Pharyngula: Not all physicists are dorks

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Not all physicists are dorks

Category: Science
Posted on: April 18, 2006 4:16 AM, by PZ Myers

No, really, it's hard to believe, but it's true. See Richard Feynman interviewed, for example.

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Comments

Damn biologists and their hate-filled, unreasoning vitriol!

Posted by: chuko | April 18, 2006 4:57 AM

Is it just me, or doesn't he sound like an italian mobster?

Posted by: Flaky | April 18, 2006 6:27 AM

It's that New York accent coming through loud and clear.

Posted by: PZ Myers | April 18, 2006 6:37 AM

I almost named my (late) dog Feynman but it turned out that she just didn't look like one. So I named her Kyzyl, which Feynman fans will understand. She was a great dog, lived to 13 and a half. Hemangiosarcoma got her. I now have a goofy 4 year old Golden Retriever named Pyrite. Yeah, another science nerd thing.

Posted by: Melanie Reap | April 18, 2006 7:40 AM

A few years before his death, Feynman took part in a Caltech student production of "The Madwoman of Chaillot" which I was fortunate enough to attend.

Feynman played the part of "the old sewerman", and with
that accent, you could just hear the echo of Art Carney.

Posted by: Grumpy Physicist | April 18, 2006 8:05 AM

Surely you're joking, Mr. Myers!

Posted by: clvrmnky | April 18, 2006 8:19 AM

You had to reach all the way back to Feynman to find a physicist who wasn't a dork?

Posted by: Bruce | April 18, 2006 8:47 AM

Some people may interpret your choice of Feynman as meaning "the only good physicist is a dead physicist"...

But Feynman was more than a physicist -- he was a scientific generalist -- you do realize that he spent a sabbatical learning molecular biology and performing actual lab experiments?

Posted by: Jonathan Badger | April 18, 2006 9:08 AM

This is what's cool about the Internet. You can listen to dead guys. (Somewhere I even found a recording of Bertrand Russell once, though I forget where it was now.)

Posted by: Keith Douglas | April 18, 2006 9:30 AM

#10

I can believe it. I knew a group of physicists when I was in grad school (in English), and found that they fell into two groups. Mostly they were dorks, but there was also a contingent of grad students in physics who had long hair, smoked pot, and played guitar. A few of them had started a hard rock band called Love Pump.

Then again, maybe that is dorky. The band wasn't very good, anyway.

Posted by: Stephen Stralka | April 18, 2006 12:01 PM

#11

I didn't know Feynman had that accent - I love to hear him talk about the kullahs of the flowah!

Posted by: Buffalo Gal | April 18, 2006 12:10 PM

#12

Feynman: Things are made of littler things that jiggle.

Posted by: AndyS | April 18, 2006 12:58 PM

#13

If you ever get a chance, read "Tuva or Bust", or try to get hold of "Last Journey of A Genius", the Nova documentary on Feynman.

The part about composing music for a ballet is just awesome.

Posted by: MikeM | April 18, 2006 12:59 PM

#14

Oh, bang! Instant nostalgia hit! I think this actual Horizon programme made me fall in love with Feynman (or it might have been Surely You're Joking...). I was so sad to hear he'd died just as I'd discovered him. (Sorry, PZ, physics was my first love....)

Posted by: NelC | April 18, 2006 1:20 PM

#15

Erm ... my first degree is in Physics ....

These days I watch Ladybirds and Bunblebess and Newts in my garden, and post to this blog .......

And LOTS of Physicists can't stand the xtian loonies, its just that Barrow et al get the publicity ...

Posted by: G. Tingey | April 18, 2006 2:25 PM

#16

Some of my best friedns are dorks.

For the real dorks out there, James Smith at San Francisco State has on his page an mp3 of David Hilbert's famous 1900 Address to the International Congress of Mathematicians where he sets out the 23 unsolved problems. Worth a listen, even if yuo don't speak German...but then, probably less of a listen.

Posted by: SteveG | April 18, 2006 2:43 PM

#17

Methinks I smell a bit of... physics envy? It's ok, you know, everyone succumbs to it at times.

Posted by: Zephyrus | April 18, 2006 3:05 PM

#18

He's one of the few people that I really wish I could have known.

Posted by: craig | April 18, 2006 3:56 PM

#19

Oh, incidentally, his lectures (audio) are floating around on the net somewhere too. Fun stuff.

Posted by: craig | April 18, 2006 3:59 PM

#20

Damn. I thought it would be a recent interview.

That would have been interesting. He could have toalked about the physics of a universe where pi = 3.0

Posted by: Ottnott | April 18, 2006 4:04 PM

#21

Feynman, yeah! And his books are good too.

Posted by: Aliera | April 18, 2006 4:58 PM

#22

Here you can view four lectures given by Feynman at University of Auckland.

Posted by: shaker | April 18, 2006 6:36 PM

#23

SteveG: For the real dorks out there, James Smith at San Francisco State has on his page an mp3 of David Hilbert's famous 1900 Address to the International Congress of Mathematicians where he sets out the 23 unsolved problems.

SteveG, the mp3 is not of his speech to the Congress but of a radio broadcast from 1930.

Posted by: shaker | April 18, 2006 6:48 PM

#24

If you ever get a chance, read "Tuva or Bust"

Thanks for mentioning this. I just got back from the library used book store, and there it was! :)

Posted by: craig | April 18, 2006 7:46 PM

#25

Even though I'm a physiology major, I have the biggest crush on Feynman.

As for physics envy, Science Creative Quarterly, in this article, reports: "Physicists often state their belief that all biologists would rather be physicists, but became biologists only because they were not very good at math." yet later on the truth comes out: "The great enthusiasm expressed for this experiment by my physicist friend, however, revealed an important and surprising fact. When pressed, many physicists will reveal in confidence that they would actually rather have been biologists, but for the unfortunate fact that they were unable to keep anything alive long enough to study it."

Posted by: Jenna | April 19, 2006 1:19 PM

#26

Right. If biologists have physics envy (which is debatable), physicists have complexophobia:

Some of the problems have been a surprise. Says ISB's Aderem: "I expected hard-core mathematicians and physicists to have a relatively easy job learning biology because we're all inherently interested in life; we all hunted for frogs in a pond as a kid. I thought biologists would have more trouble, but it was the other way around. Biologists have some quantitative training, and with some work, they can learn [the computational side]. The mathematicians and physicists don't like complexity. They like an algorithm."
Jim Kling
ScienceCareers.org, 3 March 2006

Posted by: Greco | April 20, 2006 7:00 PM