In which I indulge in some hero worship

Here's a simple question - not!  Who wrote this:

If, in some cataclysm, all of scientific knowledge were to be destroyed, and only one sentence passed on to the next generations of creatures [my emphasis], what statement would contain the most information in the fewest words? I believe it is the atomic hypothesis (or the atomic fact, or whatever you wish to call it) that all things are made of atoms—little particles that move around in perpetual motion, attracting each other when they are a little distance apart, but repelling upon being squeezed into one another. In that one sentence, you will see, there is an enormous amount of information about the world, if just a little imagination and thinking are applied.

Yes, you are right, a swot, but a truly great swot and a man I have admired enormously since I first came across him in the early '80s - Richard Feynman.  It was just before that time that my insatiable curiosity was hooked by the 'fantastical' - well, they were 'fantastical' to just about everyone including the swots! - notions of quantum mechanics.  Thank God, there were, and still are, excellent writers who are able take the ignorant by the hand and lead them gently at least part of the way into the magical mystery land that exists below the level of the atom.  I stress that one can only go so far unless, that is, you can 'speak' mathematics.  Without maths you can only grasp the outline but that is enough to blow your mind away in such a fashion that you will never look at the world in the same way again.

I can't recall the details of the programme I watched but in essence it was Feynman explaining these wonders in a totally relaxed, not to say downright easy-going manner in which all the hideous complexities (well, some of them) were clarified.  Later I bought and read James Gleick's biography of him, Genius: Richard Feynman and Modern Physics.  This showed the mischievous, gambling, womanising, drum-playing Feynman as well as the brilliant scientist and the loving husband who was widowed far too early in his life.

Anyway, the point of all this waffle is to tell you that friends and colleagues of Feynman have brought together all of his lectures given at Caltech University  back in the '60s and published them on the internet.  I have saved them and I will, I promise, try and nibble at them bit by bit although whether or not I live long enough to finish them is moot!  And how much I will understand is even 'mooter'!

http://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/

 

Comments

[rogerh]

Well worth a look and I think most of us could with a bit of effort understand quite a lot of it - it is that clear. Nowadays the diligent student can easily search out the best lectures - plenty of blogs recommend who is good on this or that. Which raises the question - given we now have easy access to top class information and teachers why has humanity not advanced to some sunny intellectual nirvana rather than obsessing with tweets, chirrups and folk making the beast. I fear I know why.

[backofanenvelope]

And there is always Amazon - Quantum Physics for Dummies is less than £10!

[David Duff]

I think, Roger, that we have advanced *towards* a "sunny intellectual nirvana", or at least, the very best brains have and meanwhile the rest of us 'great unwashed' struggle on behind them whilst enjoying some of the benefits.

Yes, indeed, BOE, I still have my original copy of "Philosophy made Simple" - it wasn't!

[Mike Cunningham]

Sorry, Duff me old mate, but you have simply chosen the wrong sentence.

The only sentence which should survive is the one which goes:-

Big fleas have small fleas, which sit on their backs and bite 'em, small fleas have smaller fleas, and so on....ad infinitum!

[David Duff]

Well, in the sense that we all live and enjoy certain 'comforts' as a result of swots doing what swots do, then I think we are in agreement. By the way, Mike, I'm glad you have commented because it gives me a chance to re-bookmark your site which was a victim of my recent computer crash. Good post on that black thug in Missouri and the sick-inducing hypocrisy of the political axe-grinders.

[Andrew Duffin]

A great man indeed. I used a book of his lectures in my first-year Physics class at Uni (or, as we called it then, "General Natural Philosophy", no really, I kid you not). Wonderful explanations, wonderful diagrams, wonderful anecdotes!

My favourite Feynmanism, which I constantly quote to warmists, is:
"It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong."

For some reason, warmists seem to think this doesn't apply to them.