职业与工作方法physics.ohio-state.edu
费曼的晃动餐盘：如何走出倦怠
Feynman's wobbling plate: how to recover from burnout
2011 — 2015，它一次次回到首页
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导读
这是费曼自传《别闹了，费曼先生》中的著名片段：他在经历倦怠、觉得自己一事无成时，决定放下对“重要性”的执念，纯粹为了乐趣玩物理。某天他在食堂看到有人抛晃动的盘子，出于好奇算出了盘子摆动与旋转的运动方程，这段“无用”的玩闹最终引向了让他获得诺贝尔奖的量子电动力学工作。
为什么经久不衰：它讲述如何从职业倦怠中恢复：放下功利心、纯粹出于好奇去玩，反而可能带来最大的成就，因此多年来反复打动读者。
HN 评论精选
完全接纳失败与倦怠，反而带来更深的联结和更契合的工作
“于是我有了这种新态度：既然我已经倦怠、永远不会再有什么成就了，那我就安心待在大学里教我挺喜欢的课，就像读《一千零一夜》消遣一样，想玩物理就玩物理，完全不去管它重不重要。”完全接纳倦怠似乎很关键——与其抱着关于“我是谁、我想要什么”的旧观念不放，不如在某个时刻放下野心，以自己能做到的方式拥抱生活。我记得多年前在泰国的大巴上和人聊天：“你是做什么的？”“哦，我是一个来自中国的 burnout。我以前在那儿创业，后来整个人崩了。生意没垮，还在运转……垮的是我自己，是‘做我自己’这件事失败了。”那是我成年后第一次没有拿得出手的成就故事可讲。失败没有像我想象的那样让人疏远我，反而带来了更多共情和更深的联结；它也没有毁掉我的事业，反而给了我自由去探索兴趣、弄清自己真正喜欢什么。现在我又开始疯狂工作了，但因为工作和我的价值观高度契合，我几乎不再感到压力。
h34t查看英文原文
"So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything, I've got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I'm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever." The full acceptance of burnout seems important. ie, rather than cling to old ideas about who you are and what you want, at a certain point it's best to let go of your ambitions and simply embrace life in whatever way you can. I remember one conversation I had on a bus in Thailand some years back: "What do you do?" "Oh, I'm a burnout from China. I mean, I was starting a company there, and I sort of imploded. Oh, the business didn't fail, it's still running... I just failed. At being me." It was the first time in my adult life that I didn't have an impressive story to tell about what I was achieving. Failure, instead of driving people away (as I'd feared), led to more empathy and deeper relationships. And instead of harming my career, it gave me the freedom to explore my interests without the pressure to achieve, which helped me figure out what I really enjoy. I'm now working crazy hours again, but it's so well aligned with my values and interests that I rarely feel stressed. (And I take better care of myself, because I know what can happen if I don't.)
天才的共同特质是对寻常事物保持好奇与玩心
我见过的所有可称天才的人似乎都有这个特质：他们注意到别人忽视的寻常事物，并以好玩而好奇的方式去琢磨——晃动的盘子、落下的苹果，或者像 PG 说的那样，盯着麦克斯韦方程组问“这到底是怎么回事”。就像把楔子打进未知的一道细缝里，把它撬开，露出里面所有精彩的东西。
noonespecial查看英文原文
All the people I've ever met seem whom I'd consider in the genius category seem to share this trait. They see ordinary things that everyone else overlooks and wonder about them in a playful and curious way. Plates wobbling, apples falling from trees, or even as PG so eloquently put it, "looking at Maxwell's equations and saying, what the hell is going on here?" Its like driving a wedge into a tiny crack in the unknown and splitting it open to reveal all of the cool stuff.
玩耍带来发现的前提是广博的知识和跨领域联想的习惯
有一点文中没有直接提到：他能把“晃盘子的方程”变成诺贝尔奖，是因为他有足够广的知识面可以调用，并且习惯在所做的事与其他领域之间建立类比。如果他对电子轨道、狄拉克方程、电动力学没有足够的了解，他根本不会想到把盘子的摆动和相对论中电子轨道的运动联系起来。所以，虽然“无重要性”的玩耍可能带来重大发现，但你需要有知识背景和联结不同概念的思维习惯，否则它永远只是“无关紧要”的东西。
cableshaft查看英文原文
One point that isn't directly mentioned is that he was able to turn the 'wobbling plate equations' into a Nobel Prize because he had such a wide breadth of knowledge to draw from, and probably had a habit of drawing parallels between what he's doing and other things within that breadth of knowledge. He wouldn't have even thought to make the parallel between the wobble and how electron orbits move in relativity if he didn't already have a good understanding of electron orbits, and it wouldn't lead to the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics without him being familiar with that, then quantum electrodynamics without being familiar with that. So yes, while play and working on things 'with no importance' can lead to great discoveries, or something of importance later, you need to have that background of knowledge and the habit of connecting two disparate concepts together or else it will always remain something 'with no importance'.
标题有误导性：故事的重点是走出倦怠并最终成功
标题引文选得不好。这个故事讲的不是倦怠本身，而是他把倦怠抛在身后、最终拿了诺贝尔奖……
plusquamperfekt查看英文原文
The title quote is badly chosen. It's not about being burned out - but about leaving being burned out behind him and winning the Nobel Prize ...
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