Richard Feynman Birth Anniversary: एक महान वैज्ञानिक और भौतिकविद, पढ़ें- रिचर्ड फेनमैन के कुछ दिलचस्प quotes

Lucknow: आज रिचर्ड फेनमैन (1918-1988) की जन्म तिथि है। वर्तमान दौर के बहुत से लोग नहीं जानते होंगे कि रिचर्ड फेनमैन (Richard Feynman) एक महान वैज्ञानिक और भौतिकविद थे। वास्तव में वो मानवता के महान दिमागों में से एक थे।

रिचर्ड फेनमैन 1918 से 1988 तक जीवित रहे। उन्होंने एक मूल प्रतिभा के रूप में अपनी पहचान बनाई। बीसवें दशक में मैनहट्टन प्रोजेक्ट (Manhattan Project) पर शुरुआत कर फेनमैन ने आगे चलकर क्वांटम यांत्रिकी (quantum mechanics) की समझ विकसित करने में अपने काम के लिए नोबेल पुरस्कार (Nobel Prize) जीता। भौतिकी को समझने का एक गहरा, मौलिक, सहज तरीका उन्होंने प्रदान किया।

फेनमैन पद्धति ने पारंपरिक ज्ञान को अस्वीकार किया

विचार की फेनमैन पद्धति (Feynman Method) एक ऐसे व्यक्ति द्वारा विकसित की गई थी जिसने पारंपरिक ज्ञान को हर मोड़ पर अस्वीकार कर दिया था और जिसने बहुत कम उम्र में गणित की समझ के साथ शुरू करके अपने मानसिक कंप्यूटर को जमीन से ऊपर बनाने की मांग की थी। (फेनमैन की शुरुआती नोटबुक्स में उनके द्वारा मूल परिणामों और अंकन के साथ बीजगणित, कलन, त्रिकोणमिति, और विभिन्न उच्च गणित प्राप्त करने के रिकॉर्ड हैं।)

इस तरह से फेनमैन ने सभी ज्ञान को प्राप्त किया: मैं निश्चित रूप से क्या जान सकता हूं, और मैं इसे कैसे जान सकता हूं? इसका परिणाम उनके प्रसिद्ध उद्धरण में हुआ, "आपको अपने आप को मूर्ख नहीं बनाना चाहिए, और आप मूर्ख बनाने वाले सबसे आसान व्यक्ति हैं।" फेनमैन ने इस पर विश्वास किया और अपने सभी बौद्धिक कार्यों में इसका अभ्यास किया।

कोलंबिया स्पेस शटल आपदा

शुद्ध भौतिकी के बाहर, इस तरह की सोच ने उन्हें कोलंबिया स्पेस शटल आपदा (Columbia space shuttle disaster) के समाधान के रूप में इस तरह के प्रतिकूल परिणामों पर पहुंचने में मदद की, जिसमें उन्होंने जांच में भाग लिया। फेनमैन ने जल्दी ही महसूस किया कि नासा के पास अपने इंजीनियरों और उसके प्रबंधकों के बीच एक डिस्कनेक्ट था, और उन्होंने निष्कर्ष निकाला कि "एक सफल तकनीक के लिए, वास्तविकता को जनसंपर्क पर प्राथमिकता देनी चाहिए, क्योंकि प्रकृति को मूर्ख नहीं बनाया जा सकता है"। स्पेस शटल की विश्वसनीयता - या उसके अभाव - पर उनकी रिपोर्ट अपने तीक्ष्ण विश्लेषण के लिए उतनी ही प्रसिद्ध है जितनी कि एक विवादास्पद खोज की पेशकश करने की उनकी इच्छा के लिए जिसने दोष दिया।

फेनमैन के चुटकुले

बेशक, फेनमैन एक और कारण के लिए भी प्रसिद्ध थे: उनके व्यावहारिक चुटकुले और उनका हंसमुख होना। फेनमैन कभी भी चीजों के विवरण या चीजों के स्वीकृत सत्य को जानने के लिए समझौता करने वाले नहीं थे। इसके बजाय, वह वास्तव में जानना चाहते थे। यह वह ज्वलंत जिज्ञासा थी जिसने उन्हें अपने सबसे बड़े काम की ओर अग्रसर किया। फेनमैन का दिमाग वास्तविकता का पता लगाने के लिए समर्पित था।

रिचर्ड फेनमैन के कुछ quotes:

"You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird. You'll only know about humans in different places, and what they call the bird… I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something."

"I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers which might be wrong. I have approximate answers and possible beliefs and different degrees of uncertainty about different things, but I am not absolutely sure of anything and there are many things I don't know anything about, such as whether it means anything to ask why we're here. I don't have to know an answer."

"I think for lesson number one, to learn a mystic formula for answering questions is very bad."

"In this age of specialization men who thoroughly know one field are often incompetent to discuss another. The great problems of the relations between one and another aspect of human activity have for this reason been discussed less and less in public."

"It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil — which is the view that religion has. The stage is too big for the drama."

"The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to… No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it."

"There is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science [pseudoscience]… It's a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty — a kind of leaning over backwards."

"I don't like honors…I've already got the prize: the prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it. Those are the real things."

"The only way to have real success in science, the field I'm familiar with, is to describe the evidence very carefully without regard to the way you feel it should be. If you have a theory, you must try to explain what's good and what's bad about it equally. In science, you learn a kind of standard integrity and honesty."

Richard Feynman Books

Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman — The definitive biography of Richard Feynman by the great scientific writer James Gleick.

"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character — This one has been a bestseller for a long time for a good reason. Feynman comes across as interesting, fun, and brilliant in a series of vignettes he wrote about his life.

"What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character — The "sequel" to Surely You're Joking, this one is full of more Feynman goodness, including his experience investigating the Challenger explosion.

The Feynman Lectures on Physics — The famous "Red Books" on physics are still in print and still sell well because Feynman takes you from A to Z with what was known about physics around the mid-1960s. You'll need some math, but Feynman treats the subject with more clarity and insight than anyone else.

Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher — Pulled from the Lectures, these are some of the easier and non-mathematical lectures Feynman gave on the nature of reality.

Six Not-So-Easy Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry, and Space-Time — The second book pulled from the Lectures, this time with slightly more challenging material, but still readable by most.

Feynman: The Graphic Novel — A fun exploration of Feynman and his ideas in graphic novel form.

QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter — Feynman's book on quantum electrodynamics is probably your best chance to understand the fundamental nature of light and energy without getting a degree in advanced physics.

The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist — Here, Feynman takes on some topics a little closer to most of us, like the relationship between religion and science, and pseudoscience. This is a three-part lecture that was turned into a book.

The Quantum Labyrinth: How Richard Feynman and John Wheeler Revolutionized Time and Reality — The newest book about Feynman takes on his relationship with the physicist John Wheeler as his graduate student, and discusses how the two came up with some of the most compelling physical theories we know. If you're not familiar with Wheeler, you know his work if you've ever heard of a "wormhole."

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman — Yet another collection of Feynman awesomeness: writings, lectures, speeches, interviews. He was incapable of being boring.