My friend Richard Feynman | Leonard Susskind | TEDxCaltech
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0:08 - 0:11I can't see the audience, and I hate that.
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0:11 - 0:13How many great grandparents
are there in the audience? -
0:13 - 0:15Damn it, I can't see anything.
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0:16 - 0:19You're probably wondering why I'm sitting.
-
0:19 - 0:22The answer is,
because I'm a great-grandfather. -
0:22 - 0:24Not a good grandfather,
a great grandfather. -
0:24 - 0:26(Laughter)
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0:26 - 0:27And, as everybody knows,
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0:27 - 0:30great grandparents get to do
any damn thing they please. -
0:31 - 0:33Including following my own
grandfather's advice, -
0:33 - 0:36which was, whenever you give a talk
to a thousand people -
0:36 - 0:38about Richard Feynman, sustain yourself.
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0:38 - 0:40(Laughter)
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0:40 - 0:45(Applause)
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0:46 - 0:49This is an extremely slick operation
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0:49 - 0:50and I'm not a slick man.
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0:53 - 0:54I don't use these things.
-
0:55 - 0:56I decided when I was asked to do this
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0:56 - 1:00that what I really wanted to talk about
was my friend, Richard Feynman. -
1:00 - 1:04I was one of the fortunate few
that really did get to know him -
1:04 - 1:05and enjoyed his presence.
-
1:06 - 1:10And I'm going to tell you
about the Richard Feynman that I knew. -
1:10 - 1:12I'm sure there are people here
who could tell you -
1:12 - 1:14about the Richard Feynman they knew,
-
1:14 - 1:16and it would probably be
a different Richard Feynman. -
1:16 - 1:18Richard Feynman was a very complex man.
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1:18 - 1:20He was a man of many, many parts.
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1:21 - 1:25He was, of course, foremost,
a very, very, very great scientist. -
1:26 - 1:28He was an actor. You saw him act.
-
1:28 - 1:32I also had the good fortune
to be in those lectures, -
1:32 - 1:33up in the balcony.
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1:34 - 1:35They were fantastic.
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1:36 - 1:37He was a philosopher.
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1:38 - 1:39He was a drum player.
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1:39 - 1:41He was a teacher par excellence.
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1:43 - 1:45Richard Feynman was also a showman,
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1:45 - 1:47an enormous showman.
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1:47 - 1:49He was brash, irreverent.
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1:50 - 1:55He was full of macho,
a kind of macho one-upmanship. -
1:56 - 1:59He loved intellectual battle.
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2:00 - 2:02He had a gargantuan ego.
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2:03 - 2:07But the man had, somehow,
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2:07 - 2:09a lot of room at the bottom.
-
2:09 - 2:14And what I mean by that
is a lot of room, in my case -- -
2:14 - 2:17I can't speak for anybody else,
but in my case -- -
2:17 - 2:20a lot of room for another big ego.
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2:21 - 2:22Well, not as big as his,
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2:22 - 2:24but fairly big.
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2:25 - 2:27I always felt good with Dick Feynman.
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2:27 - 2:29It was always fun to be with him.
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2:31 - 2:32He always made me feel smart.
-
2:33 - 2:35How can somebody like that
make you feel smart? -
2:35 - 2:36Somehow he did.
-
2:36 - 2:39He made me feel smart.
He made me feel he was smart. -
2:39 - 2:41He made me feel we were both smart,
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2:41 - 2:44and the two of us could solve
any problem whatever. -
2:45 - 2:48And in fact, we did sometimes
do physics together. -
2:48 - 2:50We never published a paper together,
-
2:50 - 2:52but we did have a lot of fun.
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2:54 - 2:55He loved to win,
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2:56 - 2:58win these little macho games
we would sometimes play. -
2:59 - 3:02And he didn't only play them with me,
but with all sorts of people. -
3:02 - 3:04He would almost always win.
-
3:04 - 3:07But when he didn't win, when he lost,
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3:07 - 3:09he would laugh and seem
to have just as much fun -
3:09 - 3:11as if he had won.
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3:11 - 3:14I remember once he told me a story
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3:14 - 3:16about a joke the students played on him.
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3:17 - 3:20I think it was for his birthday --
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3:20 - 3:21they took him for lunch
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3:22 - 3:25to a sandwich place in Pasadena.
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3:25 - 3:26It may still exist; I don't know.
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3:27 - 3:29Celebrity sandwiches was their thing.
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3:29 - 3:32You could get a Marilyn Monroe sandwich.
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3:32 - 3:34You could get a Humphrey Bogart sandwich.
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3:35 - 3:37The students went there in advance,
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3:37 - 3:40and arranged that they'd all order
Feynman sandwiches. -
3:40 - 3:43One after another, they came in
and ordered Feynman sandwiches. -
3:43 - 3:44Feynman loved this story.
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3:44 - 3:48He told me this story,
and he was really happy and laughing. -
3:49 - 3:51When he finished the story, I said to him,
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3:51 - 3:54"Dick, I wonder what
would be the difference -
3:54 - 3:57between a Feynman sandwich
and a Susskind sandwich." -
3:58 - 4:00And without skipping a beat at all,
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4:00 - 4:03he said, "Well, they'd be about the same.
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4:03 - 4:06The only difference is a Susskind
sandwich would have a lot more ham." -
4:06 - 4:08"Ham" as in bad actor.
-
4:08 - 4:09(Laughter)
-
4:09 - 4:13Well, I happened to have been
very quick that day, -
4:13 - 4:15and I said, "Yeah,
but a lot less baloney." -
4:15 - 4:18(Laughter)
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4:18 - 4:19(Applause)
-
4:19 - 4:22The truth of the matter
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4:22 - 4:26is that a Feynman sandwich
had a load of ham, -
4:26 - 4:29but absolutely no baloney.
-
4:31 - 4:33What Feynman hated worse
than anything else -
4:33 - 4:35was intellectual pretense --
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4:35 - 4:36phoniness,
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4:36 - 4:39false sophistication, jargon.
-
4:40 - 4:44I remember sometime during the mid-'80s,
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4:44 - 4:48Dick and I and Sidney Coleman
would meet a couple of times -
4:48 - 4:52up in San Francisco --
at some very rich guy's house -- -
4:52 - 4:54up in San Francisco for dinner.
-
4:54 - 4:56And the last time the rich guy invited us,
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4:56 - 4:58he also invited a couple of philosophers.
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4:58 - 5:01These guys were philosophers of mind.
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5:01 - 5:04Their specialty was the philosophy
of consciousness. -
5:04 - 5:07And they were full of all kinds of jargon.
-
5:07 - 5:09I'm trying to remember the words --
-
5:09 - 5:13"monism," "dualism,"
categories all over the place. -
5:13 - 5:17I didn't know what those meant, neither
did Dick or Sydney, for that matter. -
5:17 - 5:20Sydney, who was better educated
than most of us. -
5:22 - 5:23And what did we talk about?
-
5:23 - 5:26Well, what do you talk about
when you talk about minds? -
5:26 - 5:29There's one obvious thing to talk about:
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5:29 - 5:30Can a machine become a mind?
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5:31 - 5:33Can you build a machine
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5:33 - 5:36that thinks like a human being
that is conscious? -
5:36 - 5:40We sat around and talked about this --
we of course never resolved it. -
5:40 - 5:41But the trouble with the philosophers
-
5:42 - 5:43is that they were philosophizing
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5:44 - 5:46when they should have been
science-ophizing. -
5:46 - 5:49It's a scientific question, after all.
-
5:49 - 5:52And this was a very, very
dangerous thing to do -
5:52 - 5:53around Dick Feynman.
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5:53 - 5:55(Laughter)
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5:56 - 5:59Feynman let them have it --
both barrels, right between the eyes. -
5:59 - 6:02It was brutal; it was funny --
ooh, it was funny. -
6:02 - 6:04But it was really brutal.
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6:04 - 6:06He really popped their balloon.
-
6:07 - 6:10But the amazing thing was --
Feynman had to leave a little early; -
6:10 - 6:13he wasn't feeling too well,
so he left a little bit early. -
6:13 - 6:16And Sidney and I were left there
with the two philosophers. -
6:16 - 6:19And the amazing thing
is these guys were flying. -
6:19 - 6:21They were so happy.
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6:21 - 6:24They had met the great man;
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6:24 - 6:26they had been instructed by the great man;
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6:26 - 6:28they had an enormous amount of fun
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6:28 - 6:30having their faces shoved in the mud ...
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6:31 - 6:34And it was something special.
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6:34 - 6:37I realized there was something
just extraordinary about Feynman, -
6:37 - 6:41even when he did what he did.
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6:44 - 6:47So yes - he did not like
intellectual pretense. -
6:50 - 6:52Dick -- he was my friend;
I did call him Dick -- -
6:53 - 6:55Dick and I had a little bit of a rapport.
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6:55 - 6:58I think it may have been a special
rapport that he and I had. -
6:58 - 7:01We liked each other;
we liked the same kind of things. -
7:01 - 7:04I also like the intellectual macho games.
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7:05 - 7:07Sometimes I would win,
mostly he would win, -
7:07 - 7:08but we both enjoyed them.
-
7:08 - 7:11And Dick became convinced at some point
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7:11 - 7:15that he and I had
some kind of similarity of personality. -
7:16 - 7:17I don't think he was right.
-
7:17 - 7:19I think the only point
of similarity between us -
7:19 - 7:22is we both like to talk about ourselves.
-
7:22 - 7:24But he was convinced of this.
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7:24 - 7:27And the man was incredibly curious.
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7:28 - 7:31And he wanted to understand
what it was and why it was -
7:31 - 7:34that there was this funny connection.
-
7:35 - 7:36And one day, we were walking.
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7:36 - 7:38We were in France, in Les Houches.
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7:38 - 7:42We were up in the mountains, 1976.
Up in the mountains. -
7:42 - 7:46And Feynman said to me, "Leonardo ..."
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7:46 - 7:49The reason he called me "Leonardo"
is because we were in Europe, -
7:49 - 7:51and he was practicing his French.
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7:51 - 7:53(Laughter)
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7:53 - 7:56And he said, "Leonardo,
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7:56 - 8:00were you closer to your mother
or your father when you were a kid?" -
8:00 - 8:03I said, "Well, my real hero was my father.
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8:04 - 8:07He was a working man,
-
8:07 - 8:08had a fifth-grade education.
-
8:09 - 8:12He was a master mechanic,
and he taught me how to use tools. -
8:12 - 8:16He taught me all sorts of things
about mechanical things. -
8:16 - 8:18He even taught me the Pythagorean theorem.
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8:18 - 8:20He didn't call it the hypotenuse,
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8:20 - 8:22he called it the shortcut distance."
-
8:22 - 8:25And Feynman's eyes just opened up.
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8:25 - 8:27He went off like a lightbulb.
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8:27 - 8:29And he said that he had had
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8:30 - 8:33basically exactly the same
relationship with his father. -
8:33 - 8:37In fact, he had been convinced at one time
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8:37 - 8:41that to be a good physicist,
-
8:41 - 8:44it was very important to have had
that kind of relationship -
8:44 - 8:45with your father.
-
8:45 - 8:48I apologize for the sexist
conversation here, -
8:48 - 8:50but this is the way it really happened.
-
8:50 - 8:54He said he had been absolutely
convinced that this was necessary, -
8:54 - 8:57a necessary part of the growing up
of a young physicist. -
8:58 - 9:01Being Dick, he, of course,
wanted to check this. -
9:01 - 9:03He wanted to go out and do an experiment.
-
9:04 - 9:05(Laughter)
-
9:05 - 9:06Well, he did.
-
9:06 - 9:07He went out and did an experiment.
-
9:07 - 9:10He asked all his friends
that he thought were good physicists, -
9:10 - 9:13"Was it your mom or your pop
that influenced you?" -
9:13 - 9:13And to a man -
-
9:14 - 9:15they were all men,
-
9:16 - 9:18and to a man, every single
one of them said, -
9:18 - 9:19"My mother."
-
9:19 - 9:22(Laughter)
-
9:22 - 9:25There went that theory,
down the trash can of history. -
9:26 - 9:27(Laughter)
-
9:27 - 9:30But he was very excited
that he had finally met somebody -
9:30 - 9:33who had the same experience
with his father -
9:33 - 9:35as he had with his father.
-
9:35 - 9:39And for some time, he was convinced
this was the reason we got along so well. -
9:39 - 9:41I don't know. Maybe. Who knows?
-
9:41 - 9:45But let me tell you a little bit
about Feynman the physicist. -
9:47 - 9:51Feynman's style --
no, "style" is not the right word. -
9:51 - 9:54"Style" makes you think
of the bow tie he might have worn, -
9:54 - 9:55or the suit he was wearing.
-
9:55 - 9:57It's something much deeper than that,
-
9:57 - 9:59but I can't think of another word for it.
-
9:59 - 10:05Feynman's scientific style
was always to look for the simplest, -
10:05 - 10:09most elementary solution
to a problem that was possible. -
10:09 - 10:12If it wasn't possible,
you had to use something fancier. -
10:13 - 10:18No doubt, part of this
was his great joy and pleasure -
10:18 - 10:21in showing people that he could
think more simply than they could. -
10:22 - 10:25But he also deeply believed,
he truly believed, -
10:25 - 10:27that if you couldn't explain
something simply, -
10:27 - 10:29you didn't understand it.
-
10:30 - 10:33In the 1950s, people
were trying to figure out -
10:33 - 10:35how superfluid helium worked.
-
10:36 - 10:37There was a theory.
-
10:37 - 10:40It was due to a Russian
mathematical physicist. -
10:40 - 10:41It was a complicated theory;
-
10:41 - 10:43I'll tell you what it was soon enough.
-
10:43 - 10:45It was a terribly complicated theory,
-
10:45 - 10:48full of very difficult
integrals and formulas -
10:48 - 10:50and mathematics and so forth.
-
10:50 - 10:54And it sort of worked,
but it didn't work very well. -
10:54 - 10:55The only way it worked
-
10:55 - 10:58is when the helium atoms
were very, very far apart. -
10:58 - 11:00They had to be.
-
11:00 - 11:01And unfortunately,
-
11:01 - 11:04the helium atoms in liquid helium
are right on top of each other. -
11:04 - 11:07Feynman decided, as a sort
of amateur helium physicist, -
11:07 - 11:10that he would try to figure it out.
-
11:10 - 11:12He had an idea, a very clear idea.
-
11:12 - 11:13He would try to figure out
-
11:13 - 11:19what the quantum wave function
of this huge number of atoms looked like. -
11:19 - 11:20He would try to visualize it,
-
11:20 - 11:23guided by a small number
of simple principles. -
11:23 - 11:26The small number of simple principles
were very, very simple. -
11:26 - 11:30The first one was that when
helium atoms touch each other, -
11:30 - 11:31they repel.
-
11:31 - 11:34The implication of that is that
the wave function has to go to zero, -
11:34 - 11:37it has to vanish when the helium
atoms touch each other. -
11:37 - 11:40The other fact
is that in the ground state -- -
11:40 - 11:43the lowest energy state
of a quantum system -- -
11:43 - 11:46the wave function is always very smooth;
-
11:46 - 11:48it has the minimum number of wiggles.
-
11:48 - 11:50So he sat down --
-
11:50 - 11:52and I imagine he had nothing more
-
11:52 - 11:54than a simple piece
of paper and a pencil -- -
11:54 - 11:56and he tried to write down,
and did write down, -
11:57 - 11:59the simplest function
that he could think of, -
11:59 - 12:01which had the boundary conditions
-
12:01 - 12:03that the wave function
vanish when things touch -
12:03 - 12:05and is smooth in between.
-
12:06 - 12:09He wrote down a simple thing --
so simple, in fact, -
12:09 - 12:12that I suspect a really smart
high-school student -
12:12 - 12:13who didn't even have calculus
-
12:13 - 12:15could understand what he wrote down.
-
12:16 - 12:19The thing was, that simple thing
that he wrote down -
12:19 - 12:22explained everything that was known
at the time about liquid helium, -
12:23 - 12:24and then some.
-
12:24 - 12:27I've always wondered
whether the professionals -- -
12:27 - 12:29the real professional helium physicists --
-
12:29 - 12:31were just a little bit
embarrassed by this. -
12:32 - 12:35They had their super-powerful technique,
-
12:35 - 12:36and they couldn't do as well.
-
12:36 - 12:40Incidentally, I'll tell you
what that super-powerful technique was. -
12:41 - 12:43It was the technique of Feynman diagrams.
-
12:43 - 12:45(Laughter)
-
12:45 - 12:48He did it again in 1968.
-
12:48 - 12:53In 1968, in my own university --
I wasn't there at the time -- -
12:53 - 12:56they were exploring
the structure of the proton. -
12:56 - 13:00The proton is obviously made
of a whole bunch of little particles; -
13:00 - 13:02this was more or less known.
-
13:02 - 13:06And the way to analyze it was,
of course, Feynman diagrams. -
13:06 - 13:08That's what Feynman diagrams
were constructed for -- -
13:08 - 13:09to understand particles.
-
13:10 - 13:13The experiments that were going on
were very simple: -
13:13 - 13:14you simply take the proton,
-
13:14 - 13:17and you hit it really sharply
with an electron. -
13:17 - 13:19This was the thing
the Feynman diagrams were for. -
13:20 - 13:24The only problem was that
Feynman diagrams are complicated. -
13:24 - 13:25They're difficult integrals.
-
13:25 - 13:29If you could do all of them,
you would have a very precise theory, -
13:29 - 13:31but you couldn't --
they were just too complicated. -
13:32 - 13:33People were trying to do them.
-
13:33 - 13:36You could do a one-loop diagram.
Don't worry about one loop. -
13:36 - 13:39One loop, two loops --
maybe you could do a three-loop diagram, -
13:39 - 13:42but beyond that, you couldn't do anything.
-
13:42 - 13:43Feynman said, "Forget all of that.
-
13:43 - 13:45Just think of the proton
-
13:45 - 13:49as an assemblage, a swarm,
of little particles." -
13:49 - 13:51He called them "partons."
-
13:52 - 13:56He said, "Just think of it as a swarm
of partons moving real fast." -
13:57 - 13:59Because they're moving real fast,
-
14:00 - 14:04relativity says the internal
motions go very slow. -
14:05 - 14:06The electron hits it suddenly --
-
14:06 - 14:10it's like taking a very sudden
snapshot of the proton. -
14:11 - 14:12What do you see?
-
14:12 - 14:16You see a frozen bunch of partons.
-
14:16 - 14:17They don't move,
-
14:17 - 14:20and because they don't move
during the course of the experiment, -
14:20 - 14:23you don't have to worry
about how they're moving. -
14:23 - 14:25You don't have to worry
about the forces between them. -
14:25 - 14:31You just get to think of it
as a population of frozen partons." -
14:31 - 14:35This was the key to analyzing
these experiments. -
14:35 - 14:37Extremely effective.
-
14:38 - 14:40Somebody said the word
"revolution" is a bad word. -
14:40 - 14:42I suppose it is,
so I won't say "revolution," -
14:42 - 14:48but it certainly evolved very, very deeply
our understanding of the proton, -
14:48 - 14:50and of particles beyond that.
-
14:50 - 14:53Well, I had some more
that I was going to tell you -
14:53 - 14:54about my connection with Feynman,
-
14:54 - 14:56what he was like,
-
14:56 - 14:58but I see I have exactly half a minute.
-
14:58 - 15:02So I think I'll just finish up by saying:
-
15:02 - 15:05I actually don't think
Feynman would have liked this event. -
15:05 - 15:09I think he would have said,
"I don't need this." -
15:10 - 15:11But ...
-
15:11 - 15:12(Laughter)
-
15:12 - 15:13How should we honor Feynman?
-
15:13 - 15:15How should we really honor Feynman?
-
15:15 - 15:18I think the answer
is we should honor Feynman -
15:18 - 15:22by getting as much baloney
out of our own sandwiches -
15:22 - 15:23as we can.
-
15:24 - 15:25Thank you.
-
15:25 - 15:28(Applause)
- Title:
- My friend Richard Feynman | Leonard Susskind | TEDxCaltech
- Description:
-
What's it like to be pals with a genius? Onstage at TEDxCaltech, physicist Leonard Susskind spins a few stories about his friendship with the legendary Richard Feynman, discussing his unconventional approach to problems both serious and ... less so.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 15:42
TED Translators admin edited English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | Leonard Susskind | TEDxCaltech | ||
TED Translators admin edited English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | Leonard Susskind | TEDxCaltech | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | Leonard Susskind | TEDxCaltech | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | Leonard Susskind | TEDxCaltech | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | Leonard Susskind | TEDxCaltech | ||
Xinyi Zhang edited English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | Leonard Susskind | TEDxCaltech | ||
Xinyi Zhang edited English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | Leonard Susskind | TEDxCaltech | ||
Xinyi Zhang edited English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | Leonard Susskind | TEDxCaltech |