Paul Erdos famously swore by their productiveness.
From Wikipedia:
His colleague Alfréd Rényi said, "a mathematician is a machine for turning coffee into theorems",[31] and Erdős drank copious quantities. (This quotation is often attributed incorrectly to Erdős,[32] but Erdős himself ascribed it to Rényi.[33]) After 1971 he also took amphetamines, despite the concern of his friends, one of whom (Ron Graham) bet him $500 that he could not stop taking the drug for a month.[34] Erdős won the bet, but complained that during his abstinence mathematics had been set back by a month: "Before, when I looked at a piece of blank paper my mind was filled with ideas. Now all I see is a blank piece of paper." After he won the bet, he promptly resumed his amphetamine use.
This is great and I will use it right up until it starts showing ads. I really hope Google can find another income stream because ads are a deal breaker for me. The first time Google maps dropped two pins on a location search, one an ad, was the last time I used Google maps.
If you were able to construct a rigid beam 25 million miles long wouldn't you be able to transmit data (push a button) on the other end faster than the speed of light?
The root of the word chivalry is telling. We portray history in fairy tale manner, as if the old days were better, and consequently it is awkward to feel anger. What about the progress we have made in spite of our naturally selected for violence? Evolutionarily, except in niche cases, pacifist gene lines were subjected to negative selection pressure. We unfortunately have some wiring that is not up to code.
"The Lives of a Cell" by Lewis Thomas is a tremendous book, pulling back the curtain on biology. Clear, concise and well written, very similar to Feynman with physics.