My friend Richard Feynman
-
0:00 - 0:02I decided when I was asked to do this
-
0:02 - 0:04that what I really wanted to talk about
-
0:04 - 0:06was my friend Richard Feynman.
-
0:06 - 0:08I was one of the fortunate few
-
0:08 - 0:10that really did get to know him
-
0:10 - 0:12and enjoyed his presence.
-
0:12 - 0:15And I'm going to tell you the Richard Feynman that I knew.
-
0:15 - 0:17I'm sure there are other people here
-
0:17 - 0:19who could tell you about the Richard Feynman they knew,
-
0:19 - 0:21and it would probably be a different Richard Feynman.
-
0:21 - 0:24Richard Feynman was a very complex man.
-
0:24 - 0:26He was a man of many, many parts.
-
0:26 - 0:28He was, of course, foremost,
-
0:28 - 0:31a very, very, very great scientist.
-
0:31 - 0:34He was an actor. You saw him act.
-
0:34 - 0:37I also had the good fortune to be in those lectures,
-
0:37 - 0:39up in the balcony.
-
0:39 - 0:41They were fantastic.
-
0:41 - 0:43He was a philosopher;
-
0:43 - 0:45he was a drum player;
-
0:45 - 0:48he was a teacher par excellence.
-
0:48 - 0:50Richard Feynman was also a showman,
-
0:50 - 0:52an enormous showman.
-
0:52 - 0:56He was brash, irreverent --
-
0:56 - 0:58he was full of macho,
-
0:58 - 1:01a kind of macho one-upmanship.
-
1:01 - 1:05He loved intellectual battle.
-
1:05 - 1:09He had a gargantuan ego.
-
1:09 - 1:12But the man had somehow
-
1:12 - 1:14a lot of room at the bottom.
-
1:14 - 1:16And what I mean by that
-
1:16 - 1:19is a lot of room, in my case --
-
1:19 - 1:21I can't speak for anybody else --
-
1:21 - 1:23but 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.
-
1:30 - 1:33I always felt good with Dick Feynman.
-
1:33 - 1:35It was always fun to be with him.
-
1:35 - 1:37He always made me feel smart.
-
1:37 - 1:39How can somebody like that make you feel smart?
-
1:39 - 1:41Somehow he did.
-
1:41 - 1:43He made me feel smart. He made me feel he was smart.
-
1:43 - 1:45He made me feel we were both smart,
-
1:45 - 1:49and the two of us could solve any problem whatever.
-
1:49 - 1:52And in fact, we did sometimes do physics together.
-
1:52 - 1:54We never published a paper together,
-
1:54 - 1:57but we did have a lot of fun.
-
1:58 - 2:00He loved to win.
-
2:00 - 2:03With these little macho games we would sometimes play --
-
2:03 - 2:06and he didn't only play them with me, he played them with all sorts of people --
-
2:06 - 2:08he would almost always win.
-
2:08 - 2:11But when he didn't win, when he lost,
-
2:11 - 2:14he would laugh and seem to have just as much fun
-
2:14 - 2:16as if he had won.
-
2:16 - 2:18I remember once he told me a story
-
2:18 - 2:21about a joke that the students played on him.
-
2:21 - 2:23They took him -- I think it was for his birthday --
-
2:23 - 2:25they took him for lunch.
-
2:25 - 2:27They took him for lunch
-
2:27 - 2:29to a sandwich place in Pasadena.
-
2:29 - 2:31It may still exist; I don't know.
-
2:31 - 2:34Celebrity sandwiches was their thing.
-
2:34 - 2:36You could get a Marilyn Monroe sandwich.
-
2:36 - 2:39You could get a Humphrey Bogart sandwich.
-
2:39 - 2:41The students went there in advance,
-
2:41 - 2:44and they arranged that they would all order Feynman sandwiches.
-
2:44 - 2:47One after another, they came in and ordered Feynman sandwiches.
-
2:47 - 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 - 2:58"Dick, I wonder what would be the difference
-
2:58 - 3:02between a Feynman sandwich and a Susskind sandwich."
-
3:02 - 3:04And without skipping a beat at all,
-
3:04 - 3:07he said, "Well, they'd be about the same.
-
3:07 - 3:10The only difference is a Susskind sandwich would have a lot more ham,"
-
3:10 - 3:12ham, as in bad actor.
-
3:12 - 3:14(Laughter)
-
3:14 - 3:17Well, I happened to have been very quick that day,
-
3:17 - 3:20and I said, "Yeah, but a lot less baloney."
-
3:20 - 3:23(Laughter)
-
3:23 - 3:27The truth of the matter
-
3:27 - 3:29is that a Feynman sandwich
-
3:29 - 3:31had a load of ham,
-
3:31 - 3:34but absolutely no baloney.
-
3:35 - 3:37What Feynman hated worse than anything else
-
3:37 - 3:39was intellectual pretense --
-
3:39 - 3:41phoniness,
-
3:41 - 3:44false sophistication, jargon.
-
3:44 - 3:47I remember sometime during the '80s,
-
3:47 - 3:49the mid-'80s,
-
3:49 - 3:51Dick and I and Sidney Coleman
-
3:51 - 3:53would meet a couple of times
-
3:53 - 3:56up in San Francisco at some very rich guy's house --
-
3:56 - 3:58up in San Francisco for dinner.
-
3:58 - 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 - 4:11And they were full of all kinds of jargon.
-
4:11 - 4:14I'm trying to remember the words --
-
4:14 - 4:17"monism," "dualism," categories all over the place.
-
4:17 - 4:19I didn't know what those things meant, neither did Dick --
-
4:19 - 4:21neither did Sydney for that matter.
-
4:21 - 4:23And what did we talk about?
-
4:23 - 4:26Well, what do you talk about when you talk about minds?
-
4:26 - 4:28One thing, there's one obvious thing to talk about --
-
4:28 - 4:30can a machine become a mind?
-
4:30 - 4:32Can you build a machine
-
4:32 - 4:34that thinks like a human being,
-
4:34 - 4:36that is conscious?
-
4:36 - 4:39We sat around and we 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-iphizing.
-
4:45 - 4:48It's a scientific question after all.
-
4:48 - 4:50And this was a very, very dangerous thing to do
-
4:50 - 4:53around Dick Feynman.
-
4:55 - 4:58Feynman let them have it -- both barrels, right between the eyes.
-
4:58 - 5:01It was brutal; it was funny -- ooh, it was funny.
-
5:01 - 5:03But it was really brutal.
-
5:03 - 5:05He really popped their balloon.
-
5:05 - 5:07But the amazing thing was --
-
5:07 - 5:09Feynman had to leave a little early.
-
5:09 - 5:12He wasn't feeling too well, so he left a little bit early.
-
5:12 - 5:15And Sidney and I were left there with the two philosophers.
-
5:15 - 5:18And the amazing thing is these guys were flying.
-
5:18 - 5:20They were so happy.
-
5:20 - 5:23They had met the great man;
-
5:23 - 5:25they had been instructed by the great man;
-
5:25 - 5:27they had an enormous amount of fun
-
5:27 - 5:30having their faces shoved in the mud,
-
5:30 - 5:33and it was something special.
-
5:33 - 5:36I realized there was something just extraordinary about Feynman,
-
5:36 - 5:39even when he did what he did.
-
5:43 - 5:46Dick, he was my friend. I did call him Dick.
-
5:46 - 5:48Dick and I had a certain, a little bit of a rapport.
-
5:48 - 5:51I think it may have been a special rapport that he and I had.
-
5:51 - 5:54We liked each other; we liked the same kind of things.
-
5:54 - 5:58I also liked the kind of 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 - 6:08that he and I had some kind of similarity of personality.
-
6:08 - 6:10I don't think he was right.
-
6:10 - 6:12I think the only point of similarity between us
-
6:12 - 6:15is we both like to talk about ourselves.
-
6:15 - 6:17But he was convinced of this.
-
6:17 - 6:19And he was curious.
-
6:19 - 6:21The man was incredibly curious.
-
6:21 - 6:24And he wanted to understand what it was and why it was
-
6:24 - 6:28that there was this funny connection.
-
6:28 - 6:30And one day we were walking. We were in France.
-
6:30 - 6:32We were in La Zouche.
-
6:32 - 6:34We were up in the mountains, 1976.
-
6:34 - 6:37We were up in the mountains, and Feynman said to me,
-
6:37 - 6:39he said, "Leonardo."
-
6:39 - 6:41The reason he called me Leonardo
-
6:41 - 6:43is because we were in Europe
-
6:43 - 6:46and he was practicing his French.
-
6:46 - 6:49And he said, "Leonardo,
-
6:49 - 6:52were you closer to your mother or to you father
-
6:52 - 6:54when you were a kid?"
-
6:54 - 6:57And I said, "Well, my real hero was my father.
-
6:57 - 6:59He was a working man,
-
6:59 - 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 - 7:16he called it the shortcut distance."
-
7:16 - 7:18And Feynman's eyes just opened up.
-
7:18 - 7:20He went off like a light bulb.
-
7:20 - 7:23And he said he had had
-
7:23 - 7:25basically exactly the same relationship
-
7:25 - 7:27with his father.
-
7:27 - 7:30In fact, he had been convinced at one time
-
7:30 - 7:33that, to be a good physicist,
-
7:33 - 7:35that it was very important
-
7:35 - 7:38to have had that kind of relationship with your father.
-
7:38 - 7:41I apologize for the sexist conversation here,
-
7:41 - 7:43but this is the way it really happened.
-
7:43 - 7:47He said that he had been absolutely convinced that this was necessary --
-
7:47 - 7:51the necessary part of the growing up of a young physicist.
-
7:51 - 7:54Being Dick, he, of course, wanted to check this.
-
7:54 - 7:56He wanted to go out and do an experiment.
-
7:56 - 7:58So, well he did.
-
7:58 - 8:00He went out and did an experiment.
-
8:00 - 8:03He asked all his friends that he thought were good physicists,
-
8:03 - 8:06"Was it your mom or your pop that influenced you?"
-
8:06 - 8:08And to a man -- they were all men --
-
8:08 - 8:10to a man, every single one of them
-
8:10 - 8:12said, "My mother."
-
8:12 - 8:15(Laughter)
-
8:15 - 8:19There went that theory down the trashcan of history.
-
8:20 - 8:23But he was very excited that he had finally met somebody
-
8:23 - 8:26who had the same experience with my father
-
8:26 - 8:28as he had with his father.
-
8:28 - 8:30And for some time, he was convinced
-
8:30 - 8:32this was the reason we got along so well.
-
8:32 - 8:34I don't know. Maybe. Who knows?
-
8:34 - 8:36But let me tell you a little bit
-
8:36 - 8:39about Feynman the physicist.
-
8:40 - 8:42Feynman's style --
-
8:42 - 8:44no, style is not the right word.
-
8:44 - 8:46Style makes you think of the bow tie he might have worn
-
8:46 - 8:48or the suit he was wearing.
-
8:48 - 8:50There's something much deeper than that,
-
8:50 - 8:52but I can't think of another word for it.
-
8:52 - 8:55Feynman's scientific style
-
8:55 - 8:57was always to look for the simplest,
-
8:57 - 9:02most elementary solution to a problem that was possible.
-
9:02 - 9:05If it wasn't possible, you had to use something fancier.
-
9:05 - 9:08But no doubt part of this
-
9:08 - 9:11was his great joy and pleasure
-
9:11 - 9:15in 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 - 9:23you didn't understand it.
-
9:23 - 9:26In the 1950s, people were trying to figure out
-
9:26 - 9:28how superfluid helium worked.
-
9:28 - 9:30There was a theory.
-
9:30 - 9:32It was due to a Russian mathematical physicist,
-
9:32 - 9:34and it was a complicated theory.
-
9:34 - 9:36I'll tell you what that theory was soon enough.
-
9:36 - 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.
-
9:43 - 9:46And it sort of worked, but it didn't work very well.
-
9:46 - 9:48The only way it worked
-
9:48 - 9:51is when the helium atoms were very, very far apart.
-
9:51 - 9:53The helium atoms had to be very far apart.
-
9:53 - 9:55And unfortunately, the helium atoms in liquid helium
-
9:55 - 9:57are right on top of each other.
-
9:57 - 10:00Feynman decided, as a sort of amateur helium physicist,
-
10:00 - 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 - 10:09what the quantum wave function
-
10:09 - 10:11of this huge number of atoms looked like.
-
10:11 - 10:13He would try to visualize it,
-
10:13 - 10:16guided by a small number of simple principles.
-
10:16 - 10:19The small number of simple principles were very, very simple.
-
10:19 - 10:21The first one was
-
10:21 - 10:24that when helium atoms touch each other, they repel.
-
10:24 - 10:27The implication of that is that the wave function has to go to zero,
-
10:27 - 10:30it has to vanish when the helium atoms touch each other.
-
10:30 - 10:32The other fact
-
10:32 - 10:35is that the ground state, the lowest energy state of a quantum system,
-
10:35 - 10:39the wave function is always very smooth --
-
10:39 - 10:41has the minimum number of wiggles.
-
10:41 - 10:43So he sat down --
-
10:43 - 10:45and I imagine he had nothing more
-
10:45 - 10:47than a simple piece of paper and a pencil --
-
10:47 - 10:49and he tried to write down, and did write down,
-
10:49 - 10:52the simplest function that he could think of
-
10:52 - 10:54which had the boundary conditions
-
10:54 - 10:56that the wave function vanish when things touch
-
10:56 - 10:58and is smooth in between.
-
10:58 - 11:00He wrote down a simple thing.
-
11:00 - 11:02It was so simple, in fact,
-
11:02 - 11:04that I suspect a really smart high school student,
-
11:04 - 11:06who didn't even have calculus,
-
11:06 - 11:09could understand what he wrote down.
-
11:09 - 11:12The thing was that that simple thing that he wrote down
-
11:12 - 11:15explained everything that was known at the time about liquid helium
-
11:15 - 11:17and then some.
-
11:17 - 11:19I've always wondered
-
11:19 - 11:22whether the professionals, the real professional helium physicists,
-
11:22 - 11:25were just a little bit embarrassed by this.
-
11:25 - 11:27They had their super-powerful technique,
-
11:27 - 11:29and they couldn't do as well.
-
11:29 - 11:33Incidentally, I'll tell you what that super-powerful technique was.
-
11:33 - 11:36It was the technique of Feynman diagrams.
-
11:36 - 11:38(Laughter)
-
11:38 - 11:41He did it again in 1968.
-
11:41 - 11:43In 1968, in my own university --
-
11:43 - 11:46I wasn't there at the time -- but in 1968,
-
11:46 - 11:49they were exploring the structure of the proton.
-
11:49 - 11:51The proton is obviously made
-
11:51 - 11:53of a whole bunch of little particles.
-
11:53 - 11:55This was more or less known.
-
11:55 - 11:58And the way to analyze it was, of course, Feynman diagrams.
-
11:58 - 12:01That's what Feynman diagrams were constructed for --
-
12:01 - 12:03to understand particles.
-
12:03 - 12:05The experiments that were going on were very simple.
-
12:05 - 12:07You simply take the proton,
-
12:07 - 12:09and you hit it really sharply with an electron.
-
12:09 - 12:12This was the thing the Feynman diagrams were for.
-
12:12 - 12:14The only problem
-
12:14 - 12:16was that Feynman diagrams are complicated.
-
12:16 - 12:18They're difficult integrals.
-
12:18 - 12:21If you could do all of them, you would have a very precise theory.
-
12:21 - 12:24But you couldn't; they were just too complicated.
-
12:24 - 12:26People were trying to do them.
-
12:26 - 12:29You could do a one loop diagram. Don't worry about one loop.
-
12:29 - 12:32One loop, two loops -- maybe you could do a three loop diagram,
-
12:32 - 12:34but beyond that, you couldn't do anything.
-
12:34 - 12:36Feynman said, "Forget all of that.
-
12:36 - 12:38Just think of the proton
-
12:38 - 12:40as an assemblage of little particles --
-
12:40 - 12:42a swarm of little particles."
-
12:42 - 12:45He called them partons. He called them partons.
-
12:45 - 12:47He said, "Just think of it as a swarm of partons
-
12:47 - 12:49moving real fast."
-
12:49 - 12:53Because they're moving real fast,
-
12:53 - 12:57relativity says the internal motions go very slow.
-
12:57 - 12:59The electron hits it suddenly.
-
12:59 - 13:02It's like taking a very sudden snapshot of the proton.
-
13:02 - 13:04What do you see?
-
13:04 - 13:09You see a frozen bunch of partons.
-
13:09 - 13:11They don't move, and because they don't move
-
13:11 - 13:13during the course of the experiment,
-
13:13 - 13:15you don't have to worry about how they're moving.
-
13:15 - 13:17You don't have to worry about the forces between them.
-
13:17 - 13:19You just get to think of it
-
13:19 - 13:21as a population
-
13:21 - 13:24of frozen partons.
-
13:24 - 13:27This was the key to analyzing these experiments.
-
13:27 - 13:30Extremely effective, it really did --
-
13:30 - 13:32somebody said the word revolution is a bad word.
-
13:32 - 13:35I suppose it is, so I won't say revolution --
-
13:35 - 13:38but it certainly evolved very, very deeply
-
13:38 - 13:41our understanding of the proton,
-
13:41 - 13:43and of particles beyond that.
-
13:43 - 13:45Well, I had some more that I was going to tell you
-
13:45 - 13:47about my connection with Feynman,
-
13:47 - 13:49what he was like,
-
13:49 - 13:51but I see I have exactly half a minute.
-
13:51 - 13:53So I think I'll just finish up
-
13:53 - 13:57by saying I actually don't think Feynman would have liked this event.
-
13:57 - 14:00I think he would have said,
-
14:00 - 14:03"I don't need this."
-
14:03 - 14:06But how 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 - 14:13by getting as much baloney
-
14:13 - 14:16out of our own sandwiches as we can.
-
14:16 - 14:18Thank you.
-
14:18 - 14:21(Applause)
- Title:
- My friend Richard Feynman
- Speaker:
- Leonard Susskind
- 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:
- TEDTalks
- Duration:
- 14:21
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | ||
Krystian Aparta commented on English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | ||
Krystian Aparta edited English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | ||
TED edited English subtitles for My friend Richard Feynman | ||
TED added a translation |
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 10/13/2015. At 6:30, "We were in La Zouche" was changed to "We were in Les Houches."
Krystian Aparta
The English transcript was updated on 9/30/2016.