The NPR Science Friday Book Club meets this week to talk about their fall pick: "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" : Adventures of a Curious Character. Physicist Lawrence Krauss joins the club to discuss Feynman's contributions to physics and his unconventional life.
As reported in The Hollywood Reporter, Variety, and many other sources, the BBC and the Discovery Science Channel are collaborating to produce a docudrama about the Rogers Commission's investigation of the Challenger space shuttle disaster. Feynman will be played by William Hurt. More details are available at Televisual but the broadcast is forecast for 2013.
Apple once enjoyed an image of ultracoolness, of not doing things the way the other guy did them, and of honoring the values of science. They even invoked the image of Richard Feynman in their "Think Different" campaign,:
Sadly, it appears that those days are long gone, as evidenced by the recent ad from Apple with it's anti-science overtones implicit in the tagline "Well, I guess the laws of physics are more like... general guidelines".
Yes, it's just an ad, and yes, the people making the advertising have nothing to do with the people designing the product, but it's the sentiment that rankles. It smacks of disrespect, and it rubs those of us at Feynman.com the wrong way. It would be different if it were funny --- we're big fans of funny. But it's not funny, it's simple, and I mean that in an unflattering way - "the device is thinner with more display area" is hardly a conundrum that will baffle anyone.
Ultimately, it comes down to an aphorism once given to me; "if you don't like the advertisement, you're not the target audience". So it appears while that Apple once went out of their way to woo me (and presumably you, too, if you're one of the five readers of this blog :-) they are no longer doing so, and they are now going out of their way to drive us away.
In honor of Martin Gardner's birth day, math evangelist Vi Hart shares a video about hexaflexagons in which the Flexagon Committee creates Feynman Diagrams that describe the state machine of the hexaflexagon. No, not that kind of Feynman Diagram! Feynman was a member of the Flexagon Committee long before he was well-known.
Sit back and enjoy her video!
The following is quoted from Vi Hart's Youtube channel: Historical Note: This video is based on a true story. Arthur H. Stone
invented the Hexaflexagon and started a flexagon committee with his
friends Tuckerman, Feynman, and Tukey (who all later became well-known
in their respective fields). Tuckerman invented the Tuckerman Traverse,
and Feynman invented Feynman Diagrams (not to be confused with Feynman
Diagrams in physics, which is probably why flexagon diagrams are usually
not called Feynman Diagrams anymore). The details of their interactions
and dialogue, however, are my own invention.
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