[scintill76]

I’ve watched 2 Angela Collier videos on him albeit in the background — you’d probably have to watch the whole thing to truly understand the “bad rep” and I can’t speak to how widespread the bad rep is.

My memory is, misogyny, cringey stories that were surely greatly exaggerated and just happen to make Feynman the smartest guy in every room, kind of a jerk in general, divorce due to claimed domestic violence, never did the work of writing a book personally but has the reputation of being a prolific author, his pop appeal makes people elevate him to the very top minds of physics when the work of others was much more impactful.

[sundarurfriend]

I haven't watched this particular video, but Angela Collier's channel seems to be unfortunately going the typical way of pop-physicists, like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Sabine Hossenfelder, etc. - becoming famous for their physics-related content, and then assuming they're an expert at everything because they are physicists, and physics explains everything. It seems to be a rare physicist (possibly Sean Carroll) that's in the public eye, that doesn't succumb to this disease.

The fault lies partly with the viewers and commenters, ascribing a similar level of expertise to their platitudes and ill-informed takes on, for eg. AI, as to their actual field of expertise. But they don't exactly discourage that either, and in some cases lean into it actively. It's at least a hopeful sign that the descent into "physicist disease" isn't especially rapid in Angela's case, physics still being the primary topic on the channel, but it's still disappointing all the same.

[tovej]

She's the only youtube physicist I can stand, to be honest. Much better than Tyson, and much, much better than Hossenfelder, who's turning out to be a complete crank. Collier is matter of fact, cites her sources, and has non-hot takes on whatever non-physics topic she's talking about (e.g. AI). Sure, she gets the terminology wrong, but she gets the main thrust of the matter right. I say that as a computer science researcher who's concerned about AI ethics.

And her video on Feynman is detailed and worth watching. She goes through evidence from court cases of Feynman strangling his wife, of how Ralph Leighton created much of this myth of Feynman by fanboying him. And she gives him the benefit of the doubt as well, presenting him as flawed, but human.

[adastra22]

Ironically Richard Feynman is an example of a physicist that doesn’t succumb to that disease.

Maybe that’s why Angela Collier doesn’t like him? Reminds me of how a lot of astronomers despised Carl Sagan.