Quotation-filter. I'm trying to remember how a quotation went concerning Richard Feynman's lectures on physics. [more inside]
posted on May 2, 2008 - 5 answers

There's this rather unspecific Feynman story that I keep encountering. Its formulation as found on the Internets goes "One of the most impressive discoveries was the origin of the energy of the stars, that makes them continue to burn. One of the men who discovered this was out with his girl friend the night after he realized that nuclear reactions must be going on in the stars in order to make them shine. She said "Look at how pretty the stars shine!" He said, "Yes, and right now I am the only man in the world who knows why they shine." She merely laughed at him. She was not impressed with being out with the only man who, at that moment, knew why stars shine. Well, it is sad to be alone, but that is the way it is in this world." Does anyone know who he is talking about (Eddington? Perrin? Bethe?) and if there's any truth to the story?
posted on Jan 6, 2007 - 7 answers

In one of Richard Feynman's books, he talks about solving a problem by finding that a 'fact' about (I think) the spin state of the electron was really an assumption. I recall that it could be one of two values, something like T or V, and everybody had assumed it was T without any evidence. I know I got that all wrong, so what's the reality behind it?
posted on Dec 14, 2006 - 5 answers

I remember reading an anecdote about Feynman, written by Feynman either in Surely, You're Joking or What Do You Care What Other People Think. He was describing how in his undergraduate years people were really impressed by his ability to do integrals, all because he knew this integration technique that wasn't taught very often. What was that technique?
posted on Dec 4, 2006 - 10 answers

This site: http://www.skepticreport.com/print/quantum-p.htm ...suggests that Feynman's 'sum over all histories' approach to Quantum Electro-Dynamics has sidestepped the well known 'observer problem' in quantum mechanics (exemplified by the Wigner's Friend paradox). Is this true? [more inside]
posted on Dec 5, 2005 - 10 answers

In 1959, Richard Feynman gave a now-famous talk at Caltech titled Plenty of Room at the Bottom in which he challenges the scientific community to write the entire Encyclopedia Brittanica on the head of a pin. Has anybody ever done this? [more inside]
posted on Nov 19, 2005 - 17 answers