Murray Gell-Mann - Scientists I've known (197/200)

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New York-born physicist Murray Gell-Mann (1929-2019) was a theoretical physicist. His considerable contributions to physics include the theory of quantum chromodynamics. He was awarded the 1969 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work on the theory of elementary particles. [Listener: Geoffrey West; date recorded: 1997]
TRANSCRIPT: I've known a number of prominent, physicists especially, quite well.
[GW] But who have you been most impressed with?
Enrico Fermi, Robert Oppenheimer, Szilárd... Leó, Wolfgang Pauli, and I knew Niels Bohr slightly and I knew Heisenberg. I didn't think much of Heisenberg as a researcher after the war although I understand he was a really great researcher and great person before the war. I don't know, many of these people I knew, and a certain number of stories about them, but...
[GW] I was trying to elicit...
... I don't think, I… I don’t think I can give a very good appreciation of their roles. I just gave the Oppenheimer Lecture, the first one, at Berkeley, a couple of days ago, and there I gave some impressions of Robert, whom I liked very much despite the fact that he could occasionally be difficult. And I was so sad that he was a victim of such injustice as a result of adopting the army position on nuclear weapons instead of the air force position on nuclear weapons, even though the air force position wasn't that bad, I didn't think that people should be persecuted for taking a different position. Enrico was extremely funny, and... We had a great time at Chicago, I must say. There was quite a lunch table we had almost every day with Fermi, Yuri, and other people who were quite good like Mullican, and sometimes Szilárd. The conversation wasn't quite as fascinating as one would expect from listing these people, but it was sometimes quite amusing. Enrico was much taken with the funny papers, especially Li'l Abner. He spent a lot of time quoting Li'l Abner, of which he was inordinately fond. His friend, Gian Carlo Wick, whose mother was a novelist and who was very literary in his tastes, I think got him a subscription once to something like the Virginia Quarterly [sic] or the Sewanee Review, but Enrico much preferred L'il Abner.
[GW] How about people in more recent times?
Well Dick Feynman and I, of course, had offices just about next door to each other for 33 years, so I knew him pretty well. A great clown who was also a good scientist, although not quite the giant that some people make out, he was a very good scientist, and… and we had a lot of fun together, at least in the early years.

[@blackacre5642]

It's amusing, and also somewhat reassuring in a way, to see that even the ppl who reach the highest of heights still struggle with common insecurities 😁 He was so intent on ensuring the conversation revolved around his knowing and having relationships with these scientists that he deliberately spoke over and ignored the interviewer's real question of who he admired the most.

[@GordonBrevity]

Same with Susskind. In an interview I saw, he was asked, I think by Brian Greene, about being at Ed Witten's famous talk. Instead of expressing his wonder like the other interviewees, Susskind said, "I got caught up on something Ed said early on, and I went on thinking about this thing and so missed the whole point of his talk!" The narcissistic self-image must be shielded from reality. Susskind always seems like such a dick in every lecture and talk. He has either no self-awareness or terrible self-control. I think Oppenheimer, Gell-Mann, and Pauli would have been the three 20th-century names I'd have tried to avoid dealing with.

[@avebgrejs4448]

You are a Feynman fan and you are pissed the way he spoke about Feynman so you invent some nonsense about "ppl who reach the highest of heights still struggle with common insecurities".

[@blackacre5642]

Seek help. These are human beings not sports teams. @@avebgrejs4448

[@sivasrinivas3716]

The human side to these people is amusing to witness!

[@grahamblack1961]

I've often had the impression from him that he thinks Feynman was overrated. He pretty much says it straight out here. You can tell he thought Feynman was a pain in the ass.

[@jbkamehameha]

@@mangaka08 You honestly need to read more about him (or watch videos), he was not just a physicist amongst other physicists.

[@subscribetopewdiepie4109]

mangaka08 yeah but the reason y he was mainstream is because his books and attempts to teach stuff to the public so him being so mainstream isn’t just because his work on QED and other stuff and Feynman had the most accurate theory to my knowledge and his personality played a big role in his legacy as well

[@holysquire8989]

he thought freeman dyson even more overrated than feynman. His caustic appraisal of fellow scientists shouldn't be taken too seriously

[@Jearbearjenkins]

He thought everyone was a pain in the ass after they died… tells you a lot about him as a person

[@us-Bahn]

If you listen to any professional in any field their praise for others is generally reserved for those they have worked with, taught, or who have been dead for at least 25 years.

[@jtetrfs5367]

I've heard that he was always resentful of the fame that Feynman had already acquired by the time that two met. I imagine that it must have been exceptionally painful for him to endure the years between 1965, when Feynman won the Nobel Prize, and 1969, when he finally won it.

[@professorboltzmann5709]

haha

[@bluemonstrosity259]

If you read his obituary on Feynman the first decade together at Caltech they regularly called each other, visited each other, shared ideas and jokes. They drifted apart, but both had deep respect for each other

[@eddievangundy4510]

I don't believe your comment about those four years. Feynmann was 10 years older and had been working on physics for ten years before Gell-man ever showed up.

[@impCaesarAvg]

Feynman won 1/3 of a Nobel Prize; Gell-Mann won a whole one.

[@ArnoldSommerfeld]

@@impCaesarAvg Obama won a whole one. Your point?

[@janoycresva276]

I admire how he correctly pronounced the last names of the physicists, you can tell not only was he a great physicist but his character was very intellectual also without being snobby as some smart people are.

[@znhait]

He was a child prodigy.

[@ruskolnikov7211]

I bet when Murray got his food and walked toward the lunch table, some of the scientists said “Welp Enrico, it’s always a pleasure but I gotta head back to the lab

[@Scottie-gd7bo]

I love Feynman but what you don't pick up just by reading Surely You're Joking is he had a huge ego that rubbed peers the wrong way. He also didn't work well with others

[@michaeldy2580]

I think he enjoyed working with Wheeler, Dyson and Bethe. I think Gell-mann had an attitude issue.

[@DrDeuteron]

"A GREAT clown and a good scientist"....no one can throw shade like MGM.

[@eddievangundy4510]

🤣🤣🤣!!!

[@CBC68]

I detect a note of jealousy in regards to Feynman's success and reputation.

[@znhait]

It could be. But just as likely, he knew Feynman better than most and, as he's mentioned before, Dick was obsessed with creating anecdotes about himself. Gell-Mann probably didn't find some of his stunts very amusing.

[@DEeMONsworld]

most of these guys were single dimension characters, astute theoreticians and physicists, but not interested in the cult of personality. Feynman's popularity is due to the fact that he was a polymorph to some extent, and exceled in social skills, and story telling. He enjoyed the attention of the public and cultivated his image very well, this must have driven some of the other traditional scientists crazy. They couldn't dispute his contribution, but they didn't have to like his attention grabbing antics.(their view)

[@chriskindler10]

I agree that‘s also always the impression I had of Feynman. I remember reading about something where he called the people who coined the term „colour charge“ as „idiot physicists“ which is quite arrogant and from his interviews I believe he thought he was one of the greatest. I was never interested in Feynman as a person but his contributions to QED are still exeptional

[@svtrader]

*polymath

[@eliodecolli]

@@svtrader nope, polymorph is the right term here as he’s describing his character type

[@svtrader]

@@eliodecolli Come on dunce, look it up. pol·y·morph /ˈpälēˌmôrf/ noun an organism or inorganic object or material which takes various forms. pol·y·math /ˈpälēˌmaTH/ noun a person of wide-ranging knowledge or learning.

[@us-Bahn]

Personality assessment is subjective. Evaluate physicists by their work.

[@skymaster4743]

Exactly. These days people have a cultist tendency to judge scientists by their personality which leads to propagation of pseudo-science and rejection of scientific logic.

[@rsfaeges5298]

A great clown, a very good scientist -- yoaw

[@skycakecrunch]

How did the war change heisenberg?

[@everlyn.martins]

I would say that he got isolated in Germany. All german great minds at time left there during the War. And all the new advances (in Allied countries) he couldn't follow. The other aspect could be that he got a lot of pressure being the head of the project of german atomic bomb, specially in the end of the war. Where all german resources vanished and they got desperate for the bomb. Since it could have been a turning point for both sides. Well, this isn't a fact but it's reasonable looking the history of the time, I think.

[@lifewalk244]

He did not produce such great research after the war as before. People forget often what a genius he was. One of the outstanding scientists of all time. But his big field theory after the war was the wrong direction. But he was also occupied he greatly helped to establish the Max Planck Institutes as a continuation of the Kaiser Wilhelm Institutes. I truly believe that Heisenberg's goal was to stay in Germany to build up science when all is over. And not had the goal to help Hitler in any kind to build a bomb

[@djtan3313]

Giants

[@alessandrobardini6885]

Hi. Nice try with John Karlovic, but the real name of Enrico Fermi's friend is Gian Carlo Wick.

[@NisseOhlsen]

alessandro bardini isn't that what he at least tried to say? He's certainly saying neither 'John' nor 'Karlovic'

[@alessandrobardini6885]

Yes, he pronounced very very well the name Gian Carlo Wick, pretty like an italian would do, kind of "Jan Karlo Vik".

[@NisseOhlsen]

Happy to hear that.

[@NisseOhlsen]

Ahahaha!!! He KNEW that question was about 'Dick' Feynman. And he did NOT like it... AHAHAHAHA !! Richard, the "good scientist' that Niels Bohr sought out when he wanted to double check if he had had yet another crazy idea. Sad to watch so much envy.

[@alaanejjar705]

''A great clown who was also a good scientist'' This sounds almost like an insult to me. I think Gell Mann's criticism of Feynman is of very bad taste.

[@robertbradshaw9367]

Yeah Murray seemed always to be grudging of others. He clearly didnt like Feynman, resented him, envied him. He was equally dismissive of Freeman Dyson. "Meh, no big deal." Maybe being an important scientist himself gave him the right to be critical of others but it lacked grace. Just about every importat figure in 20th physics who knew Feynman marvelled at his insights and intellect but not Gell-Mann. That would be just too painful for him. Sad really. Despite his own prowess he seemed to carry a chip on his shoulder. I remember him discuss not getting in to Princeton and it still bothered him deeply eventhough he tried to make light of it. Feyman didnt help the situation of course. He ribbed him continually which lead to a lot of hostility.

[@viktorpopescu]

so sad that he always has to say something mean about every famous scientist

[@NothingMaster]

The interviewer had to literally scrape Feynman’s name from his tongue, and even then he did his best to trash the guy. What an ugly ego trip. Truth be told: Feynman was an absolute genius and 10x the physicist and the creative thinker than Gell-Mann ever was.

[@mohammedj2941]

As if you have ever read a single paper written by either of the two.

[@us-Bahn]

Alex has an anti-Gell-Mann complex. Simply can’t leave it alone. Where is written that everyone must be enthralled with Feynman?

[@paulmaggs3212]

You have to be fairly creative to win a Nobel Prize I believe ?

[@batuhankaynakacar834]

Definitely not true. Gell-Mann's contributions are just as significant if not more.

[@ArnoldSommerfeld]

There are only Feynman Diagrams. There are no Gell-Mann Diagrams. Gell-Mann was the clown.

[@user-jq3eq7ep4t]

And there are no Schwinger diagrams nor Tomonaga diagrams. Feynman should have got the whole prize.

[@RMT192]

Feynman was obviously full of shit and an egomaniacal self promoter. So, of course, it would rub someone of Gell-man's intellect and character the wrong way. Feynman is like Orson Welles in that he was a genius but was way too into himself to not be given to outright fabrication.

[@HalfassDIY]

Gell-man's 'intellect'...lol !

[@paulmaggs3212]

Let’s just say academia doesn’t have a shortage of people with abrasive personalities and large egos😮