8.14
intelligentsia
The Intellectual
American theoretical physicist Feynman (1918-1988) | Image source: thetalentedworld.net
Editor's Note
Feynman was a gifted theoretical physicist who was widely sought after both at home and abroad. In the 50s of the last century, when Yang Zhenning, Li Zhengdao, and others were exploring "strange particles", he first frankly admitted that he did not understand the work of Li and Yang, but he was instigated and questioned, and then claimed to have figured everything out in a very short period of time, which shows his intelligence and arrogance without mannerisms.
Feynman's style has been evaluated differently by academic peers, but it is clear that he is an "outlier", whose intelligence, frivolity and acting genius cannot be learned by anyone.
This article was originally an article recently published by Professor Liu Du in the Review of Science and Culture, and the second part of it was published by Intellectuals today. (Part I: The Friendship and Interest of Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao)
Written by | Liu Du (Institute of Natural Science History, Chinese Academy of Sciences/Department of History of Science, Tsinghua University)
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1
Feynman and Cosmos Problem
Richard Feynman (1918–1988) was a gifted theoretical physicist, astute and joking, who graduated from MIT with a Ph.D. from Princeton University. Because of his professional relationship, he had some academic contacts with Yang and Li, and he told some interesting stories in the semi-autobiographical best-selling book "Don't Make Trouble, Mr. Feynman"[1].
In a section titled "Don't Trust the Experts Too Much," Feynman recalls a past story surrounding the cosmic problem. He said that at a meeting (Note 1), he heard the "θ-τ mystery" about strange particles, and frankly said, "At that time, I was still a little confused, I was always a little behind."
One night, Martin Block, an experimental physicist who lived in the same room with him, told him: Why do you have to stick to the rules of cosmology? Maybe θ and τ are just a kind of particle. Feynman thought for a moment and added: That is to say, the laws of the universe will be divided into left-handed and right-handed, although there will be some adverse consequences, and I don't think it will be terrible. So he said to Bullock, you should ask the experts tomorrow, and the latter said, "No, they won't listen to me. ”
At the meeting the next day, the host, Oppenheimer, said, "We should listen to something new and weird." So Feynman stood up and said, "I asked this question for Bullock: What will happen if the cosmology rule is wrong?" He added: "Later, German (Chinese more literature translated as Gell-Mann) often laughed at me, saying that I did not have the courage to ask questions in my own name. But in fact that is not the reason. The real reason is that at the time I felt that it might be a very important idea, and whoever raised this question is likely to be famous in the future. (Note 2)
Feynman went on to write:
Li Zhengdao stood up and answered something very complicated, and as usual, I didn't understand it very well. Toward the end of the meeting, Bullock asked me what Lee had said, and I said I didn't know, but as far as I knew, there was no answer to the question — it could still happen. ”
Feynman's later narrative is somewhat messy, beginning with the statement that "Wu Jianxiong experimentally proved that there are also times when cosmology is not conserved, which opened up many new possibilities for beta decay theory and inspired a whole host of other experiments", "during which a conference was held in Rochester" (Note 3); He also mentioned that "Lee Jung-do has published papers on the non-conservation of cosmology. He and Yang Zhenning came to the conclusion that the cosmology is not conserved, and now he is proposing a theory to explain this phenomenon." [1]
Figure 1 Yang Zhenning and Li Zhengdao discuss the issue | Image source: Princeton IAS
Feynman went on to write that during the meeting, he lived at his sister's house nearby, and when he brought back the paper (Note 4), he said: "I can't understand what Li Zhengdao and Yang Zhenning said, it's all so complicated!" "My sister disagreed and suggested that he take the paper upstairs and read it word for word." I took her advice, took the thing from start to finish, and found it really obviously simple. ”
Feynman's account becomes more pronounced in the following narrative, as he writes:
This paper reminds me of some research I did a long time ago, which is related to the equation of left and right asymmetry. Looking at Lee's equation now, I find his answer relatively simple: everything is left-handedly coupled. In the case of electrons and muons, my inferences and predictions are the same as Lee's, except that I reverse certain additions and subtractions. At that time, I did not expect that in fact, Lee Jung-dao only discussed the simplest example of the coupling of small particles, and did not prove that all small particles are rotated to the right; But according to my theory, all small particles automatically rotate to the right. So, in fact, my inference is even higher than his. My plus and minus signs were reversed from what he used, but I didn't realize I was getting the rest of the way right.
I made a few more predictions, all of which no one had yet thought of testing experimentally. But when I consider neutrons and protons and make calculations, my conclusions cannot be corroborated with the neutron and proton data known at the time. This part is a bit troublesome and not easy to get.
The next day back at the venue, a great guy named Ken Case gave me 5 minutes to publish his paper and asked me to report these new ideas. I said I believed everything was left-handed coupling, and I said that the positive and negative signs of electrons and small particles were reversed, and I was also trying to solve the problem of neutrons. [1]
2
Feynman and the V-A Theory
After the meeting, Feynman went on vacation to Brazil, and when he returned, he "immediately wanted to know how the beta decay research was progressing", but the data was not satisfactory, until one day a colleague at Caltech told him that Gell-Mann (Note 5) guessed that the beta decay of the neutron might be V and A instead of S and T, and he suddenly jumped up from the small bench and said, "Then I understand all of it!" ”
That night he "calculated everything with this theory" (Note 6), first of all, the metamorphosis rate of the particles and neutrons, "the result is very close to the answer as it should be"; "Keep checking some of the other calculations, all of them are in line, and then the new things are calculated, and they are also in line." For the first time in my life, and indeed the only time in my life, I knew a law of nature that no one else knew. (Note 7)
He also thinks of Paul Dirac (1902-1984) and his great equation of "separate possession", "and now I have this new beta decay equation." It's not as dazzling as Dirac's equation, but it's also pretty good. It was the only time I had discovered a new law. ”
Feynman regarded the V-A theory as his "only one" discovery of the laws of nature puzzled many people, including Gell-Mann, Yang Zhenning and many other first-class physicists believe that his greatest contribution was path integration. An explanation has been given that in Feynman's view, path integrals are more like a principle than a specific law, and although he cannot exclusively enjoy the invention rights of V-A theory, the passion and admiration for the laws of nature he experienced in the process of exploration is unparalleled (see Shi Yu: "Eternal Youth: Why Feynman's Influence Has Flourished", Science, Vol. 70, No. 6, 2018).
Figure 2 Gell-Mann | Source: Wikipedia
In this way, Feynman went from "confused" in the previous year to "all understood" now. He immediately called his sister in New York, "Thank you for suggesting that I sit down and read through Li Zhengdao and Yang Zhenning's papers." He then continued to work on the calculations, "getting a lot of mutually consistent results."
During this time, the two ladies were snubbed, and he did not forget to write them in the book. The first was most likely a girlfriend (Note 8), who was angry when he came back from vacation but didn't call her right away, and suddenly ran over at two or three in the morning, while Feynman was working without distraction, "I forgot how to let her leave later, in short, it was not easy," Feynman wrote.
The second was a woman I met later in a night restaurant, excitedly telling them that she had just made a big discovery, but the woman said that she was "a firefighter or whatever's wife, very lonely", Feynman continued: "But I am not interested." Sometimes life is so intertwined. ” [1]
Regarding the birth of the V-A theory, Gell-Mann's biography [2] seems to be more comprehensive, and the book describes it as follows: Long before the Sixth Rochester Conference, Sudashan, a doctoral student from India, had discussed the V-A problem with his mentor At the University of Rochester, Marschak, and thought that this combination of vector subtractive vectors might be a theoretical framework suitable for all weak effects.
In the summer after the meeting, Marschakh took Sudashan and another graduate student to work at the Rand Corporation in Santa Monica, California, and Sudhashan used the opportunity to continue delving into the unification of weak interactions.
Gell-Man, on the other hand, had considered two years earlier that exotic particles and beta decay might include axial vector flows, revived after RAND had encountered Marschak by chance, and had arranged a luncheon to learn more about Sudashan's work with Marschak, who also learned from Gell-Man about the experiments being conducted by Felix Boehm (1924-2021) at the California Institute of Technology (1924-2021) to support the V-A scheme (Note 9). But when they asked Gell-Man if he planned to write a thesis, the latter replied that he probably wouldn't.
Gell-Mann and his wife then went on vacation in the mountains of northern California, and when he returned to Caltech, he found that Feynman, who had just returned from Brazil, was busy preparing a paper on the V-A, so the two smartest men at Caltech were sitting in their respective offices preparing for a duel.
Robert Bacher (1905-2004), the head of the department, intervened upon hearing the news and asked them to collaborate on the writing. The paper was mainly written by Feynman and was the result of a discussion between the two men.
The article was submitted to the American Physical Society's Physics Review on September 16, 1957, and was officially released on January 1, 1958. The acknowledgment at the end of the text is a little unusual, starting with a unanimous thanks to Bem and the others, while Gell-Mann, one of the authors, emphasizes a valuable discussion with Marshak and Sudashan (Note 10).
The Biography of Gell-Mann also mentions a detail about Feynman's style: it is said that he returned from a vacation in Brazil on his way to New York and asked Lee Jung-do what "what should be believed, and Lee Told him the best thing to do is to flip a coin." After the preprint of his and Gell-Mann papers came out, he also sent a copy to Lee Zhengdao, scribbling a sentence in the blank space: "I tossed a coin, this is the answer." ”
The book goes on to read: "Lee later told others with remorse that he should have borrowed Feynman's coins. But Mr. Lee had no regrets, and that fall he and Mr. Yang won the Nobel Prize for the article that claimed destruction —the fastest award ever. ” [2]
At this time, Sudashan had graduated from Rochester and moved to Harvard to do postdoctoral work with Schwenger (Note 11), and was surprised to learn at a lecture by Yang Zhenning that the V-A theory belonged to Feynman, and he heard from his young colleague Glashow (Note 12) that Feynman and Gell-Mann had submitted articles to the Physics Review, so he immediately called his mentor Marschak, who had always thought that his paper with Sudashan would soon be held at the Padua-Venice International conference Conference, 1957) was published in a collection of papers, and Feynman and Gell-Mann were ahead of them.
After some effort, the Physics Review published its brief report in the form of a "letter from a reader" on March 1 [4], a full month later than Feynman. In the one-and-a-half-page brief, titled "Chiral Invariance and Universal Fermi Action," the authors note that Feynman and Gell-Mann independently obtained similar expressions and thanked them for providing a preprint of the paper.
Gell-man has felt guilty about the matter for years, mentioning on various occasions that Sudashan was the first to propose the V-A theory, always happy to write enthusiastic letters of recommendation for Sudashan, and apologizing to Marshak for widespread misconceptions in the industry.
Feynman's response was a little late, but also sincere, and the following is to quote jagdish Mehra (1931-2008), an Indian-American physicist and historian of science. Mehra and Feynman had known each other for 30 years, and shortly before his death invited him to the hospital for three weeks of in-depth interviews, followed by interviews with more than 80 of Feynman's colleagues and friends, culminating in a detailed biography of "A Distinctive Drum Beat: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman".[5]
There is a section in the book titled "'The only law of nature I could lay a claim to': The theory of weak interactions," and the quotes in quotation marks are clearly from Feynman's own semibiographical bestseller. In his concluding remarks at the 1974 Conference on Weak Interactions in Philadelphia, Feynman said: "We have a universal theory of the weak interaction invented by Marshaq and Sudashan, published by Feynman and Gell-Mann, and finally completed by Kabib (Note 13) – what I call the universal theory of weak interactions – the so-called V-A theory. ”
In 1985, at an academic symposium held at Kyoto University to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the introduction of the meson concept, Feynman learned from Marschakh that Sudashan had been depressed that priorities had not been recognized as they should. On August 17, when Marschak had already left for his home country, Feynman sent him a letter from Kyoto, earnestly, only inadvertently revealing the unique "Feynman style" again: "I wish I had not aroused the same displeasure as you and Sudashan, and whenever I had the chance, I would try to tell the truth — but when I was serious, no one believed me." (Note 14)
In addition to the V-A theory, the groundbreaking diagonal representation he introduced in the field of quantum optics was renamed and used and won the 2005 Nobel Prize in Physics, for which several well-known physicists complained to the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences and the Nobel Prize Committee, and he was later nominated several times without success.
3
Different commentary in Feynman style
Feynman was intellectually brilliant and scientifically accomplished, and was one of the most influential theoretical physicists of the mid-to-late 20th century. Regarding Feynman's genius and style, many celebrities have left excellent comments.
Niels Bohr (1885-1962), the patriarch of quantum mechanics, said: "Feynman was confident and upright, not afraid of authority, and was the only one who was not afraid of me and dared to point out my mistakes." Schwinger considered him to be "an honest man, an outstanding intuitionist of our time, and the best example anyone who dares to follow a different drumbeat will face" [5]. Dyson started by saying he was "half genius, half funny actor," which was later changed to "total genius, totally comic actor."
Figure 3 Feynman and Yang Zhenning in the 1950s | Image source: Science and Society Picture Library
Not long ago, I read the newly published "Interview with Yang Zhenning"[6] and saw Mr. Yang say, "I don't like Feynman as a person", "For him, there is nothing called fairness and justice", "he is an unreasonable person". The most unhappy and strange thing yang Zhenning felt was Feynman's attitude toward Dyson.
According to Mr. Yang, Dyson was the first to admire Feynman, and it was he who explained to Oppenheimer that Feynman's methods were as effective as Schwenger and Asahina Jinichiro, and repeatedly praised Feynman in several books he wrote; Feynman, on the other hand, told others that Dyson had nothing to contribute. However, Mr. Yang also fully affirmed the originality of Feynman's work, saying in the same interview that Feynman's path integral "captures the true spirit of quantum mechanics."
Figure 4 Schwinger | Source: Wikipedia
At a conference in honor of Schwinger in Washington, D.C., in 1995, Yang reviewed the history of the development of the theory of reorganization, arguing that Schwinger was "the first to conquer the peak of reformation" and that Feynman was more like "a dazzling performer." He thought it would be interesting to compare these two great physicists born in the same year, and half-jokingly suggested a book entitled "A Comparative Study: Schwinger and Feynman," which would conclude that it would look like this:
Twenty percent vivid jokers, twenty percent specialized violators, sixty percent great physicists, Feynman made the same effort to be a great performer and a great physicist.
Shy, erudite, and speaking refined and fluent English, Schwinger is a symbol of the cultural perfectionist, a very introverted man. [7]
People who hold similar views are not necessarily great scientists like Yang Zhenning, and in the popular journal Physics Today, published an article titled "Feynman the Joker", note that the word joker can be both an ace in poker and a clown, and the author wrote at the end: "Feynman's charm and talent are only one aspect of his personality." His own writings, as well as the accounts of those who knew him, reveal that an arrogant person may turn to self-absorption and the mistreatment of others, especially for those he considers to have large intellectual disparities. Even those who admire Feynman's intellectual genius may be irritated by his eccentric behavior. When this happens, some important career and personnel relationships get screwed up. Feynman's legacy reminds us that it's certainly important to have fun in physics, but to make sure that those around you do too. ” [8]
For ordinary people, Feynman is almost a god-like existence, and his book "Don't Make Trouble, Mr. Feynman" has won a large number of fans among Chinese readers. The eye-catching title, translated by Wu Chengyuan, who once worked in the Physics Department of National Taiwan University, was originally known as Surely You Are Joking, Mr. Feynman, literally translated as "You must be joking, Mr. Feynman," and is actually a subheading and beep of a chapter in the book, from an interesting experience Feynman had at a welcome tea party at The Princeton Graduate School: When the dean's wife poured tea and asked him if he wanted to add milk or lemon, Feynman replied that he wanted both. It was obviously a ridiculous social error, and Feynman remembered the laughter of Mrs. Dean's conversation with him—"giggling" and "giggling"—repeated several times in the book, like self-deprecating, more like ridiculing of the hostess. There are many similar funny passages in the book.
Many people have written reviews of this book, which shows its impact on the public. A data analyst named Boris Gorelik admired Feynman's versatility and defended his ego and ostentation.
He wrote: "Admittedly, Feynman never missed a single opportunity to brag about himself, stressing that many of his achievements were almost by accident. From time to time he would mention many people who were better than him in a particular field. I call this pattern a self-bragging modesty, which is typical of many successful people. However, given all his accomplishments, I think Feynman should have the right to show off himself. Being proud of what you have achieved is not arrogance, but a natural thing. "Don't Make a Fuss, Mr. Feynman" is a fun, informative and inspiring read. I think everyone who thinks they're a scientist or wants to be a scientist should read this book. ” [9]
"Once upon a time, we were all Feynman" (Zhang Shuangnan: "Don't be funny, Mr. Feynman" introduction, Alpine Science Classics, No. 3, 2022, released by the Institute of High Energy Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences on May 12, 2022), this philosophical statement comes from a Chinese physicist, which is very interesting in itself. Feynman's informal, playful and playful style in daily life and social occasions has amazed the Chinese people who have been taught to be careful in words and deeds since childhood, and every smart and mischievous child has a little elf hidden in his heart, and the set of "Feynman Physics Lecture Notes" has been regarded as a classic by many young Chinese people studying physics.
But in the end, Feynman is an outlier after all, and his intelligence, frivolity, and acting genius cannot be learned by anyone.
Originally published in Science and Culture Review, Vol. 19, No. 2, 2022, I would like to thank researcher Fang Zaiqing for providing information and valuable suggestions.
Exegesis:
Note 1: The minutes of the Sixth Rochester Conference on the Physics of Energetic Particles, held from 3 to 7 April 1956, referred to the questions raised by Feynman on behalf of Bullock. The full transcript of the conference can be found in High Energy Nuclear Physics:Proceedings of Sixth Annual Rochester Conference, New York, April 3-7, 1956.
Note 2: In fact, it was the last day of the meeting, and Yang Zhenning first made a guiding report, mentioning that it was better to keep an open mind about the "θ-τ mystery" at present. For a translation of Yang Zhenning's report, see Zhang Dianzhou, ed., The Collected Works of Yang Zhenning, Vol. 1 (East China Normal University Press, 1998), 39-52. Another biography of Yang Zhenning, which provides a brief account of the participants' interests and divergent views on this issue, see Yang Jianye's Biography of Yang Zhenning in an updated edition (Sanlian Bookstore, 2012), 190. After Yang Zhenning's report, many people spoke, especially Gell-Mann also made a long report introducing his new ideas on the dual state of cosmology. According to Zhao Tianchi, Gell-Mann's theory "provoked a series of criticisms. So Yang Zhenning commented here: "We know too little about the dual state phenomenon of τ and θ, and we should tolerate new ideas." Yang Zhenning's words gave Feynman the opportunity to ask questions. See Zhao Tianchi, "The Tale of Heavenly Language: A Commentary on Li Zhengdao" (China Planning Press, 2017), 277. There is no mention of this process in Feynman's book, but it gives the impression that oppenheimer was very important to him when he was prescient at the time.
Note 3: From the context below, this refers to the Seventh Rochester Conference held from 15 to 19 April 1957. The seventh topic of the conference, "Weak Interaction", was chaired by Yang Zhenning, and Li Zhengdao made a summary report on the theme entitled "Weak Interaction". See also[3] Zhao Tianchi, 2017, 342.
Note 4: There is no mention of which paper it is, and it is speculated that it directly led to Li and Yang winning the 1957 Nobel Prize in Physics of Mathematics of Parity Conservation, The Physical Review, Oct.1, 1956.
Note 5 to entry: Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019), winner of the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics, the proposer of the law of conservation of singular numbers in particle physics and the theory of strong action SU(3), the term "quark" was first cited.
Note 6: This refers to the Fermi-universal form V-A theory of weak interactions proposed simultaneously by Feynman and Gell-Man, Robert Marshak (1916-1992) and George Sudarshan (1931-2018), as well as japanese-American Jun Sakurai (1933-1982), in which V represents vector flow and A represents axial vector flow (S index, T refers to tensor), V and A are just the opposite of the symbolic changes under the spatial reflection transformation, and the formulation of this theory opens the way for the development of the weak current unified theory.
Note 7: Feynman adds a note in parentheses here, saying, "Of course that's not all right, but it turns out later that German, Sodasan, and Marcia (Shah) Ke and others have deduced the same theory, and it has not ruined my pleasure." ”
Note 8: Feynman divorced his second wife in 1956 and married for the third time in 1960, when he was single.
Note 9: A few years later, experiments by the Chinese physicist Wu Jianxiong (1912-1997) and two of his students perfectly confirmed the existence of feynman and Gell-Mann's hypothesis of conservation of vector flows and the existence of "weak magnetism".
注10: 致谢词的原文是：The authors have profited by conversations with F. Boehm, A. H. Wapstra, and B. Stech. One of us [M.G.M.] would like to thank R. E. Marshak and E. C. G. Sudarshan for valuable discussions.
Note 11: Julian Schwinger (1918-1994), for his outstanding contributions to quantum electrodynamics, won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 with Feynman and Asahina Shinichiro [1906-1979].
Note 12: Sheldon Glashow (1932-), winner of the 1979 Nobel Prize in Physics and one of the founders of the Standard Model of Particle Physics, was Schwenger's doctoral student at Harvard at the time.
Note 13: Nicola Cabibbo (1935-2010), Italian theoretical physicist who served as president of the Italian National Institute of Nuclear Physics and president of the Papal Academy of Sciences, perfected the universal hypothesis of weak action and proposed the concept of the cape of Kabibo between lower quarks and exotic quarks.
注14: 原文是：I wish I had not caused you and Sudarshan such discomfort. At any opportunity I shall try to set the record straight—but nobody believes me when I am serious. See [9]Mehra,1994,477-478.
Note 15: Freeman Dyson (1923-2020), a British-born American theoretical physicist, has made outstanding contributions to quantum electrodynamics and is also an outstanding popular science writer, who has rubbed shoulders with the Nobel Prize in Physics several times.
Bibliography:
(Swipe up and down to browse)
1. Feinman/Translated by Wu Chengyuan. Don't make a fuss, Mr. Feynman. Beijing:Sanlian Bookstore,1997.]
2. Johnson/Zhu Yunlun et al. Strange Beauty: The Biography of Gell-Mann. Shanghai:Shanghai Science and Technology Education Press,2002.]
3. Feynman, R. P. & Gell-Mann, M. Theory of Fermi interaction. The Physical Review, 1958, 109: 193-198. Received 16 September 1957/Published 1 January 1958.
4. Sudarshan, E. C. G. & Marshak, R. E. Chirality invariation and the universal Fermi interaction. The Physical Review, 1958, 109: 1860-1862. Received 10 January 1958/Published 1 March 1958.
5. Mehra J.The beat of a different drum: the life and science of Richard Feynman，Oxford：Clarendon Press，1994.
6. Ji Lizhen/Wang Liping, eds. A Hundred Years of Scientific Past: An Interview with Yang Zhenning. Shanghai:East China Normal University Press, 2021.
7. Translated by Yang Zhenning/Zhang Dianzhou. Schwenger. Yang Zhenning's Collected Writings (Part 2). Shanghai:East China Normal University Press,1998.] 820-824.
8. Baldwin, M. Feynman the joker. Physics Today. 11 May 2018.
9. Gorelik, B. On “Surely You are Joking, Mr. Feynman!”.
https://gorelik.net/2018/02/15/never-read-reviews-before-reading-a-book-except-for-this-one-on-surely-youre-joking-mr-feynman/
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