Talk:Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!

Comments

Ya, the reason it is funny when he asks for both is not that it's not "customary" to put both lemon and milk in tea. It's because if you put those both in a tea they would curdle into little bits of cheese. It wasn't a stiff british faux-pas thing it was a 'you probably don't want cheese tea' kind of thing. -Maverick

Richard Feynman, Physics Nobel laureate in 1965 for his work in electrodynamics, may be percieved as an eccentric and free spirit. His works in the fields of mechanics and astronomy are the works of a genius. His book, 'Surely You're Joking, Mr.Feynman', is a compilation of numerous events that when collated, summarise the person that is Feynman. It contains everything from humorous anecdotes to his true feelings when his first wife, Arline, died prematurely. The book is a must-read for all those who are ambitious to make it big in life, and not ONLY for those who aspire to become physicists.

--219.65.104.191 08:30, 25 July 2005 (UTC)Mukundh Vasudevan.

Feynman was revealing his naiveté, not absentmindedness.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Nodttiurp (talk • contribs) 02:02, 6 March 2013 (UTC)

Definitely not absentmindedness. This should be changed to "naively". The story in the book is self-deprecatingly drawing attention to his own inexperience at dealing with the customs of Princeton University's high society. 165.120.144.232 (talk) 17:56, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

Me again - actually ignore that, I just checked the book, and it's complicated. It was his first afternoon at Princeton, at the welcoming Dean's Tea ("I didn't know what a 'Tea' was", meaning the event), and he's overwhelmed by the formality. But when he famously says "both", it's because he's trying to work out where to sit and he's not concentrating, and "I realized what I had said". So, he did know better but was distracted. 165.120.144.232 (talk) 18:25, 5 June 2020 (UTC)

How The Book Came About

I feel like the article should do a much better job of describing how the book actually came about. It says "the anecdotes were edited from taped conversations that Feynman had with his close friend and drumming partner Ralph Leighton". Were the anecdotes edited by Feynman himself, and if not - by whom? Why would anyone tape conversations with their close friend - what's the story here? Were they taped specifically with the intent of publishing them? On whose initiative?

Arlene vs. Arline

I have a copy of Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman in front of me.

The introduction reads: "I got married to Arlene in 1941...".

Let's keep her name spelled correctly. -- Starwiz 18:07, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Agh. Check out Talk:Richard_Feynman to see why I'm wrong. Changing it back. --Starwiz 18:11, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

publish date

what is the original publish date? I've seen conflicting reports and this article isnt clear. thoughts? Stuph 05:15, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

It says 1985 in the publication data section. What other date have you seen? - DavidWBrooks 15:02, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

Title

Any reason why the anecdote behind the otherwise strange title is not given? --22:33, 17 February 2008 (UTC)

Some explanation of the title would improve the article. I've always wondered why the speaker of the title used "Mr." rather than "Dr." Robert K S (talk) 17:22, 28 September 2008 (UTC)

Robert K S: The reason is that the quote originated while Feynman was either still an undergraduate or coursing his post graduate studies, so he hadn't earned the Dr. title yet. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.109.42.205 (talk) 17:36, 25 April 2009 (UTC)

gorgorat.com

The link to gorgorat.com here seems odd, since there's no explanation of why the complete text is hosted there (and has been for some time). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.88.77.145 (talk) 23:39, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Plus, is it legal? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 59.93.23.2 (talk) 07:03, 9 June 2010 (UTC)

Merge from cargo cult science

On December 11, User:AndyTheGrump opened a discussion at Talk:Cargo cult science, stating that the description of "cargo cults" in that article was based on outdated and chauvinistic portrayals of Melanesians under western colonial domination. User:Hemiauchenia expressed some agreement with these objections. After more than a month of discussion, User:ReyHahn suggested that the concept of CCS in discourse relied so heavily on Feynman's authority that it was not really a separate subject and should be merged to his bio article. Hemiauchenia then opened a merge discussion for that purpose. The discussion settled on this article as the more appropriate merge target and while it was in progress, I added a small section on CCS to this article with footnotes intended to address some of Andy's concerns (first edit). The merge discussion was closed with consensus to merge here.

Hemiauchenia then replaced my section with the entire text of the CCS article, including all of the material (such as Feynman's misleading description) that Andy had originally objected to. This is has led to an edit war between Hemiauchenia and myself, with other editors also reverting while falsely stating that my edits are "unexplained." I know of no policy or guideline that requires a merge to be a verbatim copy/paste. I know of no policy or guideline under which a successful merge proposal also implies a consensus to preserve the merge source's text as it was, especially against objections raised around the merge discussion. Any such policy would be dubiously enforceable. (How does one know which parts of an article were merged?) In this instance it would also trample on WP:COATRACK, as the CCS chapter is just one of 39 in the book but its section is now more than half the article. 2601:642:4600:D3B0:56C:3F16:53EF:5265 (talk) 17:26, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

The consensus of the discussion was merge (as the articles were at the time of discussion), not redirect. Your edits effectively completely undid the merge that there was consensus for and therefore were against the consensus of the discussion. I have no objection to trimming the section somewhat if there's consensus for it, but that depends on how this discussion plays out. Hemiauchenia (talk) 17:29, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

There are two issues with this content: the first is the uncritical way it repeats Feynman's thoroughly-misleading and arguably offensive characterisation of 'cargo cults' as if they reflected the much more complex reality. The second, per WP:UNDUE is how much of the article it takes up. I don't think I'd call this a coatrack, but I would describe it as unbalanced. And this would remain the case regardless of my concerns over the specific subject. The article ought to be constructed around the books critical reception as a whole, which very much isn't the way it is now. AndyTheGrump (talk) 17:47, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

It does seem overlong. What's the point of the Wesson cooking oil, for instance? Has anyone else pointed to Feynman's discussion of Wesson cooking oil specifically as a classic example of advertising lacking scientific integrity? Anyone who wants to read the original speech can find the whole thing at Caltech's website. We don't need to reiterate a remark about a TV commercial he happened to see at equal or greater length than Feynman originally made it. Judicious condensation and a greater emphasis on the reception of the book are in order. XOR'easter (talk) 18:00, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I only merged the entire thing as I didn't want to make subjective judgements about what content was worth including, which I felt was best left to others. I have no objections to trimming the section provided there is consensus for it here. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:25, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

There was not "consensus" for a complete copy/paste of the CCS text. That is completely spurious. 2601:642:4600:D3B0:56C:3F16:53EF:5265 (talk) 17:54, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

I'd say the way forward at this point is to create Talk:Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!/CCS and workshop out the best text from both articles. Once there's an agreed-upon version of the section, it can then be moved into the article proper. — The Hand That Feeds You:^Bite 18:02, 1 April 2024 (UTC)

Hi I was pinged here, so I am commenting. As far as I see it, it as an ordinary move. Most (or all) of the content gets moved, then it can be trimmed or edited for coherence. Before we make a real debate out of it, can we hear (precise)constructive proposals on what or what not to include?--ReyHahn (talk) 18:44, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

Since I don't believe that Feynman is an expert on cults or scientific ethics and since the only secondary ref has few citations, I would the following proposal for the section:

-----

The final chapter, "Cargo Cult Science," was adapted from Feynman's 1974 commencement address at the California Institute of Technology, in which he cautioned graduates not to minimize the weaknesses of their research in the pursuit of a preferred conclusion. He drew an analogy to the cargo cult phenomenon in the South Pacific Ocean in which, as he understood it, islanders built a mock airstrip to cause airplanes loaded with imported goods to land. Similarly, he argued, adopting the appearances of scientific investigation without a self-critical attitude will fail to produce reliable results.

Feynman's "cargo cult" metaphor has been influential in the criticism of science and pseudoscience.

References

Johnjbarton (talk) 22:57, 3 April 2024 (UTC)

This looks good to me. XOR'easter (talk) 18:00, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

No issues with this version. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:06, 5 April 2024 (UTC)

"Cargo cult science" far too long.

This article is about a book collecting of Feynman stories. Currently the article is about 50% from one story. It does not represent Feynman in special way. The content has been given WP:Undue weight. All we need here is a summary of the story. It's just not that important.

There is a secondary references that analyzes the Feynman story. That paragraph should be increased. Johnjbarton (talk) 03:10, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

I made a bunch of changes that related to issues of original research that I assume will not be controversial.

I think the text in that section beginning with "Feynman introduced his point..." until we get to the lone sentence at the end could be condensed to a paragraph. The lengthy quotes are not needed to get the essential story across. Readers can easily read Feynman if they want to get his quotes.

I did not take this step in view of the discussion above. Johnjbarton (talk) 03:19, 2 April 2024 (UTC)

My opinion is that anyone is free to cut down the section as they see fit. Hemiauchenia (talk) 18:25, 3 April 2024 (UTC)