Horizon: Richard Feynman - No Ordinary Genius (full version)

Be careful of generalizing parenting methods, also don't put too much weight on parenting when there's at least as much (though probably more) due to genetics. (There's also a nice low-hanging fruit plucked by making sure the child has enough iodine in the womb/early infancy[1].) With parenting tricks, what seems to "work" remarkably well for one child might not work at all for another child, even in the same family! I'm not a parent so I observe this lack of generalized techniques from multi-sibling families with very different sibling life outcomes and also from Feynman's anecdote on his son and his daughter. Here's him telling it: ▶ this video (at the 49 minute mark). [1] link

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that." Upon reading this paragraph, I was reminded of his book "What do you care what other people think", which was a homage to Arlene, partly because Feynman made the fatal mistake of trusting the doctor's judgement to disregard the blatantly obvious diagnosis. He wrote about his experience in much more detail here: Part 1: link Part 2: link --------------------------------------------------------- //Comments below are irrelevant to the thread, I just felt like sharing. Feynman was depressed for a while but eventually his love for physics helped him recover. Hans Bethe once said, "Feynman depressed is just a little more cheerful then any other person when he is exuberant." Feynman is arguably the most logical and happiest human being that has ever existed. Feynman's magnificent exuberance and puzzle solving enthusiasm remained up until his last days, where his coworker Christopher Sykes remarked "Look at this man. He faces the abyss. He doesn't know whether he is going to live through this week. But he was consumed by it, and he worked on it all day long...." ▶ this video A few days before his second operation, Feynman sang a bongos song about orange juice, an amusing take of Linus Pauling's advice to possibly cure his cancer. Just look at his smile at the end of this video: link I would also like to add that on Feynman's last days at the ho

Good read, but there's so much more to the story. His book "What do you care what other people think" is a homage to Arlene, partly because Feynman made the fatal mistake of trusting the doctor's judgement to disregard the blatantly obvious diagnosis. He wrote about his experience in much more detail here: Part 1: link Part 2: link He was depressed for a while but eventually his love for physics helped him recover. Feynman is the most logical and happiest human I have ever seen. Hans Bethe once said, "Feynman depressed is just a little more cheerful then any other person when he is exuberant." Feynman's magnificent exuberance and puzzle solving enthusiasm remained up until his last days, where his coworker Christopher Sykes remarked "Look at this man. He faces the abyss. He doesn't know whether he is going to live through this week. But he was consumed by it, and he worked on it all day long...." ▶ this video A few days before his second operation, Feynman sang a bongos song about orange juice, an amusing take of Linus Pauling's advice to possibly cure his cancer. Just look at his smile at the end of this video: link I would also like to add that on Feynman's last days at the hospital, his last words to his artist friend Jirayr was "Don't worry about anything, go out and have a good time!" ▶ this video Anyone who thinks of Feynman as a cold-hearted scientist is incredibly mistaken.

There is actually a video of Feynman himself elaborating further: link I would say that the death of his first wife Arlene and the aftermaths of the Trinity Project affected Feynman greatly, as exuberant as he is usually. Feynman's magnificent exuberance and puzzle solving enthusiasm was also illustrated during his last days, where his coworker Christopher Sykes remarked "Look at this man. He faces the abyss. He doesn't know whether he is going to live through this week. But he was consumed by it, and he worked on it all day long...." ▶ this video Feynman was the epitome of the "Doing things for the fun of it" philosophy. His last words to his artist friend Jirayr was "Don't worry about anything~! Go out and have a good time~!" ▶ this video ▶ this video