7/7/2023 0 Comments James gleick richard feynman![]() ![]() ![]() In his spectacular biography Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman ( public library), James Gleick examines what seeded this peculiar orientation of mind and spirit, and how it came to shape Feynman’s life and legacy. “It is imperative,” he wrote, “to have uncertainty as a fundamental part of your inner nature.” The pursuit and stewardship of knowledge was his life’s work, but the ecstasy of not-knowing was the wellspring of his magic. And yet he held uncertainty at the center of his intellectual and creative life. One of the most celebrated minds of the past century, Feynman was a champion of scientific knowledge so effective and so beloved that he has generated an entire canon of personal mythology. In his taxonomy of the two types of geniuses, probability theory pioneer Mark Kac distinguishes between “ordinary geniuses” and “magicians,” pointing to Richard Feynman (May 11, 1918–February 15, 1988) as a rare example of the latter. ![]()
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