Emerald Lake, Yoho National Park, Canada

Taken with a Galaxy S7 and edited with the Lightroom app.

I'm from France, currently in Lyon.

What Problems to Solve - By Richard Feynman

A former student, who was also once a student of Tomonaga’s, wrote to extend his congratulations. Feynman responded, asking Mr. Mano what he was now doing. The response: “studying the Coherence theory with some applications to the propagation of electromagnetic waves through turbulent atmosphere… a humble and down-to-earth type of problem.”

Dear Koichi,

I was very happy to hear from you, and that you have such a position in the

Research Laboratories. Unfortunately your letter made me unhappy for you seem

to be truly sad. It seems that the influence of your teacher has been to give

you a false idea of what are worthwhile problems. The worthwhile problems are

the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute

something to. A problem is grand in science if it lies before us unsolved and

we see some way for us to make some headway into it. I would advise you to take

even simpler, or as you say, humbler, problems until you find some you can

really solve easily, no matter how trivial. You will get the pleasure of

success, and of helping your fellow man, even if it is only to answer a

question in the mind of a colleague less able than you. You must not take away

from yourself these pleasures because you have some erroneous idea of what is

worthwhile.

You met me at the peak of my career when I seemed to you to be concerned with

problems close to the gods. But at the same time I had another Ph.D. Student

(Albert Hibbs) was on how it is that the winds build up waves blowing over

water in the sea. I accepted him as a student because he came to me with the

problem he wanted to solve. With you I made a mistake, I gave you the problem

instead of letting you find your own; and left you with a wrong idea of what is

interesting or pleasant or important to work on (namely those problems you see

you may do something about). I am sorry, excuse me. I hope by this letter to

correct it a little.

I have worked on innumerable problems that you would call humble, but which I

enjoyed and felt very good about because I sometimes could partially succeed.

For example, experiments on the coefficient of friction on highly polished

surfaces, to try to learn something about how friction worked (failure). Or,

how elastic properties of crystals depends on the forces between the atoms in

them, or how to make electroplated metal stick to plastic objects (like radio

knobs). Or, how neutrons diffuse out of Uranium. Or, the reflection of

electromagnetic waves from films coating glass. The development of shock waves

in explosions. The design of a neutron counter. Why some elements capture

electrons from the L-orbits, but not the K-orbits. General theory of how to

fold paper to make a certain type of child’s toy (called flexagons). The energy

levels in the light nuclei. The theory of turbulence (I have spent several

years on it without success). Plus all the “grander” problems of quantum

theory.

No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.

You say you are a nameless man. You are not to your wife and to your child. You

will not long remain so to your immediate colleagues if you can answer their

simple questions when they come into your office. You are not nameless to me.

Do not remain nameless to yourself – it is too sad a way to be. now your place

in the world and evaluate yourself fairly, not in terms of your naïve ideals of

your own youth, nor in terms of what you erroneously imagine your teacher’s

ideals are.

Best of luck and happiness. Sincerely, Richard P. Feynman.

I really liked that letter. In addition to that, I think something is worth doing if you find some kind of fulfillment while doing it. Whether it's reading a book, spending time with friends and family, playing sports or music.

What are you interested in ?

Some suggestions :

Stuff Matters: Exploring the Marvelous Materials That Shape Our Man-Made World it's a book about the materials around us : glass, paper, chocolate, concrete, porcelin, graphene, etc. It shows the history of the material, how, what and why it is the way it is. It's a short great read and gives you a new perspective of the world around you.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Some stories about the life of Richard Feynman, which was a nobel prize in physics but also a painter, lover, pick-locker, musical instrument player among other things. It shows how to think like a scientist and what it is and what it means to be scientific.

Born to run, Superintelligence, The Black Swan (Nassim Nicholas Taleb), Thinking Fast and Slow, Nicomachean Ethics, The Martian, The Rosie Project are some suggestions among different topics.

You can search at http://gen.lib.rus.ec/ for free ebooks, they have over 30 millions ebooks. You can use the software 'Calibre' to create and organize your Ebook Library.

Three years ago I got interested in headphones. I wanted to buy one that would last long and provide really great sound quality. After searching for a while, I bought the Sennheiser HD 25-1 II.

It's been three years and I'm still using it everyday. Whether it's for listening to music or podcast during commuting or at home while watching movies/series or listening to music while surfing the net. The sound quality is really great and provides real value compared to some cheap headphones. There are other great brands, but Beats by Dre aren't one of them.

If you want to go in-depth, you will have more info on this forum : http://www.head-fi.org/a/buying-guide-headphones-by-price-range To check the Sennheiser HD 25-1 II reviews : http://www.head-fi.org/products/sennheiser-hd-25-1-ii-professional-headphone

If you are buying a high price headphone, don't download your music on Youtube or download some cheap 128 kbps songs. Try to buy/downoad 320 kbps mp3 or FLAC files.

I read an interesting book about introverts : 'Quiet : The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking' ; here's a quote from the book :

"Schwartz's research suggests something important: we can stretch our personalities, but only up to a point. Our inborn temperaments influence us, regardless of the lives we lead. A sizable part of who we are is ordained by our genes, by our brains, by our nervous systems. And yet, the elasticity that Schwartz found in some of the high-reactive teens also suggests the converse: we have free will and can use it to shape our personalities.

These seem like contradictory principles, but they are not. Free will can take us far, suggests Dr. Schwart's research, but it cannot carry us infinitely beyond our genetic limits. Bill Gates is never going to be Bill Clinton, no matter how he polishes his social skills, and Bill Clinton can never be Bill Gates, no matter how much time he spends alone with a computer.

We might call this the "rubber band theory" of personality. We are like rubber bands at rest. We are elastic and can stretch ourselves, but only so much."

It was nearly two years ago, during a one week summer trip to Berlin.