I had the privilege of seeing Feynman speak, at the University of
California in Santa Barbara. The hall was so packed that there was barely
room to move. He spoke for an hour about his experiences in the Manhattan
Project in Los Alamos, and many other scientific issues. You could have
heard a pin drop, except when everyone was laughing their heads off. He
could easily have made millions as a stand-up comedian. He was an
astounding speaker. He had everyone in the palm of his hand. It was the
first time I had experienced real charisma. My brother once met Bill
Clinton and had a similar experience- when he entered the room there was a
sea change in the atmosphere.
Feynman was indeed a genius. Like many physics grad students, I tried to
understand his amazing "Lectures on Physics" transcriptions of a course he
gave to sophomores at Cal Tech. hahahaha! The insight and approach he
brought to bear on physics problems reduced even the most gifted students
to tears. He would take enormously difficult topics and blast through them
using minimal math and mind-bending clarity of thought. It was, to say the
least, a humbling thing to follow in his mental footsteps in those great
books.
My experience listening to him speak that day remains one of the great and
most influential experiences of my life. There are some videos of Feynman
speaking on YouTube. The first is the actual lecture I attended in 1975.
"It was, to say the least, a humbling thing to follow in his mental
footsteps in those great books."
That is inspiring in itself and a real challenge for anyone to take up.
Thanks for posting about Feynman, it was delightful.
Think about our having a dozen more Feynmans now in these times, given
funding and access to max out their potential,
unlike Galileo and Mozart.