Leisa Michelle

Nerdy Monologues of an Autodidact

Life Lessons Learned from the 20th Century’s Greatest Physicist

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Richard Feynman was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century. He worked on the Manhattan Project during WWII, helped uncover the cause of NASA’s Challenger tragedy, and received the Nobel Prize for his work in quantum physics. A set of his lectures are available on Youtube – and they’re extremely approachable even for non-physicists.

I first heard about this dude while listening to the Great Courses’ Particle Physics for Non-Physicists. His name kept coming up, so naturally I had to Google him. I discovered that he had published an autobiography based on some conversations he had with a friend. The book is called Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, and I ended up downloading it on Audible.

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Don’t Strive to Be the Best – Strive to be Better

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The power went out just now as I was publishing a new blog post. Perfect timing, right? I flopped down on the couch to decide what to do with my electricity-less, internet-less time. And I began thinking back to when I was in high school and my friend Angie and I plotted our ultimate learning project: our rise to Renaissance Man stardom. We wanted to be like Leonardo da Vinci and the other historical “masters of all trades”.

We loosely acted on our plans. We made a list of all things that a true Renaissance Man should know: classic music, biology, art history, world history, math, politics, among others. A true Renaissance Man should be one of the most capable people in the world in all these subjects, we agreed. He (or she) had to be the best. So naturally, we made being the best our goal.

We never became Renaissance Men. In fact, we failed quite miserably.

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How To Learn Any Language

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The most important thing you have to do when you’re setting out to learn a new language is decide why you’re learning.

You can’t be general or vague or non-committal about it either. “It’d be cool to read books in French,” “My family speaks Spanish, so like, it’s probably good to learn,” or “It just sounds cool,” usually aren’t good enough reasons. I say “usually” because I don’t know the true passion or enthusiasm you might feel when you give these reasons. But I can guarantee that you’re not going to learn anything unless you have a real reason that resonates with you.

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