You might want to check out Moon Duchin's "The sexual Politics of Genius" (it's freely availbale if you google it) which discusses the attribution of "genius" status to scientists - among others Feynman is used as example.
Posted by: Filipe | Nov 26, 2011 7:53:46 AM
In the past two months I've downloaded as many Youtube videos on Richard Feynmann as I could find. There were videos about Feynman, like this one. There are, also, a few collections of his lectures. The video quality is poor, but worth the effort.
I was reading Brian Green's "The Fabric of the Cosmos," and dosing myself on Feynman for the launch of Green's "Fabric" video series on PBS.
What I enjoy so much about Feynman is his constant striving to describe fundamental ideas as simply and straight-forward as he possibly can. I am no Richard Feynman, but I try to do the same when I teach psychological research methods. For example:
1. An experiment is observing something under different conditions.
2. Measurement is a comparison to a standard.
3. Where do measurement standards come from? We make them up.
4. Science is an approach to understanding nature (including ourselves) through observation and the recording of data.
5. Where do the laws of nature come from? They come from the scientists who describe them.
6. Measures of central tendency answer the question, "What is the most typical score?"
@ Filipe: Good idea to think about what genius means. Most of the Google links to Duchin's article do not work. However, this one does:
"I couldn't tear myself
away from 3 Quarks Daily, to the point of neglecting my work. Congratulations on
this superb site."—Steven
Pinker, Johnstone Professor of Psychology, Harvard University.
"I have placed 3 Quarks Daily at the head of my list of web bookmarks."—Richard
Dawkins, Charles Simonyi Professor of the Public Understanding of Science at Oxford University.
"Just wanted you to know I’m one of many who reads and enjoys 3 Quarks....almost daily."—David Byrne, musician, former lead-singer of the Talking Heads, artist, intellectual.
Comments
You might want to check out Moon Duchin's "The sexual Politics of Genius" (it's freely availbale if you google it) which discusses the attribution of "genius" status to scientists - among others Feynman is used as example.
Posted by: Filipe | Nov 26, 2011 7:53:46 AM
In the past two months I've downloaded as many Youtube videos on Richard Feynmann as I could find. There were videos about Feynman, like this one. There are, also, a few collections of his lectures. The video quality is poor, but worth the effort.
I was reading Brian Green's "The Fabric of the Cosmos," and dosing myself on Feynman for the launch of Green's "Fabric" video series on PBS.
What I enjoy so much about Feynman is his constant striving to describe fundamental ideas as simply and straight-forward as he possibly can. I am no Richard Feynman, but I try to do the same when I teach psychological research methods. For example:
1. An experiment is observing something under different conditions.
2. Measurement is a comparison to a standard.
3. Where do measurement standards come from? We make them up.
4. Science is an approach to understanding nature (including ourselves) through observation and the recording of data.
5. Where do the laws of nature come from? They come from the scientists who describe them.
6. Measures of central tendency answer the question, "What is the most typical score?"
@ Filipe: Good idea to think about what genius means. Most of the Google links to Duchin's article do not work. However, this one does:
http://www.math.lsa.umich.edu/~mduchin/UCD/111/readings/genius.pdf
Posted by: Norman Costa | Nov 26, 2011 12:48:57 PM
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