>>10853378He made good contributions to QFT (which is always respectable), and he had a good media presence that helped sell people on the idea that physics majors weren't neckbeard nerds. Of course there are great scientists like Dirac, Heaviside, Schrodinger, Boltzmann, etc., and that doesn't detract from them. His speech about how anyone, if given sufficient passion and effort, can become a scientist.
I do like that he points out that measures like IQ are concerned more as a score for social merit rather than an actual intellectual tool in the public. That is, he saw many brilliant scientists in his day, but truth be told that one is most likely sufficiently intelligent after passing the quals, but only through reading and ridiculous devotion to the subject (read: non g-loaded activities, mostly synthesis of others' work) is how one becomes a great academic
