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Tripodologia
Snowy Owl
Snowy Owl

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Joined: 14 Nov 2016
Gender: Female
Posts: 145
Location: Norway

20 Feb 2017, 9:30 am

I know that this topic has been discussed before in other threads (i.e. famous people on the spectrum, physicists, etc.), and I also got the impression of him being potentially an aspie by reading one of his books (Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman, which is one of my favourite books!). However, I just stumbled upon this on a site discussing his FBI records, regarding the reason his second wife was granted a divorce:

"...the appointee's wife was granted a divorce from him because of appointee's constantly working calculus problems in his head as soon as awake, while driving car, sitting in living room, and so forth, and that his one hobby was playing his African drums. His ex-wife reportedly testified that on several occasions when she unwittingly disturbed either his calculus or his drums he flew into a violent rage, during which time he attacked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about and smashed the furniture."

Does this sound familiar? I found it interesting because it's someone else talking about how he was in private, as opposed to what we know of him by his personal accounts or his scientific output. Based on his own accounts, he always seemed very blunt in the way he talked / gave lectures, and he said things like:

"There's a kind of saying that you don't understand its meaning, 'I don't believe it. It's too crazy. I'm not going to accept it.'… You'll have to accept it. It's the way nature works. If you want to know how nature works, we looked at it, carefully. Looking at it, that's the way it looks. You don't like it? Go somewhere else, to another universe where the rules are simpler, philosophically more pleasing, more psychologically easy. I can't help it, okay? If I'm going to tell you honestly what the world looks like to the human beings who have struggled as hard as they can to understand it, I can only tell you what it looks like."

“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.”

“I don't know what's the matter with people: they don't learn by understanding, they learn by some other way — by rote or something. Their knowledge is so fragile!”

"You see, when I hear about physics, I just think about physics, and I don't know who I'm talking to, so I say dopey things like "no, no, you're wrong," or "you're crazy.""

Thoughts?

If any of you is interested, here is where the FBI files can be accessed: https://www.muckrock.com/foi/united-states-of-america-10/fbi-files-on-richard-feynman-1165/#366875-responsive-documents


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Really enjoyed being a yellow-throated woodpecker while it lasted.

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Your neurodiverse (Aspie) score: 139 of 200
Your neurotypical (non-autistic) score: 67 of 200
You are very likely neurodiverse (Aspie)