The Scene staff
Every once in a while, I find myself fascinated with a famous person.
This fascination was reserved for rock stars when I was younger, but it has extended to comedians, economists and authors as I have gotten older.
Physicist and Nobel Prize winner Richard Feynman is my latest person of interest. I’ve learned a little bit about a few brilliant physicists, but it was Feynman’s combination of humor, practicality and courage that attracted me to him.
Feynman has changed how I think about balancing work and life. Here are some lessons I have picked up:
Explaining something complicated with simple language is the best sign of intelligence
Feynman loved breaking things down into their simplest components, no easy feat in the complex world of theoretical physics.
One of his most famous simplifications was Feynman Diagrams, pictorial representations of sub-atomic particles that had previously been explained only with sophisticated mathematics.
Feynman Diagrams are so elegant and simple that even a high school student can understand, while losing no important details about what they convey.
To prove the power of simplification, Feynman would walk into the mathematics department at the California Institute of Technology and challenge faculty to conjure up the most difficult concepts imaginable and relay them in plain English.
He would then take these dumbed-down explanations and use them to find solutions to related problems.
Of course, Feynman’s success with this challenge was partly due to his genius, but it also reflected his understanding of the importance of breaking things down into their most basic elements.
Feynman’s obsession with simplification inspired me to attempt to explain some mathematical concepts from my college classes to my mother, who is a math-phobe.
Although I mostly drive her nuts with these discussions, I have found that I understand concepts better after rewording the things I learned that day into plain English.
Don’t take yourself too seriously
Feynman took his work seriously, but he also had a mischievous side.
In his book, “Surely You Are Joking, Mr. Feynman!”, he wrote about stealing doors from dorm rooms in college and cracking safes that contained secret information while working at Los Alamos during the Manhattan Project.
Feynman didn’t mind being viewed as a goof when it could help him get away with doing less administrative work at universities where he taught. He insisted he was unreliable so he could spend more time researching.
I imagine this contradicted the knee-jerk first impression of the stern and brilliant scientist. Sure, Feynman took his work seriously, but he refused to let that bleed into other domains of his life.
Pursue all of your interests
Through mutual friends, Feynman met the artist Jirayr Zorthian, and they concocted a plan. Every Sunday, they would trade information about their respective crafts – physics and art.
While Feynman started out drawing stick figures, “he became an amazing draftsman,” according to Zorthian.
I’ll attest to that. Feynman’s drawings were breathtaking, but that wasn’t where his creativity ended. He was known for playing bongo drums, and he authored multiple memoirs.
I find it interesting when someone can wear many different hats, and Feynman was able to do that seamlessly. I’m sure if he’d the inkling to be in a rock band, he would have beeen playing at Madison Square Garden within a few years. He focused intensely on his interests and refused to limit himself.
Stick to your guns
Feynman was asked to serve on the committee that analyzed the aftermath of the space shuttle Challenger disaster in 1986. It exploded during take-off, killing the crew of seven, including the first teacher-astronaut, Christa McAuliffe.
Feynman quickly concluded that NASA management had taken an unnecessary risk by allowing the shuttle to take off on a cold morning, greatly impacting its performance.
One of Feynman’s major qualms was NASA management’s 1-in-100,000 failure estimate, which starkly contrasted with NASA engineers’ estimate of 1 in 50.
U.S. Sen. William Rogers, head of the Challenger investigation, considered Feynman “a real pain.” A potential explanation for this comment could be Rogers’ interest in keeping NASA mismanagement quiet.
Before the final report was published, Roger tried to pressure Feynman into not including a segment highlighting this great negligence. Feynman refused and got his way. The segment made it into the report.
Like everything else with Feynman, this action illustrates his multi-dimensional abilities. He was mischievous, yet held principals that he took incredibly seriously. He was honest and courageous – especially when it would have been easiest to be neither.