"you're Just Like Your Dad"-

This was an exercise in finding the electric field of a plane of charges, a bunch of notes from Richard Feynman’s lectures in physics that I jotted down around 4 August 2020. It’s definitely a course in what I think physicists do with mathematics, namely finessing it so that it comes out to whatever they want. (How else can we explain that e^(i*infinity) equals zero?)

Irony is, the more you comprehend quantum mechanical reality the less comprehensible seems the macroscopic world.

Reality is the most surreal thing.

No wonder why Feynman once said, that the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.

My favorite thing about Richard Feynman (aside from that lovely letter he wrote to his dead wife, his involvement in the hexaflexagon, and his incredible wit and wisdom in regards to curiosity) is looking at the list of what he is known for, because it's a long list of super influential mathematical and physics concepts and formulas and theories with notable inclusions such as "the Manhattan Project" and "The One-electron Universe", and then just- innocuously smack dab in the middle, smacking you in the face-

"Playing the bongos"

Virginia Woolf, from The Waves

"Between what is said and not meant, and what is meant and not said, most of love is lost."

Khalil Gibran

I'm just going to say it.

It's okay to have a low IQ.

It's okay to not be "smart", as in clever, witty, or cunning. It's okay.

It's okay to not be a leader. It's okay to be content following people- the important thing is making sure you're following the right people for you.

It's okay not to be good at maths and science, and it's okay not to be good at English or art or drama. It's okay if you're not good at anything "academic".

It's okay if you don't have a special talent, or a hobby you're particularly invested in.

It's okay to not be charming, or funny, or 'pretty'.

It's okay if you aren't society's ideal.

None of these things detract from you being a person. None of these things mean you have any less worth as a human being. Even if any of these things mean that you can't contribute to society as an engineer or a doctor or something, that doesn't mean you can't contribute to other people's lives. Don't let society determine your self worth.

Because you can still be kind. Still give people cookies, or hugs, or companionship. You can still do things, you could still find something that you're passionate about, you could still find your calling.

And even if you don't, that doesn't mean you aren't still human. All human beings have intrinsic value, just for being alive. You have the right to be part of society, and more importantly to be alive, whether or not you have something that make other people like you.

Your life is not dependent on others. You are allowed to just exist, to not have found that thing that makes you "you" yet.

It's okay, I promise.

They put Feynman playing the bongos in Oppenheimer as a little treat just for me actually

"It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings struggle for good and evil." -- Richard Feynman

Why would an all-knowing god need an infinitely-large soul-testing laboratory?

Enough about Barbenheimer. Where's the Richard Feynman comedy film?