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Comment by sillysaurusx | Hacker News Reader

It’s worth noting (much to my surprise) that the Feynman lectures on physics weren’t written entirely by Feynman. I’ve often wondered whether the wonderful conversational style I’ve associated with him is actually him, or one of his contemporaries.

Either way, this is a great chapter on probability. Thanks to whoever wrote it!

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There’s an unpleasant point in the history of the Feynman lectures: them coming out as “The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Feyman, Leighton, and Sands” is a compromise solution for a dispute where Leighton and Sands wanted to be credited for editing the transcript into readable prose and Feynman considered that work to be purely mechanical and not worth any credit at all[1]. (There is apparently more uncredited work in there as well[2].) “Feynman didn’t understand editing is an art” is not much of a headline, but the compromise is still there, in huge letters right on the cover.

[1] https://doi.org/10.1063/1.1955479

[2] https://doi.org/10.1063/PT.6.3.20211209a

The "Feynman lectures on physics" books are based on actual lectures to Caltech students. You can listen to audio tapes of the lectures here:

https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/flptapes.html

Thanks! Interestingly, the tape for Probability seems to be narrated by someone other than Feynman.

I should probably give some evidence to back up my claim that Feynman didn’t write all of the Lectures, but alas, it’s late. I think the credits for the rest of the authors were in the preface, or at the end. I just wish they’d gotten a little more credit.

That someone is Matthew Sands:

“Early on, though, a small problem surfaced. Feynman had a long-time commitment to be absent from Caltech the third week of the fall semester, and so would miss two class lectures. The problem was easily solved: I would substitute for him on those days. However, to avoid breaking the continuity of his presentation, I would give the two lectures on subsidiary topics that, although useful to the students, would not be related to his main line of development.”

https://physicstoday.scitation.org/doi/10.1063/1.1955479

Later on he writes about the published books:

“The next stumbling block was more serious: choosing a title for the book. Visiting Feynman in his office one day to discuss the subject, I proposed that we adopt a simple name like “Physics” or “Physics One” and suggested that the authors be Feynman, Leighton, and Sands. He didn’t particularly like the suggested title and had a rather violent reaction to the proposed authors: “Why should your names be there? You were only doing the work of a stenographer!” I disagreed and pointed out that, without the efforts of Leighton and me, the lectures would never have come to be a book. The disagreement was not immediately resolved. I returned to the discussion some days later and we came up with a compromise: “The Feynman Lectures on Physics by Feynman, Leighton, and Sands.”

That's horrible move from Feynman about credit.

[It’s worth emphasising that Sands was hugely positive about the lectures and was great friends with Feynman.]

It was also a "horrible" move for the two editor/publishers to claim equal author credit for Feynman's much more extensive creative effort.

In reality, a simple negotiation led to a good decision that made everyone happy.

I think these people other than Feynman transcribed and edited the lectures into book form. This seems to have been the process with most (all?) books of his, "QED" and "The character of physical law" were also delivered as lectures and even "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" was an interview originally that was later transcribed and edited.

Every great man is a Shakespeare.

I’ll look terribly uncultured for asking this, but was Shakespeare a collection of individuals? That’s very interesting; thanks.

EDIT: Aha: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakespeare_authorship_quest...

Well, this is a fascinating rabbit hole. Apparently there’s some question whether Shakespeare himself was literate, since his parents and daughters seemingly weren’t.

Shakespeare true or not, I have often found that when one excels, others sit on the sidelines, stupefied in disbelief, then shout cries of delusion about the accolades before them.

Hence, Shakespeare cannot be real, for he excels you see...

Just keep in mind that the Shakespeare authorship conspiracy theory is the is the "the moon landing was fake" of the 1800s. The theory first gained popularly thanks to Delia Bacon in the 1850s, over 200 years after Shakespeare lived.

There's no evidence Shakespeare didn't write his plays and a lot of evidence he did (including multiple books and writings published during this life listing him as author or referring to him as an author).

I guess the GP is more about the idea that Shakespeare was just the first one to write all the folkloric ideas of his time in a format that people loved, instead of that unexplainable genius that created all those interesting stories. (Kinda like Disney. But we don't have the originals anymore.)

That one is a lot better accepted than the idea that he didn't write his works.

Somewhat related: "Shakespear's plays weren't written by him, but by someone alse of the same name" : an essay on intensionality and frame-based knowledge representation systems by Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gray A. Clossman, Marsha J. Meredith.

<https://www.worldcat.org/title/877842789>

(Yes, that Douglas Hofstadter.)

Have you watched any of his videos? I don't know the exact style you're thinking of, but wonderful and conversational match what I've seen from him.

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