I remember reading that love letter to his first wife and it's hard to imagine that person as also as horrible as it seems some of the others on your list are.
I guess I should just watch the video.
But I would love to see you do Tolkien, Hawthorne, Walter Scott for a counterpoint!
Sorry for the late answer; I was away for a few days.
First of all, I am not trying to equate these three (or, in fact, any of the mentioned and unmentioned) cases. They are all different tastes of shit, I was just describing those that in some way touched me personally or changed my perspective on some things.
The Feynman aspect for me more or less boils down to the book in question. For some reason, the fact that he didn't write that and that these stories may be exaggerated or even made up was unpleasant to me. The abuse allegations are a minor point of the video, but their source is an official court document describing their divorce.
The video is quite good, and she does say a lot of good things about Feynman as well, including his relationship with his first wife, his daughter, and some other women in his life.
There are many positive examples of people unaffected by the fame, and I like the ones you brought! I don't have anything interesting to say about those yet (although I really love Tolkien, and I have an uneven relationship with Bulgakov), but when I do, I will!
I guess I need to watch her video, but her first minute already rubbed me the wrong way. I dunno, I guess I had an impression from physics friends and family that he was on caliber of the Einsteins and others, and not just the Ghosbusters to the Godfathers of physics.
I also saw excerpts of an interview with Feynman which overlapped a lot with the books and I wonder if the book is written down prose of that interview or other conversations. It didn't feel like betrayal to me, though I guess I would be better if labeled.
Maybe my tolerance of misbehavior is different from yours in exceptional people. Like being a womanizer or a garden variety asshole from time to time doesn't faze me so much as someone bring creepy, disgusting, and downright abusive does.
Oh well, different strokes for different folks lol. I enjoyed a lot of Bulgakov, in a way I have not enjoyed 19th century Russian literature (what i have read of it).
I am overall ok with talented people being womanizers or assholes, but I don't think they should allow that to seep into their art. Partially because that breeds more womanizers and assholes, and partially because they should be responsible for what they create.
Of course, being abusive is so much worse.
I do like a lot of Bulgakov, but I have some unresolved feelings with his most famous book, "Master and Margarita." Maybe that would be an interesting essay topic, but I have to reread it first.
It's Sergey Lukyanenko, one of the most popular Russian sci-fi writers.
Well, it's complicated, and hard to write in a single comment. I generally find the book a little sleazy, and "punching down", if you know what I mean. It is still a genius book, but last time I read it a couple of years ago, I couldn't shake this feeling.
No, both Strugatskys seemed to be very decent people.
There's nothing much wrong with Tolkien - at least he seems to have treated his wife, children, students, friends, and indeed his fans with kindness and decency. Of course some of his views might seem odd or objectionable to those that don't share them - all that Catholic stuff about sin, not to mention his extreme (but hardly irrational) suspicion of modern technology. But none of that seems to rise to the level of shittiness that KA is talking about here.
It happens with spiritual gurus a lot too. The sad thing is that most of them start off honestly wanting to follow a spiritual path and guide people for real. Then they practice for a while, get some intense experiences along the way, and feel that they're ready for the job. Then comes the adulation, their system can't take it, and the ego just rises back up. It's a basic male evolutionary drive after all - gain status to get power and sex. At this point they've amassed a group of followers who will gladly take abuse disguised as teaching, until the whole thing unravels. It happens everywhere, no religion is exempt.
Sorry for the late answer; I was away for a few days.
Yes, I think it's a great analogy and probably a similar psychological mechanism. A celebrity has a lot in common with a spiritual teacher, and with advances in social media even more so.
Als Psychiater muss ich natürlich schmunzeln (wir lernen die Leute auch in ihren Unterhosen kennen, deshalb gibt's das Arztgeheimnis). Das ist der Unterschied zwischen der Person und ihrer Persona. Und Balzac hat den Unterschied zwischen "Charakter haben" und "Persönlichkeit sein" herausgearbeitet. Brodski war eben nur eine Persönlichkeit.
Yes, absolutely. Odysseus is a trickster, they are supposed to be shifty. But he did love his son and his wife, even though he wasnt' that faithful to her.
I think a lot of it has to do with the increasing power of women (now frankly predominant) in the cultural sphere--what would have been seen as 'rock star behavior' and largely consensual on the part of the woman is now seen as exploitative. There are, for example, texts from the women accusing Gaiman telling their friends this was the best sex they ever had.
Conversely, we now laud women for divorcing for what would have been considered fairly trivial reasons fifty years ago. And we're OK with Taylor Swift writing roman a clefs about her ex-boyfriends, most of whom are clearly identifiable due to her celebrity.
You know, if you're putting the word "largely" before the word "consensual", you can just go ahead and put "not" instead, save yourself some letters.
One of the points of the Gaiman story - or any other "rock star" sex story, for that matter, - is that consensual stuff can be exploitative too. A relationship between a drug user and his dealer can be 100% consensual, but it is exploitative and illegal, and for a good reason. Consent is important, but it is not the only important thing. Rock star behavior is incredibly harmful and should go the way of the wifebeating practices, genital mutilation, and doctors not washing their hands before an operation.
You know, I think 10 years ago I would have agreed with you. Certainly never got the chance to engage in any rock star behavior, and growing up in the 90s in a liberal area was painfully cautious about consent. When it comes to Gaiman, I really, really don't know what happened there.
But post-Aziz Ansari and Al Franken and the rest of those (though I think the most likely situation with Heard and Depp is they were both abusive)...I don't know. I feel like they just move the goalposts after the fact to go after people they don't like, or even to terrify the other side.
Yes, Gaiman's story is weird and unexpected (although now many people say that they saw it coming). I certainly didn't.
With every large enough system, there will be people who would try to scam it, exploit it and crazy it through. This is very rarely a fault of the system in question, but rather one of the meta-systems: either our inability to create a faultless system or our desire to fuck with existing ones.
I think, in general, the fact that there is now tangible danger to this type of asshole behavior is probably a good thing. There are outliers and collateral damage, but overall, I think this is better than any other currently existing alternative.
What do you find problematic about Feynman's fame? I don't find it weird at all that he is more famous for his personality than his physics, whatever that means. How many people could tell you anything about Einstein's theories beside the headlines, if even? Beside E=MC^2? Or even about Newton? Feynman was also an educator, and a good one, which is rare enough. Not many good scientists are good teachers, unfortunately. And I think it at least in part has to do with them not even trying. That he taught with humour speaks in his favour, as a scientist, in my book.
As for his book, my understanding is that they are based on recordings of his stories. On the one hand it sounds like you claim that these were fabricated by somebody else like one did the tales of King Arthur. But then at the end you add that it was indeed his stories... and you add ‘drunken’ and ‘superfan’ as if to disparage it. Does it really matter whether he used the typewriter himself or merely dictated it?
I was just recently thinking about charisma among politicians, leaders. It seems to me that some people are suspicious of it, associate it with populism. Say figures like Trump or Milei. It's always good to be suspicious of your leaders, but I think taking that and making charisma = bad is a false move, and I rather think that it was this kind of attitude that brought figures like Biden and Scholz to be made the leaders of their respective countries, dry figures with neither spark nor momentum of any kind. They might be fit to lead an accountants bureau, perhaps, if nothing too exciting would happen, but certainly not a country.
(Also, speaking of The Book. I remember a teacher telling us that the not so shining moment of Noah was inserted to avoid people idolizing him. I recall that already quite young I thought to myself that you better wait until the person is dead before you tattoo their face or name on yourself.)
You should watch the video if you're interested; she presents the case much better and more thoroughly than I ever could.
Try to imagine two scenarios.
Scenario 1: I am writing my autobiography. I am recording some assorted stories from my youth about my friends and colleagues. It's ok if I don't remember some things, so I write the other people involved and ask them to help me out. If I cannot reach them, I write it in a way that is clear that this is what I remember happened, and it might not be the whole truth.
Scenario 2: I have a much younger friend who looks up to me. We hang out and drink and play drums together, and once in a while I tell him tales of my youth. I don't really care about the truth at the moment; I'm just shooting the shit. Some things are exaggerated, but it's ok; my friend eats it up; he kinda idolizes me. Then, after a few years of this, it turns out that he was writing everything down after the fact and now has written a book based on what he wrote.
How would the Venn diagram of the contents of the two books look? And is it ethical to present Sc. 2 as Sc. 1? Especially for a scientist? I would consider it a gray zone, at least.
The most damning evidence that the reality was closer to scenario 2 than scenario 1 for me was that a) no official biographer mentioned those stories, at least in the way they were described in the "SYAJ,MF" book, and b) very few of his stories in the "SYAJ,MF" book were about his interactions with other famous people (whom he met by the hundred). Most of them were about people who would not be able to confirm or deny them. This, to me, seemed sketchy and unpleasant to think about.
About the personality vs. physics: it is kinda weird. Imagine we were talking about a writer, but the only thing people were talking about was his personality and not his books. "Oh, he's such a cooky character!". And would continue to do so even after his death. This is fine, but would he top the lists of the "most famous writers"? And, especially, "best writers"? Wouldn't that be weird?
Things that Einstein and Newton did are taught in schools; they are fundamental to any physics discussion on almost any level. They are universally beneficial to all physics. Things Feynmann did were great and exceptionally inventive, but they are limited to specific field(s) and are often ignored outside of those. They are on a different level of "importance".
The presentation of the two scenarios seems very solid. I don't see however how what you present as the ‘damning evidence’ is evidence at all that he gave himself a storyteller's license.
But first, I do wonder whether Feynman did not approve the book? I would assume so. The book would not have been published otherwise, would it?
And then the distinction seems to me to matter less. It doesn't mean that he didn't make things up, but it does make it more akin to scenario 1.
As for the damning evidence:
Biographies and memoirs are different genres. Biographers are concerned less with anecdotes and entertaining in general, and more with telling a more or less integral story of a person's life.
Why would the mentioned people not be able to confirm or deny them? (assuming they were not yet dead when the book was published)
About the personality vs. physics: I'm not sure what is supposed to be weird. Let's say he did get famous because of his pranks, or that his pranks got him famous because he was also an eminent physicist and you don't expect physicists to be mischievous. What do you mean by ‘weird’? Unusual? It's also unusual to come up with science revolutionizing theories. Somebody gets famous for general relativity, another for pranks. Your ‘weird’ labeling seems to carry an accusatory load but I don't see what the issue here really is.
As for schools, Feynman's work is also taught in schools. If you mean secondary school, then I can say at least that where and when we were educated, physics was elective, and I wouldn't be too surprised if in your high-school, being renowned as it was, they taught special relativity, but I think it's far from being the case in general, and that whoever encounters Einstein does so for the first time in the uni. Anyhow, I think it's beside the point. Do you really think many people could give you an intelligent answer about Einstein's theory? Even among well educated people? But they might know that he stuck his tongue out and played the violin.
But ok: I suppose people could at least tell you ‘general relativity’ when you ask about Einstein and not tell you anything about Feynman's work (if they would recognize the name at all)
Yes, he probably did approve it, or at least approve using his name. Which, again, is part of my problem with it.
Angela in her video goes almost case by case regarding specific truth distortions, which I wanted to avoid :) It is a 3-hour video for a reason.
A large part of the people he interacts with in the "SYAJ,MF" book are nameless characters: they are "that waitress", "a librarian", "my colleague", etc. As such, their existence is not confirmed by anyone else.
You are saying that biographers are concerned less with anecdotes, and that is true. But, as you yourself point out later, Feynman got famous because of his pranks and anecdotes. Isn't there a problem somewhere here? If the anecdortes are an integral part of his fame, why were most of them omitted in the biographies? And if these anecdotes are inconsequential in the life of a great scientist, why are they the first and often only thing we know about him?
[Einstein is not just relativity; it is also photoeffect and Brownian motion, both of which are taught in schools usually. But that's beside the point.]
I still can't tell what is the problem/ weird thing. Is her a quack physicist who did not deserve the Nobel prize? Is the issue that a book was published masquerading as FACT when really it's all long Münchhausian tales?
I think, in the first several chapters of the video, she addresses the weirdness thing. But I can try to summarize. First of all, he is definitely not a quack, this is not the message here. It is more nuanced.
We have a certain hierarchy in our minds when it comes to famous people. It is faulty, and probably not a good thing in general, but for what it's worth, we consider some people better at what they do than the others. When we think about actors, it would be weird for someone to think of Chris Pratt as a better actor than Daniel Day-Lewis. Both are fine actors, but saying "1<2" is considered normal, and "1>2" weird. Even saying that "1=2" is a little weird. You know what I mean?
I am trying to come up with a similar example for writers. Let's say, I would find it weird if someone called Chuck Palahniuk a better writer than James Joyce, or even on par with Joyce. I have nothing against Palahniuk, but... you know?
But something similar is happening with Feynman. I am not comparing Feynman with Chris Pratt or Chuck Palahniuk, this would be a wrong takeaway. But, looking at his body of work, and his body of work only, he seems to be misplaced in this hierarchy because of other factors. He is often put on the same level as Einstein, Newton, Curie, Bohr, etc., but his impact in science is lower than theirs. He should belong to a different list (of still very good, solid scientists).
I think this is the weirdness that I am feeling. Angela in the video is talking about this, and also her own experiences, about which I cannot comment. But based on what she is saying, professional physicists feel this weirdness stronger and not weaker than me.
Can you elaborate more on the Feynman aspect?
I remember reading that love letter to his first wife and it's hard to imagine that person as also as horrible as it seems some of the others on your list are.
I guess I should just watch the video.
But I would love to see you do Tolkien, Hawthorne, Walter Scott for a counterpoint!
Maybe Bulgakov?
Sorry for the late answer; I was away for a few days.
First of all, I am not trying to equate these three (or, in fact, any of the mentioned and unmentioned) cases. They are all different tastes of shit, I was just describing those that in some way touched me personally or changed my perspective on some things.
The Feynman aspect for me more or less boils down to the book in question. For some reason, the fact that he didn't write that and that these stories may be exaggerated or even made up was unpleasant to me. The abuse allegations are a minor point of the video, but their source is an official court document describing their divorce.
The video is quite good, and she does say a lot of good things about Feynman as well, including his relationship with his first wife, his daughter, and some other women in his life.
There are many positive examples of people unaffected by the fame, and I like the ones you brought! I don't have anything interesting to say about those yet (although I really love Tolkien, and I have an uneven relationship with Bulgakov), but when I do, I will!
I guess I need to watch her video, but her first minute already rubbed me the wrong way. I dunno, I guess I had an impression from physics friends and family that he was on caliber of the Einsteins and others, and not just the Ghosbusters to the Godfathers of physics.
I also saw excerpts of an interview with Feynman which overlapped a lot with the books and I wonder if the book is written down prose of that interview or other conversations. It didn't feel like betrayal to me, though I guess I would be better if labeled.
Maybe my tolerance of misbehavior is different from yours in exceptional people. Like being a womanizer or a garden variety asshole from time to time doesn't faze me so much as someone bring creepy, disgusting, and downright abusive does.
Oh well, different strokes for different folks lol. I enjoyed a lot of Bulgakov, in a way I have not enjoyed 19th century Russian literature (what i have read of it).
Also which sci-fi author went all proPutin?
I am overall ok with talented people being womanizers or assholes, but I don't think they should allow that to seep into their art. Partially because that breeds more womanizers and assholes, and partially because they should be responsible for what they create.
Of course, being abusive is so much worse.
I do like a lot of Bulgakov, but I have some unresolved feelings with his most famous book, "Master and Margarita." Maybe that would be an interesting essay topic, but I have to reread it first.
It's Sergey Lukyanenko, one of the most popular Russian sci-fi writers.
Now I have to ask what is re unsolved issue?? Perhaps it warrants an essay.
As long as it's no Strugatsky I'm ok lol.
Well, it's complicated, and hard to write in a single comment. I generally find the book a little sleazy, and "punching down", if you know what I mean. It is still a genius book, but last time I read it a couple of years ago, I couldn't shake this feeling.
No, both Strugatskys seemed to be very decent people.
There's nothing much wrong with Tolkien - at least he seems to have treated his wife, children, students, friends, and indeed his fans with kindness and decency. Of course some of his views might seem odd or objectionable to those that don't share them - all that Catholic stuff about sin, not to mention his extreme (but hardly irrational) suspicion of modern technology. But none of that seems to rise to the level of shittiness that KA is talking about here.
Let's hope it stays this way :) I really like Tolkien.
It happens with spiritual gurus a lot too. The sad thing is that most of them start off honestly wanting to follow a spiritual path and guide people for real. Then they practice for a while, get some intense experiences along the way, and feel that they're ready for the job. Then comes the adulation, their system can't take it, and the ego just rises back up. It's a basic male evolutionary drive after all - gain status to get power and sex. At this point they've amassed a group of followers who will gladly take abuse disguised as teaching, until the whole thing unravels. It happens everywhere, no religion is exempt.
Sorry for the late answer; I was away for a few days.
Yes, I think it's a great analogy and probably a similar psychological mechanism. A celebrity has a lot in common with a spiritual teacher, and with advances in social media even more so.
Als Psychiater muss ich natürlich schmunzeln (wir lernen die Leute auch in ihren Unterhosen kennen, deshalb gibt's das Arztgeheimnis). Das ist der Unterschied zwischen der Person und ihrer Persona. Und Balzac hat den Unterschied zwischen "Charakter haben" und "Persönlichkeit sein" herausgearbeitet. Brodski war eben nur eine Persönlichkeit.
Sorry for the late answer; I was away for a few days.
Which Brodsky do you mean? The asshole or the divine poet? I am pretty sure the asshole was real.
wieder ein Kategorienfehler
Oh well
Sorry, Odysseus was a true dickhead. But I guess one can hate the protagonist and love the author.
Yes, absolutely. Odysseus is a trickster, they are supposed to be shifty. But he did love his son and his wife, even though he wasnt' that faithful to her.
Wasn’t that faithful to her is currently the understatement of the year… but no fear, still 10 months to go 🤣
I agree I offered Tolkien and the others as a counterpoint to the essay, making them examples of being non shitty.
Power corrupts. That's an old story.
I think a lot of it has to do with the increasing power of women (now frankly predominant) in the cultural sphere--what would have been seen as 'rock star behavior' and largely consensual on the part of the woman is now seen as exploitative. There are, for example, texts from the women accusing Gaiman telling their friends this was the best sex they ever had.
Conversely, we now laud women for divorcing for what would have been considered fairly trivial reasons fifty years ago. And we're OK with Taylor Swift writing roman a clefs about her ex-boyfriends, most of whom are clearly identifiable due to her celebrity.
You know, if you're putting the word "largely" before the word "consensual", you can just go ahead and put "not" instead, save yourself some letters.
One of the points of the Gaiman story - or any other "rock star" sex story, for that matter, - is that consensual stuff can be exploitative too. A relationship between a drug user and his dealer can be 100% consensual, but it is exploitative and illegal, and for a good reason. Consent is important, but it is not the only important thing. Rock star behavior is incredibly harmful and should go the way of the wifebeating practices, genital mutilation, and doctors not washing their hands before an operation.
You know, I think 10 years ago I would have agreed with you. Certainly never got the chance to engage in any rock star behavior, and growing up in the 90s in a liberal area was painfully cautious about consent. When it comes to Gaiman, I really, really don't know what happened there.
But post-Aziz Ansari and Al Franken and the rest of those (though I think the most likely situation with Heard and Depp is they were both abusive)...I don't know. I feel like they just move the goalposts after the fact to go after people they don't like, or even to terrify the other side.
Yes, Gaiman's story is weird and unexpected (although now many people say that they saw it coming). I certainly didn't.
With every large enough system, there will be people who would try to scam it, exploit it and crazy it through. This is very rarely a fault of the system in question, but rather one of the meta-systems: either our inability to create a faultless system or our desire to fuck with existing ones.
I think, in general, the fact that there is now tangible danger to this type of asshole behavior is probably a good thing. There are outliers and collateral damage, but overall, I think this is better than any other currently existing alternative.
I haven't listened to the video yet.
What do you find problematic about Feynman's fame? I don't find it weird at all that he is more famous for his personality than his physics, whatever that means. How many people could tell you anything about Einstein's theories beside the headlines, if even? Beside E=MC^2? Or even about Newton? Feynman was also an educator, and a good one, which is rare enough. Not many good scientists are good teachers, unfortunately. And I think it at least in part has to do with them not even trying. That he taught with humour speaks in his favour, as a scientist, in my book.
As for his book, my understanding is that they are based on recordings of his stories. On the one hand it sounds like you claim that these were fabricated by somebody else like one did the tales of King Arthur. But then at the end you add that it was indeed his stories... and you add ‘drunken’ and ‘superfan’ as if to disparage it. Does it really matter whether he used the typewriter himself or merely dictated it?
I was just recently thinking about charisma among politicians, leaders. It seems to me that some people are suspicious of it, associate it with populism. Say figures like Trump or Milei. It's always good to be suspicious of your leaders, but I think taking that and making charisma = bad is a false move, and I rather think that it was this kind of attitude that brought figures like Biden and Scholz to be made the leaders of their respective countries, dry figures with neither spark nor momentum of any kind. They might be fit to lead an accountants bureau, perhaps, if nothing too exciting would happen, but certainly not a country.
(Also, speaking of The Book. I remember a teacher telling us that the not so shining moment of Noah was inserted to avoid people idolizing him. I recall that already quite young I thought to myself that you better wait until the person is dead before you tattoo their face or name on yourself.)
You should watch the video if you're interested; she presents the case much better and more thoroughly than I ever could.
Try to imagine two scenarios.
Scenario 1: I am writing my autobiography. I am recording some assorted stories from my youth about my friends and colleagues. It's ok if I don't remember some things, so I write the other people involved and ask them to help me out. If I cannot reach them, I write it in a way that is clear that this is what I remember happened, and it might not be the whole truth.
Scenario 2: I have a much younger friend who looks up to me. We hang out and drink and play drums together, and once in a while I tell him tales of my youth. I don't really care about the truth at the moment; I'm just shooting the shit. Some things are exaggerated, but it's ok; my friend eats it up; he kinda idolizes me. Then, after a few years of this, it turns out that he was writing everything down after the fact and now has written a book based on what he wrote.
How would the Venn diagram of the contents of the two books look? And is it ethical to present Sc. 2 as Sc. 1? Especially for a scientist? I would consider it a gray zone, at least.
The most damning evidence that the reality was closer to scenario 2 than scenario 1 for me was that a) no official biographer mentioned those stories, at least in the way they were described in the "SYAJ,MF" book, and b) very few of his stories in the "SYAJ,MF" book were about his interactions with other famous people (whom he met by the hundred). Most of them were about people who would not be able to confirm or deny them. This, to me, seemed sketchy and unpleasant to think about.
About the personality vs. physics: it is kinda weird. Imagine we were talking about a writer, but the only thing people were talking about was his personality and not his books. "Oh, he's such a cooky character!". And would continue to do so even after his death. This is fine, but would he top the lists of the "most famous writers"? And, especially, "best writers"? Wouldn't that be weird?
Things that Einstein and Newton did are taught in schools; they are fundamental to any physics discussion on almost any level. They are universally beneficial to all physics. Things Feynmann did were great and exceptionally inventive, but they are limited to specific field(s) and are often ignored outside of those. They are on a different level of "importance".
I do agree with you about teaching.
The presentation of the two scenarios seems very solid. I don't see however how what you present as the ‘damning evidence’ is evidence at all that he gave himself a storyteller's license.
But first, I do wonder whether Feynman did not approve the book? I would assume so. The book would not have been published otherwise, would it?
And then the distinction seems to me to matter less. It doesn't mean that he didn't make things up, but it does make it more akin to scenario 1.
As for the damning evidence:
Biographies and memoirs are different genres. Biographers are concerned less with anecdotes and entertaining in general, and more with telling a more or less integral story of a person's life.
Why would the mentioned people not be able to confirm or deny them? (assuming they were not yet dead when the book was published)
About the personality vs. physics: I'm not sure what is supposed to be weird. Let's say he did get famous because of his pranks, or that his pranks got him famous because he was also an eminent physicist and you don't expect physicists to be mischievous. What do you mean by ‘weird’? Unusual? It's also unusual to come up with science revolutionizing theories. Somebody gets famous for general relativity, another for pranks. Your ‘weird’ labeling seems to carry an accusatory load but I don't see what the issue here really is.
As for schools, Feynman's work is also taught in schools. If you mean secondary school, then I can say at least that where and when we were educated, physics was elective, and I wouldn't be too surprised if in your high-school, being renowned as it was, they taught special relativity, but I think it's far from being the case in general, and that whoever encounters Einstein does so for the first time in the uni. Anyhow, I think it's beside the point. Do you really think many people could give you an intelligent answer about Einstein's theory? Even among well educated people? But they might know that he stuck his tongue out and played the violin.
But ok: I suppose people could at least tell you ‘general relativity’ when you ask about Einstein and not tell you anything about Feynman's work (if they would recognize the name at all)
Yes, he probably did approve it, or at least approve using his name. Which, again, is part of my problem with it.
Angela in her video goes almost case by case regarding specific truth distortions, which I wanted to avoid :) It is a 3-hour video for a reason.
A large part of the people he interacts with in the "SYAJ,MF" book are nameless characters: they are "that waitress", "a librarian", "my colleague", etc. As such, their existence is not confirmed by anyone else.
You are saying that biographers are concerned less with anecdotes, and that is true. But, as you yourself point out later, Feynman got famous because of his pranks and anecdotes. Isn't there a problem somewhere here? If the anecdortes are an integral part of his fame, why were most of them omitted in the biographies? And if these anecdotes are inconsequential in the life of a great scientist, why are they the first and often only thing we know about him?
[Einstein is not just relativity; it is also photoeffect and Brownian motion, both of which are taught in schools usually. But that's beside the point.]
I see about the people.
I'll give a look at the video.
I still can't tell what is the problem/ weird thing. Is her a quack physicist who did not deserve the Nobel prize? Is the issue that a book was published masquerading as FACT when really it's all long Münchhausian tales?
I think, in the first several chapters of the video, she addresses the weirdness thing. But I can try to summarize. First of all, he is definitely not a quack, this is not the message here. It is more nuanced.
We have a certain hierarchy in our minds when it comes to famous people. It is faulty, and probably not a good thing in general, but for what it's worth, we consider some people better at what they do than the others. When we think about actors, it would be weird for someone to think of Chris Pratt as a better actor than Daniel Day-Lewis. Both are fine actors, but saying "1<2" is considered normal, and "1>2" weird. Even saying that "1=2" is a little weird. You know what I mean?
I am trying to come up with a similar example for writers. Let's say, I would find it weird if someone called Chuck Palahniuk a better writer than James Joyce, or even on par with Joyce. I have nothing against Palahniuk, but... you know?
But something similar is happening with Feynman. I am not comparing Feynman with Chris Pratt or Chuck Palahniuk, this would be a wrong takeaway. But, looking at his body of work, and his body of work only, he seems to be misplaced in this hierarchy because of other factors. He is often put on the same level as Einstein, Newton, Curie, Bohr, etc., but his impact in science is lower than theirs. He should belong to a different list (of still very good, solid scientists).
I think this is the weirdness that I am feeling. Angela in the video is talking about this, and also her own experiences, about which I cannot comment. But based on what she is saying, professional physicists feel this weirdness stronger and not weaker than me.
Ok, thank you. I get it. Physicists striking jelly eyes at the unwarrantedly famous peer.
It doesn't have anything to do with his potentially exaggerated tales though, or does it?
But I'll give the video a listen, you don't have to repeat things in it for my sake.