"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself--and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that."
Upon reading this paragraph, I was reminded of his book "What do you care what other people think", which was a homage to Arlene, partly because Feynman made the fatal mistake of trusting the doctor's judgement to disregard the blatantly obvious diagnosis. He wrote about his experience in much more detail here:
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//Comments below are irrelevant to the thread, I just felt like sharing.
Feynman was depressed for a while but eventually his love for physics helped him recover. Hans Bethe once said, "Feynman depressed is just a little more cheerful then any other person when he is exuberant." Feynman is arguably the most logical and happiest human being that has ever existed.
Feynman's magnificent exuberance and puzzle solving enthusiasm remained up until his last days, where his coworker Christopher Sykes remarked "Look at this man. He faces the abyss. He doesn't know whether he is going to live through this week. But he was consumed by it, and he worked on it all day long...." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzg1CU8t9nw#t=1h11m33s
A few days before his second operation, Feynman sang a bongos song about orange juice, an amusing take of Linus Pauling's advice to possibly cure his cancer. Just look at his smile at the end of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKTSaezB4p8
I would also like to add that on Feynman's last days at the hospital, his last words to his artist friend Jirayr was "Don't worry about anything, go out and have a good time!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzg1CU8t9nw#t=1h32m15s Maximus would be proud. "Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back."
Upon reading this paragraph, I was reminded of his book "What do you care what other people think", which was a homage to Arlene, partly because Feynman made the fatal mistake of trusting the doctor's judgement to disregard the blatantly obvious diagnosis. He wrote about his experience in much more detail here:
Part 1: http://i.imgur.com/CSNop.png
Part 2: http://i.imgur.com/7mDTW.png
--------------------------------------------------------- //Comments below are irrelevant to the thread, I just felt like sharing.
Feynman was depressed for a while but eventually his love for physics helped him recover. Hans Bethe once said, "Feynman depressed is just a little more cheerful then any other person when he is exuberant." Feynman is arguably the most logical and happiest human being that has ever existed.
Feynman's magnificent exuberance and puzzle solving enthusiasm remained up until his last days, where his coworker Christopher Sykes remarked "Look at this man. He faces the abyss. He doesn't know whether he is going to live through this week. But he was consumed by it, and he worked on it all day long...." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzg1CU8t9nw#t=1h11m33s
A few days before his second operation, Feynman sang a bongos song about orange juice, an amusing take of Linus Pauling's advice to possibly cure his cancer. Just look at his smile at the end of this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKTSaezB4p8
I would also like to add that on Feynman's last days at the hospital, his last words to his artist friend Jirayr was "Don't worry about anything, go out and have a good time!" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fzg1CU8t9nw#t=1h32m15s Maximus would be proud. "Death smiles at us all. All a man can do is smile back."