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CrieDeCoeur t1_iu70bqn wrote

Feynman also had a great sense of humour. Pretty philosophical guy too from what I've read about him.

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danathecount t1_iu74z8w wrote

You should read his auto-biography(ish) “Surely you’re joking Mr.Feynman”

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ISpyStrangers t1_iu7ppm4 wrote

And the sequel, What do You Care What Other People Think?

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MukdenMan t1_iu8j0yj wrote

“I’m not joking. And don’t call me Mr. Feynman.” - Shirley

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Would_daver t1_iu9y705 wrote

"A hospital? It's a place where sick people go to get better. But that's not important right now" -Also Shirley

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OldMork t1_iu7mxqh wrote

also check out the book by James Gleick, its very long but worth reading.

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sykemol t1_iuacbzr wrote

^ That's the one to read. His autobiographies are fun, but a bit self-serving.

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pack0newports t1_iuenc2p wrote

i think the title is Dr. Feynman one of my faves as a kid.

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removed_bymoderator t1_iubf9hn wrote

And Tuva Or Bust, written by a friend of his. The two of them tried to go to Tuva in the Soviet Union, and it's a story of their finding a way to get a visa and whatever else was going on in their lives at the time. Fun book.

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BlueAndMoreBlue t1_iu79a4v wrote

Some of his lectures are up on the YouTube, definitely worth checking out

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CrieDeCoeur t1_iu7bk9f wrote

He's as known among physicists for his work as much as he is for the practical jokes he'd play on them.

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BlueAndMoreBlue t1_iu7g6mw wrote

He also liked to play the bongos, perhaps the matthew mcconaughey of physics (and yes, I had to copy paste his name :)

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orion427 t1_iu8jgmu wrote

Feynman has a great way of explaining complex mathematical aspects so even a knucklehead like me can understand them.

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ALifeLongLearner t1_iu82xy8 wrote

He also banged the wives of all his colleagues.

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rmphys t1_iu8ubkr wrote

And his students. He'd have been canned for sexual harassments almost instantly today (and to be clear, he should have been, I'm not complaining about today's standards. The man was a menace to women in science, but that was accepted back then)

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EpsomHorse t1_iu93uga wrote

> And his students.

Who are we to judge the consensual activities that adults choose to partake in?

> He'd have been canned for sexual harassments almost instantly today

No he wouldn't. Even in the puritanical America of 2022, relationships with students are perfectly licit as long as you're not currently teaching them.

> The man was a menace to women in science

Nonsense. There hasn't been a single accusation against him for derailing someone's career, preventing them from getting scholarships, or any other abuse of power.

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HPmoni t1_iubxld8 wrote

Eh. James Franco's career isn't what it was a decade ago.

Women hate the power imbalance.

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VeryJoyfulHeart59 t1_iu9tt4g wrote

>There hasn't been a single accusation against him for derailing someone's career, preventing them from getting scholarships, or any other abuse of power.

Mr. Horse, this logic is so wrong.

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SoItWasYouAllAlong t1_iu9v01y wrote

It is weak evidence. However, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, weak evidence is still evidence.

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VeryJoyfulHeart59 t1_iu9wbki wrote

He was a bit before my time, but even in my day I wouldn't have even thought of complaining about such a thing. That's just the way it was.

Edit: typo (would should have been wouldn't)

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SoItWasYouAllAlong t1_iu9yx8v wrote

I can imagine that the practice of filing formal complaints didn't exist. But if Feynman was destroying people's careers, that should have been known to everyone the field. It would have been knowledge of vital importance to his colleagues, not just gossip interest.

Besides, "The man was a menace to women in science": now that is a claim that has not been substantiated in this thread.

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VeryJoyfulHeart59 t1_iua134g wrote

The thing is, it wasn't thought of as destroying a women's career. Those women just didn't build careers.

This is an extreme analogy, but it would be like saying that you destroyed your dog's career.

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SoItWasYouAllAlong t1_iua9lef wrote

Ok, but was the existence of these sexual relations at all correlated to the women's career outcomes? "Frisky Feynman was a menace to women in science", without concrete specifics to support it, sounds to me like the one making the claim doesn't realize that women like sex too. As far as I can tell, Feynman was very handsome and witty.

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bigbrothersrule t1_iu7452n wrote

Many elite universities had a Jewish quota. It’s one of the reasons why Brandeis was founded.

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icbm67 OP t1_iu8b8l2 wrote

Yeah. Often Jewish people had to go to NYU or City University of New York instead of Ivies because of discrimination in admission.

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rmphys t1_iu8uerp wrote

Most of them still have Asian quotas to this day.

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Ghambito t1_iu9gzx1 wrote

I can’t understand how this is possible in 2022.

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fourfourzero t1_iu9ujcx wrote

the only thing preventing it is Affirmative Action which is relatively new and the current Supreme Court is in the process of abolishing it as I type.

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superswellcewlguy t1_iua90fc wrote

Simple: schools want diversity but only have so many spots for admission. Racial discrimination is necessary, otherwise schools would be 40% Asian and 50% white, 10% everyone else.

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RingGiver t1_iu83re5 wrote

If you think that this sort of thing is only a feature of the past, you should remember that there are a lot of people involved in higher education administration who claim that it is racist to NOT discriminate against applicants of Asian descent.

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theswordofdoubt t1_iu8arbp wrote

Tokyo Medical University also got caught lowering the grades of women who sat for their entrance exams in order to reject those women, as recently as 2018. It was going on for decades before finally coming to the attention of authorities.

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MLJ9999 t1_iu65zlh wrote

That was most definitely Columbia University's loss.

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locks_are_paranoid t1_iu7gbtm wrote

History is repeating itself. Harvard is rejecting Asian applicants just because they're Asian. The really sad part is that the ACLU sided with Harvard when they were sued for discrimination.

ACLU statement where they openly support taking race into account in college admissions.

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superswellcewlguy t1_iua9axq wrote

Same with white people. Funny how people start to dislike diversity initiatives when it means their race suddenly gets the short end of the stick.

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blumpkinmania t1_iu7ldry wrote

Racial diversity is a good thing.

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Hapankaali t1_iu868xi wrote

Discrimination is not.

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blumpkinmania t1_iu8j066 wrote

It’s not a civil service. Whomever earns the best SAT score doesn’t automatically gain entrance.

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Thickensick t1_iu8j9xv wrote

Super complex topic! Applying unfairness to address unfairness.

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blumpkinmania t1_iu8m5ca wrote

No. It’s only super complex to repubs who want to figure out to deny black folks entrance.

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Thickensick t1_iu8pcer wrote

Orrrrr…. This is also about Asians being excluded and having different standards applied to them due to their minority status.

The parent comment of “Racial diversity is a good thing” being down voted also suggests it’s a super complex topic.

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blumpkinmania t1_iu8q9yz wrote

No. It’s a bunch of racist white folks who think denying black folks entrance to Harvard will somehow elevate them. If test scores were the only criteria Harvard would be half Asian. Harvard is under no obligation to only use test scores for entrance.

28% of this years FR class is Asian-American. Asian-Americans make up 8% of the USA. They’re not discriminated against as a whole when it comes to Harvard admission.

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no_step t1_iu8y69y wrote

The Supreme Court has a case before it regarding this very thing. We'll know in a few weeks if it's illegal discrimination

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blumpkinmania t1_iu96ezy wrote

Isn’t that awesome. A bunch of white nationalist Christians are in charge of what’s allowable in this country.

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[deleted] t1_iu94dwf wrote

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blumpkinmania t1_iu96qp9 wrote

I don’t know what that has to with Harvard. No group is being discriminated against by Harvard.

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[deleted] t1_iuapz5l wrote

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blumpkinmania t1_iuaq6pj wrote

No. They are not. Asian Americans make up 28% of the FR class and about 8% of the total American pop. They are over represented at Harvard. And using woke like that makes you a moron.

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Hapankaali t1_iuaijm8 wrote

The better way to address the problem is to create a level playing field: eliminate poverty and provide universal access to high-quality primary and secondary education. How can we ever convince people to not discriminate based on irrelevant traits when the system does it itself?

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rmphys t1_iu8ui1t wrote

I'm sure the people encouraging Jewish quotas told themselves the same thing.

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blumpkinmania t1_iu8vo9r wrote

Harvard is almost 30% Asian American while the population of Asian Americans in America is under 10%. Asian Americans as a whole are not discriminated against in Harvard admissions.

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willc1984 t1_iu8wff5 wrote

That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard.

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[deleted] t1_iu7myn1 wrote

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icbm67 OP t1_iu8bqv6 wrote

It's the white people who implemented those "quotas" and prevented others to get in. Now Asians, Hispanics are getting in unis through merit and form the majority now while Whites are demanding that there should be a quota.

I don't see the problem here. When Whites were over represented by usurping other minorities place they weren't so keen on talking on "leaving degrees for the rest". Now other minorities are getting in through pure merit and whites are like "leave some for the rest"

Hypocrites

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rmphys t1_iu8ulw0 wrote

Jewish people were overrepresented in higher ed relative to their proportion of the general population at the time of these quotas as well. Doesn't make it right.

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kala-surtaj t1_iu6xwc1 wrote

They don’t have to give a reason nowadays.

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[deleted] t1_iu66wlu wrote

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[deleted] t1_iu6mdzs wrote

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[deleted] t1_iu6vh7f wrote

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[deleted] t1_iu8uwp2 wrote

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[deleted] t1_iu95wvr wrote

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johnqsack69 t1_iu7lowq wrote

Good luck having a solid science dept with no Jews

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zerocolorado t1_iu7aerf wrote

He fixes radios by thinking

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EpsomHorse t1_iu941z7 wrote

> He fixes radios by thinking

Feynman didn't fix radios. Radios fixed themselves in his presence.

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[deleted] t1_iu7c21d wrote

If you like biographies and/or science, Genius by James Gleick is a great read on Feynman's life.

Six Easy Pieces and Six Not So Easy Pieces by Feynman are also great science reads

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Trust_No_Won t1_iu8ldeo wrote

I also came here to recommend Genius for those interested in learning about his life and work. I didn’t realize Feynman was one of those guys known for his lectures and antics who didn’t publish many written papers. Even the “autobiographies” people know were compiled by someone else.

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imk t1_iu7jl9h wrote

I live near Columbia university and, suffice it to say, that would be like a university not letting any townies in.

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Alternative-Flan2869 t1_iu7zgbk wrote

More proof of the intrinsic and pervasive ignorance of racism.

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Cycleofmadness t1_iuahxwp wrote

MIT was his 2nd choice? Did Columbia have a better physics program back then?

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[deleted] t1_iu70r4x wrote

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sometimeslowly t1_iu7asn1 wrote

Huh interesting because 2 minutes of reading the wikipedia page says the opposite.

It says he was denied because of jewish quota's, which were to prevent universities from having too many jewish people.

"'In 1935 Yale accepted 76 applicants from a pool of 501. About 200 of those applicants were Jewish and only five got in.' He notes that Dean Milton Winternitz's instructions were remarkably precise: 'Never admit more than five Jews, and take no blacks at all'"

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_quota

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Nokneemouse t1_iu7c33j wrote

That doesn't sound very affirmative then, if they only wanted a token amount of Jews.

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Econometrickk t1_iu7fiwy wrote

Capping admissions of ethnic groups in order to admit other ethnic groups is indeed the application of affirmative action.

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toastar-phone t1_iu7fudh wrote

Yeah affirmative action ended up being a shit storm. I had a an asian ex who got got fucked by it harder than I' ever got her.

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Kthuun t1_iu73u84 wrote

Is Jewish a race? Thought it was just a religion.

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neox20 t1_iu76514 wrote

Ethnoreligion. Judaism doesn't try to convert people, and Judaism is based on matrilineal descent, so most Jews have a common ethnic background.

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MadPandaDad t1_iu7iarj wrote

I’m Jewish but my kids aren’t (I married a gentile). Weird right?

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sparcasm t1_iu81ddj wrote

Your mother must be very disappointed.

Not angry, just disappointed.

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HunterRoze t1_iu9xuos wrote

Does it matter when it is used as a basis of discrimination? Do you think the university asked themselves that question when they refused to admit Jews?

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Kthuun t1_iubhnzr wrote

It does, discriminating against a race feels wrong, but I'll talk mad shit about a religion all day long.

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looktowindward t1_iua31rt wrote

Its an ethno-religion. Ethnic group + religion. "race" is a social construct.

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[deleted] t1_iu7bgc0 wrote

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OldMork t1_iu7n1hd wrote

Manhattan project did have several russian spies, but RF was not one of them.

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icbm67 OP t1_iu85y60 wrote

Exactly, Fuchs was a spy and before he was caught he was asked once that who could be a spy among the Los Alamos scientists. He accused Feynman because RF would pick locks on the safes of other scientists and would travel to Albuquerque (to visit his dying wife).

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lemmecheckit t1_iuaovik wrote

Picking locks seems like something a spy would do

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icbm67 OP t1_iucgtd8 wrote

He did it for fun and to prove that he could do "magic".

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benefit_of_mrkite t1_iu6asd6 wrote

https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/search?q=Richard%20Feynman

This and other Feynman facts have been posted to this sub many, many times

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repeatwad t1_iu75811 wrote

For example, he likes cream AND lemon in his tea.

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[deleted] t1_iu63ugl wrote

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3d_blunder t1_iu65k4m wrote

It's pointless to avoid triggering shitheads: they'll just find something to be upset about.

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