
Feynman's Letter to His Wife - Moshe_Silnorin
http://www.lettersofnote.com/2012/02/i-love-my-wife-my-wife-is-dead.html
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ececconi
After my dad died my freshman year of college, I wrote a letter and sealed it.
It's so hard to understand that a person that was so important to you won't be
there to hear everything you wanted to tell them.

Since then, I've loved studying letters between friends and lovers.

This is a great letter.

~~~
pavornyoh
> It's so hard to understand that a person that was so important to you won't
> be there to hear everything you wanted to tell them.

I agree. I know this is going to sound creepy, but in certain African
countries like Ghana there is a video made of the funeral just like they do
for weddings. And when you miss whoever has passed away, you get to watch the
video. It doesn't bring them back but you get to see the person.

~~~
mgkimsal
doesn't sound creepy to me at all. i wish it was done more.

~~~
mgkimsal
i wanted to take pics and video at a funeral as there was a family member who
couldn't be there, and was told to stop (by other family). Same family member
who couldn't there was, days later, at a funeral of her own (in a different
country) and received a DVD of the service. Very much 'cultural norms' at
play, and it'll be many more years before video of funerals is considered
'normal'.

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twsted
"PS Please excuse my not mailing this — but I don't know your new address."

~~~
BigglesZX
I seem to have something in my eye

~~~
mutagen
Yeah that one hit me.

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ergothus
I don't find this creepy or invasive at all. A bit hard to read, as my eyes
are suddenly blurry, but I'm glad to have read it.

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idibidiart
This is hard to read. It really is. A reminder to open our heart to the people
in our lives, while they are still with us in the flesh, and vice versa.

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dkns
That was beautiful. Recently I was feeling really, really lonely. This letter
helped me remember what great feeling is to have someone you can love and care
for. It's the little things like sending "Hello" texts in the morning to each
other that I'm missing the most. Love is great.

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hoorayimhelping
"How beautiful life is and how sad! How fleeting, with no past and no future,
only a limitless now."

I didn't read the letter. The framing of it was all I needed to text my wife
and tell her how much I love her.

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bordercases
Feels kind of invasive reading this.

~~~
knodi123
Then you definitely don't want to google Napoleon's letters to his wife
Josephine.

~~~
djhn
Or James Joyce's correspondence of similar nature. Or Mozarts..

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IBCNU
Sitting in my office - crying.

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SloopJon
I read this at my dad's wedding, five years after my mom died. Wasn't sure how
an atheist's letter to his dead wife would be received, but it kind of spoke
to me.

~~~
eevilspock
In general I don't think the best time and place to make a tribute to your
dad's dead wife is at his new wife's wedding.

I hope it wasn't passive aggressive.

~~~
eric_h
I would like to think that a woman marrying a man who has gone through this
would be quite well acquainted with (and respect) the fact that the man's love
for the woman who passed would not be replaced by the new love.

~~~
eevilspock
I agree but still, its _her_ wedding. The focus should be on her and the
future, not her predecessor and the past. There are plenty of other occasions
for such a loving memorial, for example the anniversary of her passing.

The problem with software people is they too often treat people like logical
code. Hence the stereotypes.

Feynman's letter itself is beautiful precisely because it isn't logical. Not
only because he was writing to a dead person, but also beause he so deeply
respected their intimacy and cherished her feelings _even after her death_
that he kept the letter private. In other words it was a real letter not a
memorial or tribute. It would have been quite logical to publish it in her
honor. But he did not!

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ripitrust
Man I am justing reading Surely you are joking mr Feynman, this comes in the
right time

~~~
fpgaminer
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman is a fantastic book; worth every page. I was
just listening to the Upvoted podcast where they interview Unidan, a once
popular scientist on Reddit. One of the things he talked about was how he
always wanted to convey to others that scientists are normal people just like
everyone else. They don't live in a clean white lab coat atop a pedestal of
beakers; scientists spend most of their time doing average joe stuff, running
experiments in their underpants, and brewing craft beer with lab equipment. He
wanted to make that clear, in the hopes that it would inspire people to go
"Hey, if that shumlp can be a scientist, why can't I?"

That immediately reminded me of the Feynman book. It humanizes Feynman,
turning him from the great untouchable figurehead of quantum physics to an
average, hounddog schlum like most of us. The guy would hang out in titty bars
while working on his theories! It's oddly inspiring.

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pavornyoh
>In October of 1946, Richard wrote his late wife a heartbreaking love letter
and sealed it in an envelope. It remained unopened until after his death in
1988.

It is a very heartbreaking and sad. But was there instruction for it to be
shared publicly? It will pain me if someone is sharing this just to further
their own agenda. It seems kind of private.

~~~
ceejayoz
We'd be missing a large portion of our civilization's history without the
private writings of notable people. I can't find anything on the provenance of
Feynman's letters, but I'd suspect either he or his estate willingly donated
them.

~~~
javawizard
(Source: The Letters of Note book - reproduced with permission of Richard
Feynman's Estate.)

~~~
pavornyoh
@javawizard, thank you.

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Friedduck
It still brings me comfort in a small way to see a dead friend in my contact
list, or old emails from him.

I liked Feynman before and more so now. It's endearing that he's trying to
work through it with her.

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guard-of-terra
I was under impression that Feynman was a pickup artist (i.e. persuading
ladies to have flings). During his work on the Bomb, i.e. before 1945. That's
from his books.

Can you please enlighten me on the issue?

~~~
Steuard
My impression, which others may correct me on, is that he _started_ down that
road while in Los Alamos: I vaguely recall that his "You just ask them?" story
was in that setting, anyway. I've always had the sense that he was deeply (and
monogamously) devoted to his wife until her death. After her death, well, he
says in this letter that he's had multiple girlfriends but that those
relationships never went anywhere; my guess would be that he's telling his
wife about precisely those early flings, and what they meant to him.

But yeah, for all his brilliance and magnetism and vision, Feynman was also
(eventually) pretty terrible toward women. I gaze in grateful awe and
reverence at his personal contributions to human knowledge, even as I grimace
in frustration and disappointment at his contributions to a culture that
continues to drive too many potentially brilliant contributors away. So this
letter is bittersweet to me, since it calls to mind one of the few significant
areas where Feynman's life did harm to humanity rather than good. I wonder if
that might have been different if his wife had lived?

~~~
Moshe_Silnorin
I know he was somewhat rakish before he married his third wife, but in what
manner was he terrible to women? It takes two to tango, so his rakishness
doesn't seem to imply sexism.

~~~
DugFin
Yeah, you kind of have to keep the context in mind when reading about
Feynman's "pick up artist" stories. Much of it takes place not only in the
context of the "hook up scene", but also in the hook up scene fifty-plus years
ago. The guy giving him lessons in how to pick up girls was basically telling
him there's a certain _process_ to the hook up scene, and part of it involved
women taking advantage of men who will allow it. The key bit of advice was to
recognize when they were pushing for freebies, and to push right back. It
established a relationship of equals, which then had a fairly good chance of
resulting in the casual sex both parties were ultimately looking for. From our
perspective some of the behavior seems pretty crass, but that's because the
subtleties of the hook up scene change over time. The cultural anchors have
shifted, and what was once simply an offhand citation of the normative gender
roles now sounds downright boorish.

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a3voices
It feels creepy to read this, like if you were to hack into someone's private
emails or Facebook or such.

