• stelelor@lemmy.ca
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    25
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    10 hours ago

    Feynman, mainly because he was an amazing professor and knows how to talk to people.

    Einstein and Newton disliked people, so they would be terrible conversationslists outside their areas of expertise. I think that was true of Leonardo as well. Edison is also out because he was a dick.

    • drath@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      2
      ·
      2 hours ago

      Feynman’s way overrated, though. Sure, he was a smart enough guy to land a job on Manhattan project and university prof afterwards, but the only reason people know him are the books written by batshit crazy groupies (he didn’t write any) and based on his elderly ramblings, so none of the stories in those are even remotely true.

    • w3dd1e@lemmy.zip
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      4 hours ago

      Yeah I was just reading a book that mentioned something Feynman said and it’s something I feel is true for me as well.

      Don’t remember word for word but it was something like “Any subject is interesting if you look deep enough.”

      I feel like Feynman and I could have a riveting conversation about knitting for 3 hours even though neither of us are passionate about it.

      Those are the people I want to talk to.

    • adhocfungus@midwest.social
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      7 hours ago

      I was going to say Feynman for the same reason. Outside his classes it sounds like the guy was a lot of fun to be around.

      • Hadriscus@jlai.lu
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        4 hours ago

        I liked the part from his autobio where he recounts cracking safes open. Pretty fun stuff indeed. Less so the ones where he invents modern plastic and helps with the atom bomb

    • Jankatarch@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      edit-2
      9 hours ago

      You could absolutely blow leonardo’s mind away with modern knowledge such as “washing hands before performing surgery is good actually”