Famous Transcripts in History: The Feynman Lectures Part 2
Feynman Lectures Part 2: Clarity is temporary
People loved to hear him talk.
Physicist Richard Feynman was famous for his storytelling, his jokes, and his timing. (Oh yeah, and a little thing called quantum electrodynamics.)
His lectures on the mind-bending principles of physics were unusually illuminating. So why transcribe them? In a transcript from an interview published in Feynman’s Tips on Physics, his colleague Robert Leighton describes it like this:
“Feynman has a peculiar property, which is that at the time he’s explaining something, it appears very clear and transparent–you can see how everything fits, and you go away feeling very good about it…about two hours later…it’s all gone and you’re hungry again.”
Leighton says listening to Feynman on a topic was like “bringing the thing out into reality only for a limited time, and then watching it sink back into the sea!”
As the interviewer Heidi Aspaturian puts it, the taped and transcribed lectures were a way “to get him out of the vacuum permanently.”
Sometimes a transcript of a talk or lecture can bring the best from both worlds – the spiritedness of transient speech, and the clarity and permanence of writing. Yes, in transcription, language exhibits the qualities of both a particle and a wave!
Tune in next time to see how Feynman’s lectures became of The Feynman Lectures!
Ellen Park
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