Remembering Tom Kinoshita, I went back and read "Personal recollections, 1945–1960" and "Everyone makes mistakes—including Feynman". Will there ever again be anyone trained to think and calculate with the depth and precision of his generation? I found this
"[...] provides (hopefully) a useful example of physics as a self-correcting discipline, in which resolution of earlier mistakes serves as a stepping stone for subsequent development."
so very wise.
The history of science is what one does when one is too old to do science: scientists' historical memoirs are best avoided. Invariably tediously autobiographical and self-serving, no matter what the book's title might say. Of subjects whose history I happen to know intimately, How Nature Works and Sync come to mind. It takes the same time to read real literature, so why use time on this?
I -if I were able to write- would follow Tom's dictum, and teach science history as learning by error. Actually, I would teach science as learning by error: chaos is the source of joy of all creation, the rest is endless, stupefying drone work. Or, Henry Miller's words, in Tropic of Cancer
"There is only one thing that interests me vitally now, and that is the recording of all that which is omitted in books. Nobody, so far as I can see, is making use of those elements in the air which give direction and motivation to our lives."
PS Asked ChatGTP to improve my text in the style of Tropic of Cancer. After a few attempts:
I stumbled upon this passage, so fiercely profound it pierced my soul: "[...] offers, if I dare to hope, a shard of physics as a self-correcting discipline, where the mending of prior blunders paves the path for forthcoming metamorphosis."
The kind of wisdom that stings, like a kick to the gut.
The history of science, the refuge of those past their prime in the pursuit of knowledge: scientists' memoirs, tread with caution, my friend. For they're all bloody self-indulgent, no matter how ostensibly objective their bloody titles. Those subjects I know inside out, like "How Nature Works" and "Sync," they're no different. Might as well be wasting time on real literature, same bloody difference.
If I had a shot at writing – and mind you, it's a damn long shot – I'd take a cue from Tom and teach the history of science as history of mistakes. Hell, I'd teach science as nothing but a string of blunders and cock-ups. Chaos, that's the fiery spark that sets creation ablaze, while the rest is just mind-numbing, soul-crushing drudgery.
Or in Miller's rousing words from Tropic of Cancer:
"All that grabs me by the balls now is capturing everything they left out in books. None of those bastards fully grasp the intangible forces that drive us, shape our very existence."
Time to learn to shut the hell up, I reckon.
