How Richard Feynman went from stirring jelly to a Nobel Prize

BBC ^ | September 16, 2010 | Robin Ince

[decimon]

Nobel Prize-winning and eccentric physicist Richard Feynman has been called a buffoon and a magician, but is lauded as a man who could make science accessible and interesting for all.

When I was a child I desperately wanted to be a scientist, but then it all went wrong.

Unfortunately, during the early years of my secondary school education, science became joyless.

It was a subject that seemed disjointed from the world even though it is the method that attempts to explain the world and the universe.

If only it were possible to place an automaton Richard Feynman in every school.

Children would leave each day wide-eyed with astonishment and eager to run home to look down their microscopes or mull over the movement of a bee in a flower border.

Richard Feynman did not understand how scientific knowledge could make anything dull.

He once related an argument with an artist who declared that scientists removed the beauty of flowers and made them seem dull. Feynman vehemently disagreed.

"A knowledge of science only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds. I don't understand how it subtracts," he said.

[onedoug]

Dig that bongo beat.

¨I´ve got to have my orange juice!¨

Cool, daddy.

Jagdish Mehra´s, The Beat Of A Different Drummer: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman is one great biography, even if a little mathematically intense from time to time.

[redhead]

My favorite lecture, "There's Always Room At The Bottom," on nanotechnology.

[Errant]

Since you like the work of Carl Jung, I thought you might enjoy this talk given by Stuart Hameroff if you haven't seen it.

A New Marriage of Brain and Computer (Google Tech Talk)

He takes some time to build his case but his conclusions on consiousness are profound.

[MHGinTN]

Ooo, thanks so much for the link! I’ll definitely enjoy that today. I live alone with two old cats so I don’t have anyone to discuss such things with. But i do so love to listen.

[Fire_on_High]

Ever read Hawking’s works? He’s got a wonderful, slightly snarky sense of humor, and his books are always worth a grin, right alongside all of that high falutin’ edumacation.

[Errant]

He does have a funny sense of humor and I enjoy his earlier writings. But like Sagan, his boldness in making assumptions unnerves me.

I prefer the humble theorist who has been proven correct on occasion. ;)

[Errant]

fyi, quotes Feynman at the end of the first video

Stuart Hameroff about Quantum Consciousness 1

Stuart Hameroff about Quantum Consciousness 2

Stuart Hameroff about Quantum Consciousness 3

[Errant]

Stuart Hameroff about Quantum Consciousness 4

Stuart Hameroff about Quantum Consciousness 5

Stuart Hameroff about Quantum Consciousness 6

Stuart Hameroff about Quantum Consciousness 7

[MHGinTN]

Thanks so much for the links. Back atcha ...

[Errant]

Thanks!