Richard Feynman on the BBC in 1981

In 1981, the BBC’s flagship science series “Horizon” devoted a programme to an extended interview with Richard Feynman.

The programme was called “The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out”. It’s on Youtube, and I’ve put it here.

The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out

Horizon, BBC, 1981.  Producer: Christopher Sykes

 

“[...] science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery and awe of a flower. It only adds; I don’t understand how it subtracts.”

Section 1.  9:12

“But what I did – immorally I would say – was not to remember the reason that I said I was doing it, so that when the reason changed, because Germany was defeated, not the singlest thought came to my mind at all about that [...] I simply didn’t think, okay?”

Section 2.  9:39

“[...] things were sort of doomed [...] I would see people building a bridge, and I would say ‘they don’t understand’. I really believed that it was senseless to make anything because it would all be destroyed very soon anyway [...] So I was really in a kind of depressive condition.”

Section 3.  8:58

“[...] what’s kind of wonderful, that as we expand our experience into wilder and wilder regions of experiment, every once in a while we have these integrations in which everything is pulled together in a unification, which turns out to be simpler than it looked before.”

Section 4.  6:40

“All those students are in the class, [...] how should I best teach them? [...] My theory is that the best way to teach is to have no philosophy, is to be chaotic and confusing, in the sense that you use every possible way of doing it [...] so as to catch this guy or that guy on different hooks.”

Section 5.  9:25

“Because of the success of science there is a kind of a pseudoscience [...]“

Section 6.  6:59

See Also

1. The Pleaure Of Finding Things Out, Horizon, BBC Archive (1981)
2. No Ordinary Genius: The Illustrated Richard Feynman, R.P. Feynman, C. Sykes (ed.), W.W. Norton & Company (June 1995)
3. Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman, J. Gleick, Vintage (November 1993)
4. Classic Feynman: All the Adventures of a Curious Character, R.P. Feynman, F. Dyson (foreword), R. Leighton (ed.), W.W. Norton (November 2005)
5. Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman’s Last Journey, R. Leighton, W.W. Norton & Company (May 2000)
6. Christopher Sykes Productions