Science AMA Series: I’m Tony Hey, chief data scientist at the UK STFC. I worked with Richard Feynman and edited a book about Feynman and computing. Let’s talk about Feynman on what would have been his 100th birthday. AMA!

Tony_Hey Tony_Hey,R/Science r/Science

doi:10.15200/winn.152604.46695

Abstract

Hi! I’m Tony Hey, the chief data scientist at the Science and Technology Facilities Council in the UK and a former vice president at Microsoft. I received a doctorate in particle physics from the University of Oxford before moving into computer science, where I studied parallel computing and Big Data for science. The folks at Physics Today magazine asked me to come chat about Richard Feynman, who would have turned 100 years old today. Feynman earned a share of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in quantum electrodynamics and was famous for his accessible lectures and insatiable curiosity. I first met Feynman in 1970 when I began a postdoctoral research job in theoretical particle physics at Caltech. Years later I edited a book about Feynman’s lectures on computation; check out my TEDx talk on Feynman’s contributions to computing. I’m excited to talk about Feynman’s many accomplishments in particle physics and computing and to share stories about Feynman and the exciting atmosphere at Caltech in the early 1970s. Also feel free to ask me about my career path and computer science work! I’ll be online today at 1pm EDT to answer your questions. Edit: Thanks for all the great questions! I enjoyed answering them.

Highlights

CITATION: Tony_Hey, r/Science, Science AMA Series: I’m Tony Hey, chief data scientist at the UK STFC
I worked with Richard Feynman and edited a book about Feynman and computing
One of the reasons that Feynman is such an interesting figure is because if you read the general sources about his life, he almost seems like a character from a movie or a novel

Summary

READ REVIEWS

CITATION: Tony_Hey , r/Science , Science AMA Series: I’m Tony Hey, chief data scientist at the UK STFC. We walked on the beach together and he talked about all sorts of physics questions that caught his interest He was passionately curious about Nature and very serious in his approach to understanding things. To get back to your question two things I remember from our walk on the beach – one was his advice to me ‘Hey, you read too many books!’ and the other was about the breadth of his interests outside of physics. He said that he started out very narrowly focused on all thing physics and only later in life after he had achieved success did his interest broaden. How would you best create behavioural segmentation's of the customer base?

Thanks in advance!

Thanks for the ama!

Thanks again!