Taking Sides: Richard Feynman vs Murray Gell-Mann

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Near-neighbours at MIT, Dick got the Nobel Prize first and Murray was miffed. But, 4 years later, Murray got his *alone*.

RF: Quantum Electrodynamics, all that zany juggling and drumming, those popular paperbacks, the Lectures, the Challenger 'O'-ring and, oh yes, The Bomb.

MG-M: quarks and strangeness, interdisciplinary study at Santa Fe Institute, bird-watching, Complexity, the Eight-Fold Way.

Ok, so one of them is dead - but who is/was the King of avuncular American post-war particle physicists? Or name someone else?

― Michael Jones, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I admire Stephen Weinburg's unifaction of weak power and hydroelectric power. Just add water... Genius on a par with pot noodles.

― Martin, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I'd go for Gell-Mann because much as I admire RF, his self-conscious zaniness and his marketing savvy in the mid-eighties where he portrayed himself as a straight-talkin' no-nonsense kinda dude gets on my tits. Mind you, Einstein marketed himself equally cynically in his later years, in my view.

Also I doubt very much whether RF ever heard of Finnegans Wake let alone three quarks for Muster Mark, or whatever it is.

― Sam, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I think Feynmann might have been a little more clued up on things literary and artistic than he let on in his books. Most of them date from his the period of no-nonsense straight talking practical man schtick (which I too find rather aggravating) so he kind of played up his ignorance in those fields to 'improve' his image. I mean, he always claimed to be uninterested in philosophy but his Character Of Physical Law certainly falls into the area of philosophy of science.

Gell-Mann was a terrible snob, referring to solid state as squalid state, so points off for that. And isn't the Eight Fold Way a really OTT name for what it describes? It's like calling special relativity the Constancy of Enlightenment or something. OTOH, Feynmann had juggling, bongos and acid = HIPPY. Hmmm, a solid I don't know from me then.

― Richard Tunnicliffe, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

O-ring dunked in ice-water glass: "nature will not be fooled" = instant total diskomfiture of NASA = klassik. Good science = good theatre QED

― mark s, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Feynman liked to sleep and performed sleep research on himself. So besides classic he is also my HERO.

― Josh, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Sleep research like Nude Spock's? With the arm?

― mark s, Thursday, 23 August 2001 00:00 (twenty-four years ago)

four months pass...

This is a classic dichotomy of styles- Feynman is more the visual,mechanical,physical innovator more like a Newton (in terms of style not achievement) while Gell-Mann is more Liebnezian (sic)- linguistic,symbolic,mathematical. The individual paths they took toward the discovery of the quark-parton model is very telling in this regard. Gell-Mann futzed around with Lie groups and found mathematical symmetry-Feynman was working from SLAC data (Bjorken)and employed images from special relativity to propose partons. Whose model is the standard one today? But I love Feynman too......

― louis geller, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Both are great but Feynman had the art of the sound byte down early on before the cynical period. He also gave me my favorite quote for use at my predomiately liberal arts institution

"On the infrequent occasions when I have been called upon in a formal place to play the bongo drums, the introducer never seems to find it necessary to mention that I also do theoretical physics. I believe that is probably because we respect the arts more then the sciences."

― Mr Noodles, Friday, 18 January 2002 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

seven years pass...

Good news, Feynmanfans:

http://www.symmetrymagazine.org/breaking/2009/06/22/gates-buys-feynmans-messenger-lectures/

― StanM, Saturday, 27 June 2009 22:04 (sixteen years ago)

Nice.

― Ned Raggett, Saturday, 27 June 2009 22:08 (sixteen years ago)

I'd forgotten all about this thread!

― Michael Jones, Saturday, 27 June 2009 22:48 (sixteen years ago)

I love that last Feynman quote.

― The shock will be coupled with the need to dance (James Morrison), Sunday, 28 June 2009 23:45 (sixteen years ago)

five months pass...

Or name someone else?

Schwinger.

― alimosina, Saturday, 19 December 2009 04:43 (sixteen years ago)

u brought her iirc

― akira goldsman (s1ocki), Saturday, 19 December 2009 17:53 (sixteen years ago)

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