It's easy to throw muck at someone who is not around to defend.
It's less axe grinding and more counter-acting an inaccurate narrative.
He was very serious about his physics and wrote that stuff down.
Someone else wrote down his stories. His stories were probably often not entirely accurate, and whomever wrote down his stories also probably had an agenda. So books "by feynman" should be treated with some caution since they're written not by feynman.
His physics and science are obviously not "a sham". It is in fact possible for someone to be great and awful at the same time.
If his wife did write that memo, I’d say she had pretty good justification.
[0]: https://www.tumblr.com/centrally-unplanned/76851065507251814...
(I should note that I have never particularly liked or cared about Feynman or any of the 20th century cult-of-personality physicists.)
Regarding domestic abuse charges, this was before we had no fault divorce. It was common at that time to make up charges of abuse, often in concert with the lawyers of both parties just to ensure that divorce is granted.
So it is not a clear open and shut case at all.
I did really enjoy this detail:
> It was an extremely ugly, long (2 years!) divorce hearing: it made the newspapers because of Bell’s allegations of “extreme cruelty” by Feynman, including the notion that he spent all of his waking hours either doing calculus and playing the bongos.
Brilliant guy... but it is funny to think how nonstop bongos could definitely drive a spouse crazy.
While reading through that I was suspecting it was perhaps a peer that was envious of Feynman, but an ex (scorned?) partner is extremely plausible.
This is the bucket Ayn Rand falls into. Her philosophy is radically different, revolutionizing the entire field, to the point that most people can’t even grasp that the things she questions are open to debate.
I know this is a common trope in many media portrayals, but it's really not my experience. The "insufferable genius" stereotype tracks most not for the extremely smart people but the kinda-smart people who are absolute jerks but try to defend their jerkassery on the basis of their intelligence.
Most "geniuses" usually end up surrounding themselves by pretty smart people themselves: example top researcher hanging out with smart people through conferences and coworkers of similar caliber.
On a one-pass of critical thinking the media portrayal makes no sense either. If you're a genius how can you not figure out an efficient way to communicate your thoughts; surely you should've identified that even with your vast intellect you require other people's help or understanding to achieve your goals, and lamenting "they don't get it" is an extremely unprofessional and silly self serving stance.
The media portrayal is clearly to appeal to viewers ego. Just as most scifi aliens are humanoids and not slugs, we all want to relate to a character and the "insufferable genius" trope is popular because there are more people that relate to "insufferable and consider themselves genius" than actual geniuses
The kind of person that has spent much time chiselling their belief system or is simply fascinated by a field of study that not many people can relate to on that depth. Feynman was a great communicator, but I can think of a few people that may have Asperger's syndrome that have that exceptional insight into things that sometimes results in collateral damage in relationships.
What I mean is there are exceptional people, and sometimes people fail to understand what is exceptional and take exception themselves.
FrankWilhoit•2h ago
srean•1h ago
tclancy•1h ago
wilkommen•1h ago
IAmBroom•1h ago
gerikson•1h ago
KPGv2•1h ago
Because the FBI interviewer refers to the interviewee with feminine pronouns.
nemomarx•58m ago
sigwinch•1h ago