<story><title>How Dyson Saw Feynman</title><url>http://nautil.us/issue/59/connections/another-side-of-feynman</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>tzs</author><text>&amp;gt; On the Sunday Feynman was up at his usual hour (nine a.m.), and we went down to the physics building, where he gave me another two-hour lecture of miscellaneous discoveries of his. One of these was a deduction of Maxwell’s equations of the electromagnetic field from the basic principles of quantum theory, a thing which baffles everybody including Feynman, because it ought not to be possible.&lt;p&gt;Physics stackexchange discussion of this [1].&lt;p&gt;That includes a link to a 2001 paper, &amp;quot;Feynman&amp;#x27;s derivation of Maxwell equations and extra dimensions&amp;quot; [2].&lt;p&gt;Here&amp;#x27;s a paper Dyson wrote about it in 1989 [3].&lt;p&gt;That was discussed here on HN [4].&lt;p&gt;[1] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;physics.stackexchange.com&amp;#x2F;questions&amp;#x2F;391744&amp;#x2F;does-feynmans-derivation-of-maxwells-equations-have-a-physical-interpretation&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;physics.stackexchange.com&amp;#x2F;questions&amp;#x2F;391744&amp;#x2F;does-feyn...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[2] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arxiv.org&amp;#x2F;abs&amp;#x2F;hep-ph&amp;#x2F;0106235&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;arxiv.org&amp;#x2F;abs&amp;#x2F;hep-ph&amp;#x2F;0106235&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[3] &lt;a href=&quot;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fermatslibrary.com&amp;#x2F;s&amp;#x2F;feynmans-proof-of-the-maxwell-equations&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;http:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;fermatslibrary.com&amp;#x2F;s&amp;#x2F;feynmans-proof-of-the-maxwell-eq...&lt;/a&gt;&lt;p&gt;[4] &lt;a href=&quot;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=11067435&quot; rel=&quot;nofollow&quot;&gt;https:&amp;#x2F;&amp;#x2F;news.ycombinator.com&amp;#x2F;item?id=11067435&lt;/a&gt;</text></comment>
<story><title>How Dyson Saw Feynman</title><url>http://nautil.us/issue/59/connections/another-side-of-feynman</url></story><parent_chain></parent_chain><comment><author>tempestn</author><text>&amp;gt; In the evening I mentioned that there were just two problems for which the finiteness of the theory remained to be established; both problems are well-known and feared by physicists, since many long and difficult papers running to fifty pages and more have been written about them, trying unsuccessfully to make the older theories give sensible answers to them. When I mentioned this fact, Feynman said, “We’ll see about this,” and proceeded to sit down and in two hours, before our eyes, obtain finite and sensible answers to both problems. It was the most amazing piece of lightning calculation I have ever witnessed, and the results prove, apart from some unforeseen complication, the consistency of the whole theory. The two problems were the scattering of light by an electric field, and the scattering of light by light.</text></comment>