At a friend’s (gentle!) urging, I started in a few weeks ago on The Challenger Launch Decision, an exhaustive ethno-history on the work culture that resulted in the Challenger disaster. I won’t bother recounting the Challenger disaster for those unfamiliar—because 1) Wikipedia will do do the job and 2) Wikipedia (and most other sources) will … Continue reading On the Challenger and the stories we think we know
Tag: Richard Feynman
On your personal “toolkit”
I've been leafing through Richard Feynman's amusing Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!—a pseudo-memoir that's amusing, if a little slight, for the author being one of the most famous scientists of the 20th century. But there are plenty of tasty nuggets sandwiched between silly, self-aggrandizing anecdotes. (There's a very brash, American 'tude to much of the … Continue reading On your personal “toolkit”
On the Major Dramatic Question and Richard Feynman’s 12 problems
One idea I really liked in Amy Whitaker's book Art Thinking was a concept borrowed from Hollywood screenwriters—the "MDQ," or Major Dramatic Question. The MDQ is the engine that drives the plot of a narrative forward, broadening the stakes, extending the specific to the universal. Whitaker suggests that people can have their own MDQs—which she … Continue reading On the Major Dramatic Question and Richard Feynman’s 12 problems
The slippery slope of asking too many “why” questions
As someone who took to learning more about the sciences later in my life—really, meaning after my collegiate career had concluded and I was off on my own—I have run into a consistent problem in the course of my learning: my inability to simply accept a scientific fact as such and then move on. Like … Continue reading The slippery slope of asking too many “why” questions
Taylor Coe 