Richard feynman biography video theodore


Feynman and the famous C-clamp experiment — in a glass of ice water — demonstrating how rubber O-rings failed in launch, at the Challenger Commission. (Why are there so few good photos of this event?)

Geography and history teachers, you should watch this on the day after Feynman Day.  Can you make use of this in your classes — say, after the state tests?

How about you physics and science teachers?

Tuvan People’s Republic, marked in green. Wikipedia image

In 1998 NOVA produced and broadcast a film that rather defies categorization.  Biography? Drama? Humor? Frustrated travelogue?

“Last Journey of a Genius” tells a lot of biography of Dick Feynman, but it focuses on his unusual drive to learn about, and travel to an obscure Central Asian country/province/area/culture called Tannu Tuva.  Feynman’s close friend Ralph Leighton plays a big role in this film, too.  This film reveals more about the character of Richard Feynman, his overwhelming curiosity and humanity, than you can get any other place, including his memoirs (which every civil human should read).

NOVA captivates me almost every week.  Good fortune found me in front of a television somewhere when this was first broadcast.  For several reasons, I’ve been unable to get a VHS, or a DVD version of the story despite many attempts over the years.

But fortune and good history smile again.  Open Culture collected the film, and it’s available for free in their documentary section.

Drumming, story telling, geography, Cold War politics, ballet, more drumming, some nuclear physics, astronomy, a lot of good humor, and a plea for orange juice.  It still makes me smile.

From Open Culture:

In 1989, PBS’ NOVA aired The Last Journey of a Genius, a television film that documents the final days of the great physicist Richard Feynman and his obsession with traveling to Tannu Tuva, a state outside of outer Mongolia, which then remained under Soviet contr

  • The full video of

    • American Scientist

    May 11 marks what would have been the 97th birthday of Richard Feynman, the legendary physicist who helped to found the field of quantum electrodynamics, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. Feynman’s brilliance is well documented, and his humor has made him one of the better-known communicators of physics to a popular audience. His quirky nature and perhaps less socially acceptable habits are also commonly discussed.

    Feynman’s name has often graced the pages of American Scientist. Here we collect a dozen links as a jumping-off point for those looking to know more about this fascinating scientist.

    A review of The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation, by Steven Shapin. Reviewed by Theodore M. Porter, Nov–Dec 2008.
    “We are encouraged to think of the scientist as holding on to an unconventional, childlike curiosity into adulthood. … Richard Feynman and James Watson are the poster boys for this kind of scientist, who bathes in the fountain of perpetual fun. … The legend of Feynman originated during his time at Los Alamos, which he described as a delightful time of cracking safes and seducing girls in bars.”

    Slideshow from Feynman, a graphic novel biography by Jim Ottaviani, Leland Myrick, and Hilary Sycamore. Jul–Aug 2011.
    An excerpt from this book shows the artists’ recreation of the series of lectures Feynman gave on quantum electrodynamics in 1983.

    Richard Feynman’s Diagrams, by Felice Frankel. Sep–Oct 2003.
    This Sightings column looks at the diagrams Feynman created to simplify the representations of calculations in quantum electrodynamics. As David Kaiser of MIT explains in the article, “To Feynman, the diagrams showed what really happened in the quantum-mechanical world. Beyond a mere calculating trick, he came to see in the lines of his diagrams a patchwork of comings and goings on the micro level, particles careening to and fro as they marched through space and time.”

    Physi

  • May 11 marks what

    • [Editor’s note: The full video of the Richard Feynman documentary The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is no longer embeddable, but you can watch it here. You can also view clips from the series on YouTube.]

    Many times in the last five years, I’ve been asked: “If you could have dinner with anyone in history, who would it be?”

    My answer is always the same: Richard Feynman.

    Right alongside Seneca’s Letters from a Stoic, Feynman’s book Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) hugely impacted every aspect of my thinking when I first read them circa 2005. Since then, I have studied Feynman’s letters, teaching style, discoveries, and beyond. How many Nobel Prize winners also safe crack and play bongos in bars for fun?

    The above video will give you an taste of why I love Richard Feynman. It was forwarded to me by Brew Johnson and J.R. Johnson, whom I owe huge thanks, as I’d somehow missed it. About the program, Professor Sir Harry Kroto, recipient of the Nobel Prize for Chemistry, said:

    “The 1981 Feynman Horizon is the best science program I have ever seen. This is not just my opinion – it is also the opinion of many of the best scientists that I know who have seen the program… It should be mandatory viewing for all students, whether they be science or arts students.”

    Feynman’s makes me want to be a better teacher and, ultimately, a world-class parent (you’ll see what I mean). A few notes on the video:

    • I first watched this in 10-minute bites before bed. There’s no need to watch it all at once.
    • :30-:38 is fascinating physics, but physics nonetheless. He does a masterful job of getting lay people excited (his cadence helps a lot), but skip if needed, rather than missing what follows.
    • :40+ explains part of his teaching philosophy, which greatly influenced how I outline my books.
    • His concept of “active irresponsibility” is worth remember

    The Unadulterated Intellect

    Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi (2 October 1869 – 30 January 1948) was an Indian lawyer, anti-colonial nationalist and political ethicist who employed nonviolent resistance to lead the successful campaign for India's independence from British rule. He inspired movements for civil rights and freedom across the world. The honorific Mahātmā (from Sanskrit 'great-souled, venerable'), first applied to him in South Africa in 1914, is now used throughout the world.

    Born and raised in a Hindu family in coastal Gujarat, Gandhi trained in the law at the Inner Temple, London, and was called to the bar at age 22 in June 1891. After two uncertain years in India, where he was unable to start a successful law practice, he moved to South Africa in 1893 to represent an Indian merchant in a lawsuit. He went on to live in South Africa for 21 years. It was here that Gandhi raised a family and first employed nonviolent resistance in a campaign for civil rights. In 1915, aged 45, he returned to India and soon set about organizing peasants, farmers, and urban labourers to protest against excessive land-tax and discrimination.

    Assuming leadership of the Indian National Congress in 1921, Gandhi led nationwide campaigns for easing poverty, expanding women's rights, building religious and ethnic amity, ending untouchability, and, above all, achieving swaraj or self-rule. Gandhi adopted the short dhoti woven with hand-spun yarn as a mark of identification with India's rural poor. He began to live in a self-sufficient residential community, to eat simple food, and undertake long fasts as a means of both introspection and political protest. Bringing anti-colonial nationalism to the common Indians, Gandhi led them in challenging the British-imposed salt tax with the 400 km (250 mi) Dandi Salt March in 1930 and in calling for the British to quit India in 1942. He was imprisoned many times and for many years in both South Africa and India.

    Gandhi's vision of an indepen

  • Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11,