Richard Feynman

[Lasercookie]

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8777381378502286852#

Really interesting BBC interview with Richard Feynman from the early 80s. It's entitled 'The Pleasure of Finding Things Out'.

It runs for about 50 minutes and Feynman talks about how he became interested in science, his experiences with starting out lecturing, the Nobel prize committee and the Manhattan Project among many other topics. I urge everybody to watch it, it's brilliant.

It opens with these lines concerning the criticism of science:

I have a friend who’s an artist, and he sometimes takes a view which I don’t agree with. He’ll hold up a flower and say. “Look how beautiful it is,” and I’ll agree. But then he’ll say, “I, as an artist, can see how beautiful a flower is. But you, as a scientist, take it all apart and it becomes dull.” I think he’s kind of nutty. First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people—and to me, too, I believe. Although I might not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is, I can appreciate the beauty of a flower. But at the same time, I see much more in the flower than he sees. I can imagine the cells inside, which also have a beauty. There’s beauty not just at the dimension of one centimetre; there’s also beauty at a smaller dimension. There are the complicated actions of the cells, and other processes. The fact that the colors in the flower have evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; that means insects can see the colors. That adds a question: does this aesthetic sense we have also exist in lower forms of life? There are all kinds of interesting questions that come from a knowledge of science, which only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds.

The video quality isn't that great, but it's good enough. I'm sure that there would be better quality versions on the internet somewhere.

[Lasercookie]

I came across another documentary on Richard Feynman by the same BBC television show ten years later in 1993. I haven't watched this one yet but I've heard good things about it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzg1CU8t9nw

This one was entitled 'No Ordinary Genius'. It's not a direct interview with Feynman (as he had died in 1988) but it features people who knew him as well as footage of Feynman. I don't know if anyone finds this man's work, perspectives and life as interesting as I do.

[Lasercookie]

bump, just wondering if anyone ended up watching this and what they thought of it?

[#1procrastinator]

i've been watching this, 'no ordinary genius' and 'fun to imagine' every time i hit the books to keep me motivated.  i think feynman's voice is cool haha

[Lasercookie]

i've been watching this, 'no ordinary genius' and 'fun to imagine' every time i hit the books to keep me motivated.  i think feynman's voice is cool haha

If you want some more Feynman stuff, "Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman" and "What do you care what other people think?" are pretty good books. They're a collection of funny short stories told by Feynman about his life. Any ebook downloading website will have it. Local library may also have it. 

'Infinity' is a film directed by Matthew Broderick and it happened to be about Richard Feynman's life (focuses on World War II period mainly). I didn't realise it was about Feynman initially - just found it interesting that the dude from Ferris Bueller directed a film. It's a pretty well-made film - wasn't a very funny or overly happy film like I would have expected from Broderick, and it seems pretty accurate (as according to those two books I mentioned before anyway).

There's also this set of lectures here: http://vega.org.uk/video/subseries/8. Apparently they're an early form of 'Q.E.D' which is supposed to be a popular popular science book by Feynman that explains quantum physics to a general audience. I haven't read that book and I've only bothered to watch the first lecture, it was pretty interesting however.

[#1procrastinator]

^ i ordered 'surely you're joking' a couple of weeks ago and my library has the latter, i've only skimmed through that one though.

did you have to rent that one?

thanks for the link, i don't think i've watched that yet

[lorelai]

Another great quote from Feynman about the scientific process.

“You see, one thing is, I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it’s much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of certainty about different things, but I’m not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don’t know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we’re here, and what the question might mean. I might think about it a little bit and if I can’t figure it out, then I go on to something else, but I don’t have to know an answer, I don’t feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in a mysterious universe without having any purpose, which is the way it really is so far as I can tell. It doesn’t frighten me.”

(from The Pleasure of Finding Things Out)