
Joan Feynman Found Her Place in the Sun - LarryManchoney
https://hackaday.com/2017/11/21/joan-feynman-found-her-place-in-the-sun/
======
JoeDaDude
"At the age of 90, she’s still fascinated by all the crazy things the Sun does
and is still determined to find explanations".

I love how some scientists never retire. I hope I love my work as much as they
do and am able to take a similar path.

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RyJones
This explains why Richard left the Aurora Borealis alone, for Joan to study.

~~~
eesmith
Is this a joke comment, or did he actually say he left the Aurora Borealis
alone? There are, I presume, many areas of physics that he didn't work in. I
don't think he did much in biophysics, medical physics, or geophysics, to name
a few.

~~~
RyJones
Joan and Richard had a deal, he would leave it alone for her. At one point
later in life he asked her permission to study it and she said no. He covers
it in one of his books.

~~~
wiredsister
Please provide source.

~~~
retsibsi
_Her pioneering work on these processes led to an understanding of the
mechanism responsible for auroras. She found this work wonderful, and her
immediate reaction was to tell her brother, who’d first introduced her to
these beautiful phenomena all those years before.

But then a second thought crossed her mind. “Richard is pretty smart, and if I
tell him about an interesting problem, he’ll find the answer before I do and
take all the fun out of it for me.” So Joan decided to strike a deal with him.
“I said, Look, I don’t want us to compete, so let’s divide up physics between
us. I’ll take auroras and you take the rest of the Universe. And he said OK!”

[...]

In the early 1980s, Joan wasn’t the only Feynman seduced by solar-terrestrial
relations. Her brother Richard had kept his original promise to her not to
work on auroras. Despite an impressive polymath career in which he applied his
genius to a spectacular spectrum of problem-solving across the fields of
maths, physics, chemistry, and biology, he had never turned his attention to
Joan’s chosen field.

But then he traveled to Alaska, an important centre for aurora studies. On a
tour of the facility, the head of the lab pointed out many of the interesting
geophysical phenomena that were yet to be explained. “Would you be interested
in working on it?” he enquired. Richard responded that he would, but added
that he’d have to ask his sister’s permission. Joan remembers that he came
back and told her the story. “I’m sorry Richard,” she replied, “but I’m not
giving you permission.” Richard duly reported back that his sister had refused
to allow him to study auroras!

Word of this story eventually got round, and people would come up to Joan at
conferences and ask her if it was true. At one meeting, a colleague from UCLA
told the gathering that he wanted “to publicly thank Richard Feynman for not
studying aurora, so that we can all have some fun!”_

[https://findingada.com/shop/a-passion-for-science-stories-
of...](https://findingada.com/shop/a-passion-for-science-stories-of-discovery-
and-invention/joan-feynman-from-auroras-to-anthropology/)

~~~
wiredsister
While this does corroborate the story the original commenter was making, it’s
not a quote from Feynman or any of his books. I am sure this is probably true,
but this book/excerpt has no citations or sources I can find. Can we find the
root of this?

~~~
eesmith
It appears to be drawn from the book "Feynman", by Jim Ottaviaani and Leland
Myrick (illustrator), based on a preview snippet from "Look Inside".

Further confirmation that this story is in the book comes from the reader
comments to the book at
[http://fullmoon.typepad.com/books/nonfiction/page/2/](http://fullmoon.typepad.com/books/nonfiction/page/2/)
:

> "He didn't mean to, but he couldn't help it: present Feynman with a problem,
> from a Mayan codex to a locked safe to the mysteries of quantum
> electrodynamics, and he would just have to solve it--the exception that
> proves the rule, of course, being his promise to his sister Joan to leave
> the aurora to her."

> "At one point in adulthood someone asks him to look at something and he asks
> Joan for permission first. When she says no, she's not done with it yet, he
> tells the other person that the two of them have an agreement about that
> sort of thing. Good brother!"

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1024core
The first photo of her, she looks so much like him! Even the gesture
(fingertips together) is something he also used to do. It was great reading
about her.

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idibidiart
First time I hear he had a sister who is also a scientist. I've not read any
of his books or seen any of his lectures but I've heard plenty about his work
and insights, just nothing about his sister, who is also a brilliant mind... I
wonder why (rhetorically)

~~~
sn9
Read _Genius_ by James Gleick if you want to read an excellent biography on
Feynman. It includes lots of great details about his childhood.

~~~
dannylandau
I've read Genius, but "Surely you're joking Mr. Feynmane" and "What do you
care what other people think" are his best auto-biographies.

I believe they were mentioned in both Larry Page and Serge Brin favorite
books.

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jpfed
(It looks like this article is substantially derived from
[https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2002-04/my-mother-
sci...](https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2002-04/my-mother-scientist) )

~~~
milofeynman
Thanks for sharing this one. Also interesting.

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ocfnash
This reminds me, of Edith Einstein, niece of Albert. She was also a talented
physicist overshadowed by her extremely famous (male) relative.

Her academic path even crossed with that of her uncle: she wrote a paper
analysing the physics of radiometers, after which Albert did too.

[Her paper argued in favour of the radiometric force being proportional to the
surface area of the veins, Albert argued (more convincingly) in favour of a
model in which the force in proportional to the perimeter.]

~~~
carapace
*vanes

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joss82
Funny coincidence to have two articles about women scientists studying the sun
at one week interval.

Remember, the other was Japanese. Very interesting story too.

~~~
logical42
Which article was the other one?

~~~
rimliu
[https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/sunspots-japanese-
amat...](https://www.atlasobscura.com/articles/sunspots-japanese-amateur-
astronomer-sun-science)

~~~
joss82
That one precisely! Thanks!

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hackpert
Thanks so much for sharing this! What a remarkable refresher about a
remarkable person among an endless cycle of depressing news. Definitely
cheered me up!

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bprasanna
Thanks for sharing! Came to know about her for the first time. She is great
and has done some amazing things in astrophysics.

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zafka
This is great, I would hope that GE would consider putting her in one of their
"Milli" commercials.

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gbugniot
What a refreshing read. Lovely kids, awesome scientists.

