Who was smarter?
Almost everyone has heard of Richard Feynman. At least in the latter half of the twentieth century, the brilliant, flamboyant physicist created a wholly new image of the highly public scientist, which probably was surpassed only by Albert Einstein in the previous half. More than any other scientist, Feynman was responsible for bringing the physicist’s persona to life and giving it a human face. I have met very few well-read people of my generation who have not read his inimitable store of adventures, Surely you’re joking Mr. Feynman, quite definitely the most popular scientific memoir published in the last twenty five years. It was probably the first science book I seriously read in my life and it instantly became a favourite…quite apart from the insights into physics and into Feynman’s idiosyncratic personality that it provides, I just could not help laughing.
And yet, Richard Feynman seems to have, probably through some of his own making, created an image that was in some ways exaggerated. One of the ways this exaggeration manifested itself was in the neglect of his contemporary, one who had an equally brilliant career that paralleled Feynman’s, made equally key contributions to modern physics, and who in some distinct ways was much more accomplished than Feynman was- Murray Gell-Mann, who is still very much alive and kicking at 87.
It is of course silly beyond a point, although still interesting, to compare scientists and ask who was “better”. But I believe that in the making of the legend that was manufactured about Richard Feynman, Murray Gell-Mann unfairly gets short shrift. There was much in Gell-Mann that was extraordinary. For starters, he was a much more precocious youngster, graduating high-school at fifteen, and getting his PhD. at twenty-one, after which he was invited by Robert Oppenheimer to that bastion of ivory-tower thought, the Institute for Advanced Study. Even Feynman could not top that. But beyond that, there were many qualities in Gell-Mann that made him much more of an intellectual than Feynman. Feynman was quite brilliant in his knowledge of physics and its exposition, but he himself admitted that he was not very versatile. He himself said that his life and interests were in many ways limited. Gell-Mann by contrast was a polymath, versed in 13 languages, history, archeology, with a deep knowledge and love of philosophy and ornithology. His linguistic skills are legendary; he was frequently known to correct foreign speakers’ pronunciation of their own names. This habit of his sometimes got on people’s nerves, because seldom could one have a conversation with Gell-Mann without him interrupting you and correcting your pronunciation, and in addition giving you a healthy dose of etymology.
At the beginning, when both Feynman and Gell-Mann were young stars at Caltech, they got along very well. Gell-Mann appreciated Feynman’s candor and irreverence, although he himself tried to stay more “dignified” as a professor. Colleagues loved to hear both fight it out with each other and with speakers in seminars. While Feynman could easily indulge in histrionics and crack everyone up, Gell-Mann was more serious in getting to the point. Perhaps unfairly, people regarded Feynman as an “authentic” genius, and Gell-Mann as “somebody who was a genius mainly because he worked so hard, and perhaps you could be one too if you worked as hard”. At the time, both were regarded as demigods in the field, and it was largely because of them that Caltech was seen as the most exciting and maverick place to study physics. Both Feynman and Gell-Mann won Nobel Prizes. But gradually, Dick’s love of sometimes forcing himself into adventures and then telling stories about himself got to Murray. As Murray used to say, Dick began to get preoccupied with generating anecdotes about himself. There was a lot of truth to this, but from what I have read of Feynman (and I think I have read most of the primary literature on him), this love of getting into adventures naturally came to him. So while Gell-Mann’s “allegations” are probably right on spot, they neglect the spontaneity in Feynman’s nature that led him to do this without doing it deliberately.
Both Feynman and Gell-Mann of course had an exceptional impact on physics. It is hard to say whose contributions were “more important” but there is no doubt that both contributed fundamentally; Feynman with his development of quantum electrodynamics, and Murray with his fundamental work in discovering quarks. It is also to be noted that while Feynman shared the Nobel with two other researchers, Gell-Mann got his alone. Both were intensely dedicated to physics, with Gell-Mann also occupied with a host of other interests. But while Feynman was more of a loner, Murray was more gregarious in collaborating with other physicists. Because of this, unlike Feynman, Gell-Mann has a long list of collaborators that includes some of the great names in physics; Fermi, Oppenheimer, Pais, and Dyson to name a few. Because of this, Gell-Mann has a network of distinguished friends and students all over the world. However, in some ways just like Feynman, Gell-Mann also does not have a long list of distinguished students after him, although the list is much bigger than Feynman’s.
Both Gell-Mann and Feynman left an enduring mark on physics in the twentieth century. Feynman was surely in the front ranks of the physicists of his generation. But at the same time, it can fairly be said that he does not belong to the same pantheon of physicists as do Einstein, Bohr, Fermi, or Heisenberg. Unfortunately, much of the general public seems to place him on the same level as these giants. In Gell-Mann’s long interview on the People’s Archive website, he himself says that Feynman was a very good scientist, but not the giant that people make him out to be. This is not jealousy on Murray’s part, but probably the truth. In the last twenty years, Gell-Mann has also had key insights into the new paradigm of complexity. He has intellectually contributed to the application of complexity to diverse topics, including evolutionary biology, human behaviour in economics and psychology, and probability theory. He has founded the Institute for Complexity at Santa Fe in New Mexico, and has drawn diverse researchers together there to conduct research on complex system. Gell-Mann’s influence on science, unlike Feynman’s, goes much beyond physics.
I also realised that much of the manufacturing of the Feynman legend arises from no fault of Feynman’s. It is revealing to see how many books have come out after his death in 1988, that are essentially a rehash of his famous lectures on physics as well as other talks he has given. Many of these books are one or two hundred pages in length. Publishing houses have surely thrived on the Feynman legend, practically establishing a Feynman industry. Feynman no doubt could cut through the chase and nonsense in many varied matters and was a scientist of very high integrity, but so were some others, whose words did not get published because they kept to themselves. The spate of reinvented Feynman volumes has frankly gotten a little silly. Probably the most insightful recent publication is a collection of his letters, published by his daughter Michelle, but other than that, publishers have essentially exploited the “Feynman effect” to great profit. In fact, even in the case of his collection of letters, I came across it in India, but it had a different name! All these books have not helped temper the perception of Feynman. In contrast, very few have heard of Gell-Mann, who has been quietly conducting research for the last half century. Two books nonetheless have come out about him, one a kind of semi-autobiographical book, The Quark and the Jaguar, in which Gell-Mann narrates his own vision of complex systems as a guiding principle for understand nature, including possibly human nature. The other extremely readable book is a biography by George Johnson, Strange Beauty, which is an account of Gell-Mann’s central role in physics in the twentieth century. Both books are definitely worth a look, and reinforce Gell-Mann’s stature as a great scientist and intellectual.
Who was smarter? Richard Feynman or Murray Gell-Mann? Hard to say, and like many such questions, probably ultimately undecidable. Both of them were brilliant, idiosyncratic, did not suffer fools gladly (although Gell-Mann was more irascible and probably took criticism more seriously than Feynman), and had a decisive impact on twentieth century physics, symbolizing the new age, precocious upstart yippies who reinvented the field. But I also think that while Feynman’s persona has been hugely magnified and publicly vindicated, he has unnecessarily overshadowed his colleague, who was at least as brilliant, and in terms of versatility and intellect, probably more so. In the story of modern physics, Murray Gell-Mann surely deserves to stand shoulder to shoulder with Richard Feynman.
Aniket said
August 13 2007 @ 1:10 pm
Agree. Also, I feel that Feynman’s fellow Nobelist, Julian Schwinger, also did not get the recognition he deserved. He was a PhD at 18 and knew orthogonal expansions at 14 or so! He of course developed the more mathematical version of QED and did some good work in nuclear physics etc. and left behind a very impressive student list that includes a few Nobel laureates. It was just that he was rather shy and purely dedicated to matters academic that people know little about him.
excimer said
August 13 2007 @ 4:59 pm
Cutting down the tall poppies. That is all you are doing.
Feynman is famous because he reached out to the general public. Feynman was a fantastic teacher and wanted to educate people on physics, particularly in advanced theory. He was certainly outgoing and, as a result, rather egotistical, but he did have an impact on modern physics- the extent to which may be debatable, but I doubt there are many physicists who are willing to tone down the impact of Gell-Mann’s work for the sake of Feynman. In the end, the work speaks for itself. Feynman, to the general public, is NOT known for QED. He’s known as a pedagogist and a kind of a Renaissance man who happened to win a Nobel Prize. I will argue that Feynman did more to educate the general public of the wonders of modern physics than just about anyone except for Einstein. You are attacking Feynman, basically, for being outgoing. How unnecessary.
Who is smarter? If you believe Gell-Mann is, great. But why cut down the tall poppies? Feynman did not intentionally shadow Gell-Mann’s legacy. You’re looking at this the wrong way.
Ashutosh said
August 13 2007 @ 5:20 pm
Excimer, I am not debating Feynman’s impact on the public as a popularizer of physics. He was par none when it came to that. As a teacher, his stature is unparalleled. In fact, Einstein was not half as good at doing that. What is a little disconcerting is that the public seems to place him in the same pantheon as Einstein or Fermi as a physicist or intellectual. And I already mentioned that the Feynman legend is largely not Feynman’s fault. I just think that people’s perception of Murray Gell-Mann is somewhat unfair, that they regarded Feynman as the “authentic” genius. I should probably have made it clearer that this is not Feynman’s “fault”. The reason I criticise Feynman a little is that some of his acounts in his books are not very accurate. For example, when he worked on beta decay, he proclaimed that “I felt that for the first time, I was the only one in the world who discovered something new”. That was just not true according to many sources. Gell-Mann had also thought about it and Feynman knew that. Also, Marshak and Sudarshan also had thought about it. Although Feynman did acknowledge them in the paper he co-authored with Gell-Mann, this statement of his was somewhat unfair.
I need to say that I personally admire Feynman more than almost any other twentieth century scientist. I have always been an unabashed fan of his. But, reading some literature about Gell-Mann, I just realised how he was relatively forgotten compared to Feynman, as a physicist. Again, not because of Feynman’s fault as such, but Feynman’s legend making inadvertently contributed a little.
Aniket, I agree with you about Schwinger. But as you probably know, the problem with Schwinger was that his methods were very dense and inacessible to other physicists, even though brilliant. As far as I know, Feynman’s great contribution was to invent a totally new approach that was so accessible to physicists, that they could even apply it to other topics in physics.
Vivek Gupta said
August 13 2007 @ 11:40 pm
Very interesting post. Feynman, of course, is known to any person with even a modicum of scientific curiosity. I , along with millions others, thoroughly enjoyed his “adventures” and have great admiration for him as a scientist and educator. But, while reading about his stories, I had always wondered whether all of it is as it happened or was there some creativity in story telling involved as well. Thanks for clearing that up a little for me.
Vivek Gupta said
August 13 2007 @ 11:45 pm
There is an interesting allusion you made about “authentic” geniuses and people who “merely work very hard”. I have seen this kind of artificial distinction at close quarters in the IIT system, where many students put quite a lot of premium on “cracking” the exam as opposed to “studying” for it. Some students who are adept at cracking are given reverential social treatment, while academic achievements of diligent students are sneered at with the condescending remark ”oh, he merely works very hard and if I work that hard I will score that 9+ GPA too” with the obvious inference that I am too lazy, but my “intellect” is as good as that guy with 9+ GPA. Such a thinking implicitly assumes that having intellect or potential is good enough with no need to back it up with passion and hard work. The difference between hard work and merely going through the motions is the difference between night and day. I haven’t heard of any geniuses, authentic or otherwise, whose achievements were at least not as much attributable to their work ethic as to their “natural genius”. There are plenty of examples where precocious talents were wasted away because of a lack of willingness to run through walls. There is absolutely no substitute for hard work no matter how much god given talent you are endowed with.
Ashutosh said
August 14 2007 @ 3:21 pm
Vivek, you make an excellent point there. I completely agree that “authentic” genius can belie all the hard work that goes into making it. And you can imagine that I am not implying that Feynman was not a very hard worker. I am sure he was, it’s just that people perceived him as someone who could do miracles without working hard. However, there was some deception in it, although not meant in a dishonest manner. Feynman had this habit of sometimes keeping people guessing…there were many times when he no doubt could conjure up a clever answer seemingly out of thin air, but what people fail to realise is that there is, as you said, a lot of “background” hard work implied behind it. Feynman had thought so hard about physics so much, that what seemed to others to be impromptu conjuring was nonetheless the result of having a battery of thoughts, methods, and analysis in his mind. Interestingly, there were other such physicists too. Enrico Fermi’s example is particularly striking. Fermi was one of the most methodical scientists ever, and right from when he was a college student, he kept a book where he would record results and techniques for future use. He reached a point where his notebook was so comprehensive and self-contained, that he could reduce almost any problem posed to him from any branch of physics, to one in that notebook! Now again, this surely looked like magic to many people, but the fact is again that had he not meticulously filed up all those thoughts and analyses, he might not have been able to come up with that lightning-fast answer. Now of course, the opposite is also not true, that just a lot of hard work can make most people equal; there are surely some people who are born talented, but that opposite is probably “less true” than this point. So I totally agree; while people’s intelligence surely varies, this distinction about “authentic geniuses” and “ordinary geniuses” is often only in other people’s mind, and there’s no doubt that Feynman did thrive on startling people, hence the reinforcement of this belief in their minds. Thanks for noting this, it’s very important!
Ashutosh said
August 14 2007 @ 3:23 pm
And in case of IIT, I am pretty sure 90%+ people work really hard! Isn’t it so?!
Vivek Gupta said
August 14 2007 @ 6:43 pm
Very interesting piece of trivia about Fermi. As for IIT, remove the 0 in the number you guessed and you probably will be close to being right. I think IITs are highly overrated. It probably is true that on an average IITs get “smarter” people in their under graduate programs than other institutions in India but most of those members of this so-called “creamy layer” are just happy being there and enjoying the fruits that come with it. In fact, many students (myself included) have only a minimal interest in their subject in IIT and are merrily pursuing other interests. They can afford to do so since the advantage of being in IIT is that its degree provides security as it virtually guarantees a job after graduation no matter what your GPA. IIT is a great place to spend 4 years, but I don’t think their under graduate program is contributing much to the science and technology progress in India. The IIT system should be concentrating more on the Masters and PhD program in order to be counted among the elite institutions in the world or even in Asia.
Ashutosh said
August 19 2007 @ 10:19 pm
Totally agree. IITs are not great for research…they are basically very good training grounds for undergraduate engineering education. Would you agree that the single most important reason for the prominence of IITs is the students who go there?