Gell-Mann on Feynman (video)

I like Gell-Mann's story about how Feynman would intentionally 'forget' his coat and tie when going to dine in the campus formal dining room and instead wear their scabby leftover tie and coat.<p>How might have things turned out differently if Gell-Mann had been the sort to realize that a good practical joke would have been to replace the scabby attire with Feynman's own tie and coat provided by some fleet-footed student. When Feynman arrived he would instead of being the iconoclast as usual he would have had to settle for just conforming as his own tie and coat would be sitting there waiting for him.<p>Feynman might have appreciated that.

I once took a class with Gell-Mann with only a handful of other students. He did a lot of impressions of people's accents, so I asked him if he would imitate Feynman's, but he claimed he couldn't do it.<p>The funny thing about him complaining about Feynman's anecdotes is that Gell-Mann seemed to have just as many about himself.<p>A very interesting guy to talk to, as you might expect, though at times a little overwhelming.

I think Gell-Mann's problem is not Feynman's generation of anecdotes about himself, but Feynman's generation of anecdotes about Gell-Mann.<p>The bit about brushing teeth. I once knew a very intelligent young man who once concluded that sleeping was a superstition. He tried to not sleep. But he was in grade school at the time, and he hadn't heard about the Uberman polyphasic sleep schedule.

Feynman comes across as egotistical to me - it's a big part of his impish charm. Wouldn't we all like to be able to get away with that?

I believe that Feynman created anecdotes primarily because he was bored (not because of an ego), and he didn't spend tremendous effort on them (as Gell-Mann says) but rather he spent some effort on them and still had energy left over: he needed <i>more</i> to do, not less.

More on Feynman Vs. Gell-Mann: <a href="http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=578345" rel="nofollow">http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=578345</a>