Great reminder that sane people once walked the earth. Speaking of Nobel Laureates, I'm reminded of Luc Montaignier, who shortly before he died expressed severe skepticism at all the Covid hysteria. And of course there's Kary Mullins. Feynman would no doubt be appalled at how deeply scientific integrity has been compromised these days. It's rather poignant somehow to imagine him on the 9/11 investigation--a cold day in hell before they would let someone like him in the room. Thanks again for your thoughts!
PS: Speaking of investigations, it was noticed at the time that Congress appropriated way more money to investigate the Challenger disaster than 9/11 (which they weren't going to investigate AT ALL until public pressure forced them to pretend to.
I would rather have questions that cannot be answered, than answers that cannot be questioned. That about sums it up for me. We are so far from Feynman's great saying.
Feynman was both brilliant and down-to-earth, a regular guy who fooled around and went out with the boys and embraced popular culture. His opposite number at Harvard was Julian Schwinger who shared the 1965 Nobel with Feynman. Schwinger was cultured and refined and well-read, an intellectual's intellectual
They both had independently invented quantum electrodynamics 17 years earlier. Schwinger explained everything with path integrals using propagating delta functions. Feynman drew squiggly lines on a piece of paper. Needless to say, everyone preferred the Feynman formalism, because it came with pictures they could understand. But which of them was correct?
A young grad student named Freeman Dyson traveled out to California to spend a few weeks with Feynman and learn the details of how he translated his pictures into equations. Then he spent a few weeks with Schwinger, absorbing Schwinger's methodology. He went home and wrote a paper in which he demonstrated that, though the two formalisms looked completely different, they always gave the same answer.
Dyson hated the formal requirements of schools and course materials. He learned in his own way. The Institute for Advanced Study gave him a permanent appointment where he could hang out with Einstein and Oppenheimer and the gang, and he never had to get a PhD.
I learned quantum mechanics from Schwinger when I was at Harvard, and though I have great reverence for the man, I never understood his lectures. Dyson was a personal hero of mine, and he lived well into his 90s, and continued to write in his brilliantly independent way about social issues connected to science until 2020.
So why didn't Dyson write about the physical evidence that 9/11 was an inside job? Certainly this must have been obvious to him. He was irreverent and not afraid of contrarian positions. He was writing for NY Review of Books in the early 2000s.
I learned recently that Michael Clarage and the Safire Project guys walked in to a business that created radioactive waste (the Safire technology safely disposes of such material), and the radioactive enthusiasts said 'We don't want your tech., we like our nuke waste as it is.' The cosmo-physicists who came up with the Safire left feeling confused and underwhelmed, naturally.
In answer to the question above it seems their intelligence is both naive enough to think they can help before the official collapse of the West, and wise enough to realise the time is not yet right to push their luck against the "dark forces".
“Intellectual Tyranny in the name of Science” is a descriptor for Tony Fauci. It’s the official MO as 9/11 and the pandemic response show. Great piece and a pleasure to hear about Feynman and open scientific debate.
I’m so glad you brought up that magisterial moment as the NASA experts droned on when Feynman dropped the O-ring material in his glass of ice water and concluded instantly that it stiffened when it became cold.
I’ve read all his books too, including “The Character of Physical Law” and am both awed and charmed by his wonderful mind and the fierce joy with which he hungered and thirsted for the truth.
It’s an amazing thought to imagine what he would have included about the events of 9/11 and the COVID plandemic.
It's an enticing and haunting hypothetical / counterfactual that made me think about how the late, great Paul Volcker, whom I did have the honour to meet, supported Obama's Presidential campaign and was brought on at the beginning of the new Obama Administration as a special advisor.
Volcker quietly left not long after. It's safe to say his wise advice, whatever it may have been, was completely ignored by Obama.
I have a feeling that Richard Feynman, feisty as he was, would have made more noise on his way to the exit.
Yes. I often think of how Feynman would have reacted to the events of 9/11. How many hours or days before he would have started to speak up. He certainly, as you suggest, wouldn't have kept his mouth shut.
I have been ashamed and appalled that the my alma mater, the Harvard physics faculty never came out with a public statement that the Kean Commission explanation of the collapse of the Twin Towers was physically impossible. Perhaps you say Harvard is a bastion of the establishment. But what about the MIT faculty or Caltech or any of the great engineering schools. Where is our scientific braintrust when we need them to take a stand?
There’s a student group at MIT that can override the administration And invite speakers to address the academic community. Change must come from the bottom up. And yes, it’s shameful
I hate to say this, but Harvard, MIT and CalTech specifically are heavily funded by the US Government and in Harvard especially is in many ways an extension of the US Government. Since you studied at Harvard, you’ll find interesting fellow alum Eric Weinstein’s podcast last week with Chris Williamson on “Modern Wisdom”.
The only famous scientist I know who blew the whistle on 9/11 was Lynn Margulis. She was quite outspoken, as she was about everything. She was clear that the 9/11 story was a fraud. No one listened.
You might say that Lynn was a biologist, out of her field posing as an expert on physics or engineering. But Lynn also spoke out about AIDS-HIV, where she was eminently qualified. She denounced the way that Dr Fauci was managing and profiting from the AIDS epidemic. Who was listening?
I agree completely. Feynman's blood would have boiled upon hearing Peter Hotez say, "Science isn't up for discussion".
When Feynman neared completion of his physics degree and it was time to apply to graduate programs, he told the department Chairman he wanted to stay at MIT. He was told, "We would rather you go elsewhere" which must have been a shock to the outstanding student. When he was told why- that they prefer their graduates to go elsewhere to get a different perspective- he was ok with it. They sent him down to Princeton. Incidentally, that still went on at MIT when I was there. When I asked Dr. Victor Weisskopf what I should do and where should I go, He said, "You're a theoretical physicist. Chicago or Princeton would be good matches for you." What a sweet man he was...
A funny story about Dr. Weiskopf directing me away from experimental physics; I originally posted it on Quora when someone asked what was the hardest course for me at MIT.
The hardest was Junior physics lab. I had absolutely no clue. I went to a high school that had no calculus or physics and only took one semester of science; chemistry second-semester senior year. We didn’t have a lab.
We had to reproduce Nobel Prize-winning experiments like the Michelson-Morley Experiment and I was totally lost. I had no clue about recording measurements, error, apparatus, how to code, how an oscilloscope worked, etc.. I was feeling really bad one day but we had to build some part of the apparatus and I tried it. The professor walked by and said: “Let me see that!”. I said: “I’m sorry Professor Weisskopf (It was Victor Weisskopf, a giant in modern physics). I don’t know what I’m doing..” He took my creation around and showed the other professors and grad students.. I’m thinking to myself: “ Oh God, what an embarrassment…” After making the rounds, he brought it back to me. I said: “I’ll try to do better next time, Sir.” He said: “Nobody could do better than that, including my graduate students. It's beautiful. It’s a work of art.” I can’t begin to tell you how that made me feel at the time.
“Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman” I read that book many years ago, perhaps early 90s, and I loved it. It’s time I read it again. Thank you for writing about Feynman and wondering how he would have approached an investigation into 911. Good thoughts! I look forward to your posts. 🙏🏼😊
I ran this by my physicist friend Nick Herbert, who commented: "The world could certainly benefit from more men like Richard Feynman. But such individuals are like Kryptonite to the Empire of Lies."
when i was a physics student i would dip into the feynman books to get the alternative 'better' way to see what the professor was *trying* to teach. really a brilliant man and, more rarely, a brilliant teacher.
thank you for this lovely encomium. and the sharp quotations i've copied over for future use.
I attended one lecture by Feynman, the only time I heard him in person. It was the early 1970s and people were asking what held the quarks together so that a nucleus wouldn't fly apart? Feynman said he didn't know, but he did know that atomic forces were mediated by the exchange of virtual particles. What virtual particles would that be? We don't know. Let's call them "gluons". The name stuck.
Great reminder that sane people once walked the earth. Speaking of Nobel Laureates, I'm reminded of Luc Montaignier, who shortly before he died expressed severe skepticism at all the Covid hysteria. And of course there's Kary Mullins. Feynman would no doubt be appalled at how deeply scientific integrity has been compromised these days. It's rather poignant somehow to imagine him on the 9/11 investigation--a cold day in hell before they would let someone like him in the room. Thanks again for your thoughts!
PS: Speaking of investigations, it was noticed at the time that Congress appropriated way more money to investigate the Challenger disaster than 9/11 (which they weren't going to investigate AT ALL until public pressure forced them to pretend to.
I would rather have questions that cannot be answered, than answers that cannot be questioned. That about sums it up for me. We are so far from Feynman's great saying.
I suspect Feynmann would appreciate your panegyric, if not for his own sake then for the scientific integrity we so desperately need today.
Feynman was both brilliant and down-to-earth, a regular guy who fooled around and went out with the boys and embraced popular culture. His opposite number at Harvard was Julian Schwinger who shared the 1965 Nobel with Feynman. Schwinger was cultured and refined and well-read, an intellectual's intellectual
They both had independently invented quantum electrodynamics 17 years earlier. Schwinger explained everything with path integrals using propagating delta functions. Feynman drew squiggly lines on a piece of paper. Needless to say, everyone preferred the Feynman formalism, because it came with pictures they could understand. But which of them was correct?
A young grad student named Freeman Dyson traveled out to California to spend a few weeks with Feynman and learn the details of how he translated his pictures into equations. Then he spent a few weeks with Schwinger, absorbing Schwinger's methodology. He went home and wrote a paper in which he demonstrated that, though the two formalisms looked completely different, they always gave the same answer.
Dyson hated the formal requirements of schools and course materials. He learned in his own way. The Institute for Advanced Study gave him a permanent appointment where he could hang out with Einstein and Oppenheimer and the gang, and he never had to get a PhD.
I learned quantum mechanics from Schwinger when I was at Harvard, and though I have great reverence for the man, I never understood his lectures. Dyson was a personal hero of mine, and he lived well into his 90s, and continued to write in his brilliantly independent way about social issues connected to science until 2020.
So why didn't Dyson write about the physical evidence that 9/11 was an inside job? Certainly this must have been obvious to him. He was irreverent and not afraid of contrarian positions. He was writing for NY Review of Books in the early 2000s.
Yes! Excellent question. I can understand why folks like Chomsky would shrug their shoulders but a physicist??
I learned recently that Michael Clarage and the Safire Project guys walked in to a business that created radioactive waste (the Safire technology safely disposes of such material), and the radioactive enthusiasts said 'We don't want your tech., we like our nuke waste as it is.' The cosmo-physicists who came up with the Safire left feeling confused and underwhelmed, naturally.
In answer to the question above it seems their intelligence is both naive enough to think they can help before the official collapse of the West, and wise enough to realise the time is not yet right to push their luck against the "dark forces".
“Intellectual Tyranny in the name of Science” is a descriptor for Tony Fauci. It’s the official MO as 9/11 and the pandemic response show. Great piece and a pleasure to hear about Feynman and open scientific debate.
Fascinating article
I’m so glad you brought up that magisterial moment as the NASA experts droned on when Feynman dropped the O-ring material in his glass of ice water and concluded instantly that it stiffened when it became cold.
I’ve read all his books too, including “The Character of Physical Law” and am both awed and charmed by his wonderful mind and the fierce joy with which he hungered and thirsted for the truth.
It’s an amazing thought to imagine what he would have included about the events of 9/11 and the COVID plandemic.
It's an enticing and haunting hypothetical / counterfactual that made me think about how the late, great Paul Volcker, whom I did have the honour to meet, supported Obama's Presidential campaign and was brought on at the beginning of the new Obama Administration as a special advisor.
Volcker quietly left not long after. It's safe to say his wise advice, whatever it may have been, was completely ignored by Obama.
I have a feeling that Richard Feynman, feisty as he was, would have made more noise on his way to the exit.
Yes. I often think of how Feynman would have reacted to the events of 9/11. How many hours or days before he would have started to speak up. He certainly, as you suggest, wouldn't have kept his mouth shut.
I have been ashamed and appalled that the my alma mater, the Harvard physics faculty never came out with a public statement that the Kean Commission explanation of the collapse of the Twin Towers was physically impossible. Perhaps you say Harvard is a bastion of the establishment. But what about the MIT faculty or Caltech or any of the great engineering schools. Where is our scientific braintrust when we need them to take a stand?
There’s a student group at MIT that can override the administration And invite speakers to address the academic community. Change must come from the bottom up. And yes, it’s shameful
I hate to say this, but Harvard, MIT and CalTech specifically are heavily funded by the US Government and in Harvard especially is in many ways an extension of the US Government. Since you studied at Harvard, you’ll find interesting fellow alum Eric Weinstein’s podcast last week with Chris Williamson on “Modern Wisdom”.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJxBnSyH0T4
The only famous scientist I know who blew the whistle on 9/11 was Lynn Margulis. She was quite outspoken, as she was about everything. She was clear that the 9/11 story was a fraud. No one listened.
You might say that Lynn was a biologist, out of her field posing as an expert on physics or engineering. But Lynn also spoke out about AIDS-HIV, where she was eminently qualified. She denounced the way that Dr Fauci was managing and profiting from the AIDS epidemic. Who was listening?
I watched a TV drama about his role in the Challenger enquiry.
There was a scene in the toilets with Rogers and Armstrong standing at the urinals. Rogers says to Armstrong: "Feynman's a real pain in the ass".
Feynman emerges from a cubicle and says "you betcha!"
Despite NASA whitewashing the final report, Feynman distributed his findings to the commission independently as an appendix.
All this while he was dying from cancer.
A true nobleman..
I agree completely. Feynman's blood would have boiled upon hearing Peter Hotez say, "Science isn't up for discussion".
When Feynman neared completion of his physics degree and it was time to apply to graduate programs, he told the department Chairman he wanted to stay at MIT. He was told, "We would rather you go elsewhere" which must have been a shock to the outstanding student. When he was told why- that they prefer their graduates to go elsewhere to get a different perspective- he was ok with it. They sent him down to Princeton. Incidentally, that still went on at MIT when I was there. When I asked Dr. Victor Weisskopf what I should do and where should I go, He said, "You're a theoretical physicist. Chicago or Princeton would be good matches for you." What a sweet man he was...
A funny story about Dr. Weiskopf directing me away from experimental physics; I originally posted it on Quora when someone asked what was the hardest course for me at MIT.
The hardest was Junior physics lab. I had absolutely no clue. I went to a high school that had no calculus or physics and only took one semester of science; chemistry second-semester senior year. We didn’t have a lab.
We had to reproduce Nobel Prize-winning experiments like the Michelson-Morley Experiment and I was totally lost. I had no clue about recording measurements, error, apparatus, how to code, how an oscilloscope worked, etc.. I was feeling really bad one day but we had to build some part of the apparatus and I tried it. The professor walked by and said: “Let me see that!”. I said: “I’m sorry Professor Weisskopf (It was Victor Weisskopf, a giant in modern physics). I don’t know what I’m doing..” He took my creation around and showed the other professors and grad students.. I’m thinking to myself: “ Oh God, what an embarrassment…” After making the rounds, he brought it back to me. I said: “I’ll try to do better next time, Sir.” He said: “Nobody could do better than that, including my graduate students. It's beautiful. It’s a work of art.” I can’t begin to tell you how that made me feel at the time.
“Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman” I read that book many years ago, perhaps early 90s, and I loved it. It’s time I read it again. Thank you for writing about Feynman and wondering how he would have approached an investigation into 911. Good thoughts! I look forward to your posts. 🙏🏼😊
If you haven't see this clip, it's arguably the best way to understand Feynman in just 2 minutes
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tWr39Q9vBgo
Fabulous!
that's a clip from the 1981 BBC 'Horizon' episode "the pleasure of finding things out":
https://vimeo.com/340695809
we shared cassette recordings of this at college
:-)
Thank you so much! Been looking for the full recording for ages - didn’t think to check Vimeo!
Thank you MS - a powerful & informative article ...
I ran this by my physicist friend Nick Herbert, who commented: "The world could certainly benefit from more men like Richard Feynman. But such individuals are like Kryptonite to the Empire of Lies."
when i was a physics student i would dip into the feynman books to get the alternative 'better' way to see what the professor was *trying* to teach. really a brilliant man and, more rarely, a brilliant teacher.
thank you for this lovely encomium. and the sharp quotations i've copied over for future use.
Excellent article worth sharing. I've saved it to my personal database as well. Thank you.
I attended one lecture by Feynman, the only time I heard him in person. It was the early 1970s and people were asking what held the quarks together so that a nucleus wouldn't fly apart? Feynman said he didn't know, but he did know that atomic forces were mediated by the exchange of virtual particles. What virtual particles would that be? We don't know. Let's call them "gluons". The name stuck.
Wow! You were present at the birth of there gluon? Great story
The name stuck. That’s hilarious
Oh and I didn't need to be a medical professional to know that taking the vaxx was / is a bad idea.