Posted on 05/12/2018 10:00:36 AM PDT by MtnClimber
Ping
I have them all including videos of his lectures.
I was at Caltech in a JPL capacity back in the day, 1980s to early 1990s. Fascinating place, fascinating people, unlike any university or research complex found anywhere. It was unique. The people there didn’t like degrees or fields of specialization. Everything, everyone was expected to start from scratch no matter what others might call them; chemists were mathematicians, physicists were statisticians, biologists were engineers, everyone was an engineer of sorts.
Students could apply to Caltech and most never heard back, at least during my day. It seemed matriculation was an invitation-only affair, a side thought. If one was invited to be a student, the first day might not even be a class but a working garage like in a Quonset hut where an engineer might be gracious enough to refer to the student by a first name and say “over there on the shelf, see that green colored cord, could you hand it to me? Thanks.” Then work would start on something unknown to the student and that was the course of instruction, to listen and participate.
Feynman’s lectures were much the same, a gathering rather than a class. Exams and homework were a nuisance.
He was also a very good drummer (how he worked out, got his energy out).
He also liked to drive fast cars in the desert. Got pulled over several times for speeding and was locked up in jail once. I think the reason was something to do with trying to convince the patrol the illogic of not being able to open up a fast car on a lonesome road, something like that.
I confuse Feynman with Hunter S Thompson.
They coulda been brudders.
Fear and Loathing at Cal Tech?
Wish I could have been there. Sounds like an adventure! /sigh
Richard Feynman wanted to visit Tannu Tuva, a formerly independent country (which he knew about from collecting postage stamps), which had been absorbed into the Soviet Union. He tried to visit but there was so much red tape that by the time the permission came through, he had died. There was a TV program about his quest—I think it was called “Tuva or Bust!”
Feynman was a great lecturer and text author....
fantastic!
One thing’s for sure, you wouldn’t have wanted Thompson investigating the Challenger disaster but you would definitely want Feynman:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4kpDg7MjHps
Did get to attend Hans Bethe lecture there, shortly before he died. He affectionately mentioned some of Feynman’s hijinks.
I went to Berkeley and did ChemE and mech E in the 80s
The chemistry complex there goes down seven floors below ground
Five levels are off limits
They found ALL of the last 57 elements up the hill at LBL
Cal is the preeminent university for chemistry and engineering in the US
It is a hard scrabble public university where NOTHING is given to you or easy even just getting classes
unlike all the WEENIE Private 70000$+ places like Cal Tech MIT Stanford
Where you can drop a class on the last day with no penalty if it’s too hard for the snowflake
So anyway
Send your kid to PUBLIC UNIVERSITY
and tell the to study a REAL subject that is INTERESTING
Feynman was an incredible lecturer and yes BERKELEY had incredible lectures by Nobel laureates and other preeminent types every day
Well, we live in a different time now.
I went several times to present at Berkeley following Berkeley prof Terry Speed who was from Australia and was a personal friend of one of the members of my doctoral committee. The world is small at the top. I attended special seminars given by famous faculty. Berkeley was a big deal but more structured academically than Caltech. Lawrence labs, both Berkeley and Livermore were intense, very secret, compartmentalized, very important to everything. I know that from people I met at science conferences and people I met via Terry. I had a chance to apply to Livermore with references but went with other opportunities.
Not sure why you describe Caltech in such lowly terms unless it’s changed since I’ve been there. Back then Caltech in my view was an even bigger deal than Berkeley. They both had different environments. JPL was to Caltech as LL was to Berkeley. Perhaps both names became victims of their own prestigious reputations.
Not sure about Berkeley now. The Cultural Marxism that seems to pervade the campus and region would make me gag. I have no compulsion to ever want to go there now but back in the day I always looked forward to it. Times have changed.
I remember having lunch with faculty and students at Caltech, it was often hard to tell the difference between the two except that usually the lead scientist was usually the one where all heads were turned to. In casual conversations I heard students say there were no class texts, one had to go to the library and get whatever was needed. Lower ranking faculty in the work groups would sometimes take students under their wing and give them notes from lectures or seminars, and that would serve as a ‘class text’. Students were in working groups (which most ‘classes’ took shape in), and if they heard the lead say something like “the enthalpy equations lead me to believe we need to simmer this about 30 minutes at such and such ...” and if the students didn’t have a firm grasp on enthalpy concepts, they would be up all night day after day studying it and maybe one of the junior ‘faculty’ (working group members) might give them some notes or an old out-of-print text or an unpublished manuscript (Feynman’s notes arose this way). And all this was outside the working groups. The group projects (’classes’) were more like studio sets of production. There might be a chalkboard or one would be rolled in. But it was a sideshow.
Over time, a student would accumulate knowledge and working theory, enough maybe to insert suggestions to the lead during a working project. If the suggestions were good ones, the lead might give the ‘student’ some theory draft to comment on. That would be when the ‘student’ had an opportunity to publish with the lead, maybe. The working environment was very unstructured except for understanding that one was expected to demonstrate value to the project, nothing was taken for granted, and as you say, nothing was given. Each project had theoretical or engineering questions that were the focus. I couldn’t really say these were ‘classes’ but that’s what they were if one had to ask.
On my own project involvement such as the Galileo Jovian atmosphere probe (damn that was fun!), there would often be Caltech students who I didn’t know until later were students. They looked more like young scientists and engineers. When I would learn they were students, I would ask a friendly question like “what you studying?” and the answer would be something like “Everything”. I would try to clarify “I mean, what classes you taking?” and they would look at me and stare with a facial expression “Huh?”, “What?”. They were obviously a different breed of student. I didn’t ask too many questions after. In fact, I learned these were doers more than questioners, very impressive group. After getting to know them, they opened up more about life as a student there.
I’ve always been a fan. I’ve got the lectures, inherited IIRC, from my Mom, and I have, and have read SYJMF.
Of course, his attraction is his simplicity and directness, not to mention his brilliance, which he does not flaunt.
BTW, I would advance “Surely, You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!” as a candidate for the book title with the most punctuation marks, at 6 ... , FWIW !
Thanks for the link. I am listening now, part way through. It is great.
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