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