Well, I think the truth lies somewhere in the middle. He always had a very brash, blunt delivery, and here its as evident as ever. But his underlying point is a good one.
The trouble is that the interviewer asked an unwittingly complex question. The tricky thing about gravity or magnetism or light or what have you is that our daily experiences with them seem so simple, and yet underneath they're deeply complicated and unintuitive.
The result is that physicists try to explain things with metaphors that don't actually work, in the hopes of making the unintuitive intuitive. The result is a kind of pseudoscience that causes lay people to come to poor conclusions.
For example, to explain global climate change you might use a metaphor of a greenhouse. Except that tricks people into thinking that the globe just warms uniformly. Then any cold winter is used as evidence to disprove the theory when all they're doing is disproving a bad metaphor.
So here Dr. Feynman uses this simple question to illustrate how complex some things can actually be.
While also coming across as a bit pompous, unfortunately.
As an aside this video is part of an amazing series. They're all worth a watch, IMO.
Brash doesn't necessarily equate to rude, or at least it doesn't to me, though I admit I may be using it incorrectly.
I've watched a lot of Dr. Feynman's talks. His style is very... I don't know how else to describe it except brash. Aggressive is too strong a word. Forceful? Doesn't feel quite right. Compare him to Sagan or Green or Kaku or any number of others and Feynman always felt like he had these rough edges that never got filed off. IMO its part of what makes him relatable, that lack of polish.
IMO Green's, Kaku's and by far most todays' popular physicist interviews aren't even in the same league as Feynman's. They all seem to hide behind platitudes that don't facilitate any deeper understanding, while Feynman tries to be truthful to science, i.e. he tries to not do any false statements just for the sake of simplifying the matter. He describes using simple words rather than to break it down.
Frankly, when working around many excitable, brilliant, bullish people, one often finds that one must start a conversation loudly in order to clear the floor, or else one runs the very real risk of getting interrupted and having a bunch of time wasted. [0]
If you look carefully, you'll see that this is what Feynman does in this little clip.
[0] I understand that there are people who find this style of conversation off-putting. Thing is, just as there is a protocol for taking the floor, there is also a protocol for retaking the floor if your colleague is seriously going off the rails.
Brash equates to irreverent though, and given Feynman is a brilliant teacher first and foremost, you'd do well to shut up, sit down and learn something from him. <--That's irreverent. :) Honestly though, I don't see him being dismissive or scornful. In fact, I see him rise to the occasion to teach something well beyond what was asked of him. You can't beat that.
The trouble is that the interviewer asked an unwittingly complex question. The tricky thing about gravity or magnetism or light or what have you is that our daily experiences with them seem so simple, and yet underneath they're deeply complicated and unintuitive.
The result is that physicists try to explain things with metaphors that don't actually work, in the hopes of making the unintuitive intuitive. The result is a kind of pseudoscience that causes lay people to come to poor conclusions.
For example, to explain global climate change you might use a metaphor of a greenhouse. Except that tricks people into thinking that the globe just warms uniformly. Then any cold winter is used as evidence to disprove the theory when all they're doing is disproving a bad metaphor.
So here Dr. Feynman uses this simple question to illustrate how complex some things can actually be.
While also coming across as a bit pompous, unfortunately.
As an aside this video is part of an amazing series. They're all worth a watch, IMO.