailable? I read a paper of his on superfluidity many years later in graduate school — looking for insight on a related issue — and I was really amazed at how he carried over the insouciance of his lectures into more formal material.
What’s the thing with Yahoo’s obsession with Feynman’s sex life here? Its like someone deviates one iota from the guilt-filled sex path laid down by the God from above and suddenly you have no value whatsoever. Yea, he liked sex with many partners and got to have it. Get over it.
Yahoo:” You can rupture my eardrums now”
Me too. I perceive it as kaka-phonia. So what?
Yahoo:” Feynman eventually had his comeuppance, as related here http://ysfine.com/feynman/ by someone who was there”
You blame R.P.Feynman obnoxious and rude but you in addition are arrogant ignorant since that “someone” is Y.Ne’eman whose contribution in physics even more substantial that that of R.P.Feynman. And he was also piece of cake.
Regards, Dany.
Feynman *was* rude and obnoxious. I have heard that from too many senior people that I respect, for it to be not true. People who defend him on that and attack yahoo are not getting the point.
Sorry to be so melodramatic, but dammit, I can handle the flames. 🙂
ST.
String Theorist:” People who defend him on that and attack yahoo are not getting the point.”
I consider all that discussion initiated by Yahoo outrageous. For me R.P.Feynman is real hero (in images used in my country): he put his mind and his body on the thorny barrier to let the others pass. Tragically, the only contribution which is invariant under time translations he refused to publish.
I hope I am wrong.
Regards, Dany.
I love it (via the ysfine link above)
“Feynman was the Elvis Presley of Physics”
e.
If you have to go through that palaver just to order orange juice, then how long would it take you to order a full breakfast? I know it’s too late now, but Feynman should have gone to the MacDonalds or Starbucks in Oxford or Cambridge, which I frequent, where the task could be accomplished in a fraction of the time.
I have no idea what was Yuval’s association but in our country A. Einstein is a very popular singer.
Regards, Dany.
Dear Chris Oakley, I took a look at your website, and it seems like you are still using the dark ages view of renormalization, a la Feynman and Schwinger!! Ever since Wilson, we do understand where quantum field theory fits in.
Maybe you should read up on effective field theories?? Nobody really thinks quantum field theory IS the fundamental theory these days (even though sometimes it can be). Just that at suficiently low energies, everything LOOKS like a quantum field theory. So the issues about its fundamental-ness that you raise -which incidentally are very good questions that took a long time for humans to figure out- are not a problem anymore.
Just thought I will point it out in case you are actively thinking about these things…
Hi hey,
1. Why don’t you identify yourself?
2. You are right – by and large people now longer worry about the fact that they are unable to derive their QFT calculational tools from first principles. Is that their problem or mine?
Sorry, point 2 should read
2. You are right – by and large, people now no longer worry about the fact that they are unable to derive their QFT calculational tools from first principles. Is that their problem or mine?
> 1. Why don’t you identify yourself?
Because the world is out to get me? Because I don’t want the professors to know that I am wasting time on blogs when THEY are wasting time on blogs? Because my real name is longer to type than “hey”? Because I am a closet string theorist? (We are the persecuted underdogs these days, you know?)
There are all these excellent reasons, but the only point relevant to this conversation is WHAT was said, not WHO said it. Content, over cosmetics.
> 2. You are right – by and large, people now no longer worry about the fact that they are unable
> to derive their QFT calculational tools from first principles. Is that their problem or mine?
Yours. People stopped worrying about it BECAUSE they understood what renormalization was about. So they are in fact able to derive “QFT calculational tools from first priciples”. You are trying to see quantum field theory like Feynman and company did. That is, without a cut-off. So when the cutoff is forced on you by the infinities, it upsets you. And indeed there, you have reason to be upset. The essential (and a posteriori extremeley natural) insight of Wilson was that QFT should be understood with a cutoff because we cannot pretend to understand short distance physics. What I am saying is that QFT is only an effective description at low energies and therefore, you are applying it outside its regime of validity when you are trying to extrapolate it to extremely high energies and complaining about infinities.
But I think there is one context in which your desire for a QFT without a cutoff, might have some validity. This is in the context of QCD (or any theory with UV fixed point), because QCD even though a QFT is well-defined as a theory at all scales! But still we do need a cutoff (to be differentiated from the scale at which the theory is defined) to handle UV divergences, for example in perturbative QCD. So one might ask why we need to do this since QCD should work at all scales. My answer would be that the Wilsonian path integral for QCD should be thought of as given to us from the deep UV, and the “giving” has to be thought of as happening at some scale. Physically speaking, the only thing that we have any right to talk about from our low-energy misery is the effective action with degrees of freedom corresponding to short distance physics ALREADY integrated out. The scale at which this integrating out happens is the UV cutoff of the theory.
In any event, it was nice talking to you. Perhaps you are too invested in your pet theories to change your mind, cut your losses etc., but who knows? Perhaps you are!
The last sentence of my previous message should read:
Perhaps you are not!
Sorry, but I have got rather tired of arguing with anonymous people on blogs. Identify yourself, and I will try to answer your points. Otherwise, forget it.
No, there was nothing you needed to answer. I already got your points from your website.
You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.
Good luck!
Hey:”No, there was nothing you needed to answer. You can lead a horse to water, but you cannot make it drink.”
Chris, let him die quietly, if he want to.
Regards, Dany.
Dany, yes, democracy is what decides facts. So all it takes for you and Chris is to get some other dudes to join in your “QFT is nonsense” cult and you can start your own research institute. I knew a kid in my college who was convinced that calculus is wrong because he was confused by infinitesimals. Maybe you should appoint him as the director.
What I find hilarious is the kind of excuses that people use when confronted with the ridiculousness of their claims. Please tell me, how exactly is my anonymity relevant to my arguments? Except to give Chris an easy escape path? I meant what I said: I want to stay anonymous because I do not want my professors to think that I am wasting my time fighting crackpots on the internet.
Even though, clearly, thats precisely what I am doing right now.
The jury should please note that this is the first time in the entire conversation that I was being a teeeeeny bit offensive, despite the abject silliness of Chris Oakley’s claims about QFT. I think I have a right to be a bit frustrated.
I will try to resist posting further: I started this off-topic blather, and its fair that I should take the initiative to end it.
Dany,
“hey” is saying not that I am wrong – I seriously doubt that he has studied my papers anyway – he is just saying that I am uncool. The peculiar arrogance of HEP theorists is that, to them, “uncool” and “wrong” are are just different ways of saying the same thing. So maybe he has a future in the subject.
“Effective” field theory – that he thinks I know nothing about – makes no claims about being axiomatic. As he points out, it is just a ragbag of suppositions concerning scaling behaviour that helps one obtain ad hoc models accurate only within carefully-defined limits, and, as such, is very unsatisfying state of the physics art. It will eventually die in the same way, and for the same reasons that Bohr’s model of the single-electron atom died. But by applying labels like “crackpot” (so far only received from Lubos Motl – and discounted accordingly) to someone who is trying to find something better is just pathetic.
Chris,
Bohr’s model died when something better was suggested. He is just a kid. Let him study physics in his own way. I agree with him that your requirement for identification is irrelevant. Sadly, he is already dude but don’t understand that.
Regards, Dany.
P.S. I remember studying your papers already at 80th.
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I never met Feynman so I don’t know what he was like in person or as a person. But I do admire his physics and enjoy reading his books. What I and I believe many other people find inspirational about him is 1) a sense of life as an adventure, with all sorts of unexpected things possible and waiting to be enjoyed: 2) a direct, honest approach to life, based on a willingness to admit that there are a lot of things we don’t know and may never know, but we’re not going to pretend that we do know just to feel good or important.
As far as him being obnoxious or arrogant, I don’t think that can be the whole story. His recently published correspondence reveals quite an empathic, warm person sensitive to the feelings of other people and ready to assist when he could. I don’t think you can easily “fake” your correspondence over a period of many years.