One part Great Man Theory with tons of navel gazing and genuflecting to a handful of star figures. One part Sorkin-esque courtroom drama.

Zero parts fun.

Three fucking hours long.

Don’t waste your money on this shit bag, folks.

  • Llituro [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    1 year ago

    His Wikipedia entry is the best I can really suggest, mostly because it’s been so long since I formed an opinion on mr Feynman to remember where I learned how odious he was. Here’s the choice part of his life that I’m specifically referring to, about one of his memoirs. I’m just quoting wiki here.

    Feynman has been criticized for a chapter in the book entitled “You Just Ask Them?”, where he describes how he learned to seduce women at a bar he went to in the summer of 1946. A mentor taught him to ask a woman if she would sleep with him before buying her anything. He describes seeing women at the bar as “removed” in his thoughts, and tells a story of how he told a woman named Ann that she was “worse than a removed” after Ann persuaded him to buy her sandwiches by telling him he could eat them at her place, but then, after he bought them, saying they actually could not eat together because another man was coming over. Later on that same evening, Ann returned to the bar to take Feynman to her place. Feynman states at the end of the chapter that this behaviour was not typical of him: “So it worked even with an ordinary girl! But no matter how effective the lesson was, I never really used it after that. I didn’t enjoy doing it that way. But it was interesting to know that things worked much differently from how I was brought up.”

    This passage does not mention his particular affinity for attempting to seduce coeds at Caltech. Or secretaries. Or basically any woman that moved.

    • JuneFall [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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      1 year ago

      Thanks. With stuff like that it is often good to ask, since people might have good sources. For me I remembered him being a sexist, which is not quite the same as sex pests, but depending on power situation “flirting” with secretaries is abuse of power.

      • Llituro [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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        1 year ago

        I was immersed in physics for a while, so I’m familiar with some of the less savory aspects of the people that often get lionized. Feynman in particular draws my ire partly because of how adored he is by reddit-logo users. I can’t remember the provenance of this, but Feynman was known for always walking to lunch with the secretaries rather than has colleagues. I also recall that there was some more odious parts related to the quote I gave, more specifically about his relationships with undergrads while teaching at Caltech.