[[James Gleick]] [[Books/Highlights/Genius|Highlights]] Biography of [[Richard P. Feynman]]. ## Annotations It was either quite coincidental or causal that the frontier of physics in 1939, a year the world was entering a period of open warfare not since seen, was the splitting of the uranium atom. The hard won knowledge of the teacher is gained cheaply by the student, but his wisdom is not. Accumulation of knowledge is the true workhorse of progress but wisdom greases the wheels. Reading Gleick’s biography of Feynman reminds me of the sense I had as a boy that I was on the edge of what was known and that with just a bit more knowledge I would be able to see past even the adults around me. Now I feel constantly that I will never see even a fraction of what those who have come before me have seen. For why should I strive to know so little when knowing so much did not deliver them? Surely it would not deliver me. p122 Minkowski called these *world-lines*, the through line of anything as it travels through time p144 The elegant solution described Wilson’s uranium isotope machine; it was what enthralled me with coding; Eoin declared it loudly enough for the CEO to pop his head out of his office. p275-277 for Schwinger formalism vs Feynman elegance p284 for Feynman and theory of epistemology, learning by doing p326 The key to feynmans genius was protecting pools of ignorance p327 Stephen Jay Gould study of .400 hitters This is Gleicks rising opus of the book P395 what is real (quarks) and the raven paradox. Not just popperian. Usefulness of the model is paramount. Everything else is “quibbles about words”. No reality. P409 Feynman takes copious notes while working, serves as lecture notes almost immediately