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After a fascinating discussion with Danny Hillis (left) and Craig Venter (middle) about the dichotomy of design and evolutionary search in both of their approaches to artificial life, I learned that Danny had hired Richard Feynman at Thinking Machines over a 7 year stretch of summer jobs. So we formed an ad-hoc fan club cluster and used our limbs to form a Feynman diagram of sub-atomic particles.

Photo by TEDster Ronnie Antik. Thanks for capturing this special moment!

TED Blog Summary.

12 responses to “Feynman Fan Club — a Quantum Field Diagram Puppet Show”

  1. Feynman, Feynman, he’s our man!
    If he can’t solve it, no one can!

    Gooooo…. Feynman!

  2. People say that while playing diagrams they were singing Arriba! Abajo! to the beat of a very rhythmic tune …Arriba! Abajo!… (Can you understand this?)

  3. lol Shi. 😀

    It looks like they’re doing the macarena to me… hmm… lol

  4. Yeahhhh! =D

    Dale a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena,
    Tu cuerpo es pa´ darle alegría y cosa buena,
    Dale a tu cuerpo alegria Macarena…
    Eeeeeeeh, Macarena!
    Aaaaay!

  5. That is a healthy exchange of photons there. Very cool.

  6. Feynman Lives !!! 😀

    OT: do you know from where I could order Feynman T-shirts? 🙂

  7. I finally got around to pulling the thoughts from that night into a blog posting on the dichotomy of design vs. evolutionary search.

    Here are the passages that Danny Hillis pointed me to that night from his book The Pattern on the Stone:

    “We will not engineer an artificial intelligence; rather we will set up the right conditions under which an intelligence can emerge. The greatest achievement of our technology may well be creation of tools that allow us to go beyond engineering – that allow us to create more than we can understand.” (138)

    “we cannot expect to understand an intelligence by taking it apart and analyzing it as if it were a hierarchically designed machine.” (141)

  8. Richard Feynman said the Nobel prize should go to the person who solves the meaning of the alpha constant mystery (Hand of God 137 number). The mystery has been solved and will be presented and peer reviewed at the IEEE/IAS Tampa conference next Wednesday, 11 October 2006. Danny/Craig, get the nomination ready. All truth comes in 3 steps…first ridiculed, then severely criticized, and finally self evident. The presentation is at step 3.

  9. I have another one for you next time you meet Feynman FanClub =)

    Ever heard of Feynman ‘s Penguin diagrams :

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