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Authors: James Gleick

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25 B
EFORE THE BABY WAS OUT
: F-W, 7–8.

25
HE WAS TWO BEFORE HE TALKED
: Lucille Feynman-Weiner.

25
TWENTY-FIVE FEET HIGH
: F-Sy.

25 H
ER MOTHER SUFFERED
: Joan Feynman, interview.

26 W
ITήIN DAYS THE BABY
: Ibid.

26
A BIRTH CERTIFICATE AND A HAT
: Ibid.

26 S
OME EVENINGS THE ADULTS
: Lewine, interview.

26 T
HE HOUSEHOLD HAD TWO OTHER
: Joan Feynman, interview conducted by Charles Weiner, MIT Oral History Program, 30 July 1981; Lewine, interview.

27 L
OOK UP
: Joan Feynman, “Relinquishing the Aurora,” letter, Eos, 1989, 1649.

27 R
ITT? WIRED HIS LABORATORY
: F-W, 35–37.

27 I
T WORKS!
: Joan Feynman, interview.

27
IT WAS WORTH IT
: F-W, 34.

28
SO THAT HE CAN BETTER FACE THE WORLD
: Melville Feynman to Feynman, 10 September 1944, PERS.

28 W
HEN A CHILD DOES SOMETHING
: Ibid.

28 W
HEN MELVILLE TOOK HIS SON
: F-W, 14.

28 S
EE THAT BIRD?
:
WDY
, 13–14.

29 “T
HAT,” HE SAYS, “NOBODY KNOWS
”: F-Sy; cf. “Inertia,” notes, n.d., CIT: “Is inertia an intrinsic fundamental force which will always defy a more ultimate analysis? Or is inertia a force which has its origin in the workings of other recognized forces like gravitation or electricity?”

30 I
T’S A WAY OF DOING PROBLEMS
: F-W, 15.

30 J
OANIE, IF
2
x
: Joan Feynman-Weiner.

30 A
LGEBRA 2, TAUGHT BY
M
ISS
M
OORE
: Leonard Mautner, interview. Pacific Palisades, Calif.

30
HIS SCORE ON THE SCHOOL
IQ
TEST
: Feynman 1965
d
, 15.

30
AN INTELLECTUAL DESERT
: F-W, 39

30
A SET OF FOUR EQUATIONS
: Ibid., 23 and 39.

30 A
LL
F
EYNMAN REMEMBERED
: Ibid., 38

31 E
NERGY PLAYS AN IMPORTANT PART
: “Energy,” poem, n.d., AIP.

31 S
CIENCE IS MAKING US WONDER
: “We Are Forgetful,” poem, n.d., AIP.

32
SISSY-LIKE
: F-L; edited version in
SYJ
, 67.

32 T
HE SIGHT OF A BALL
:
WDY
, 24.

32 A
NXIETY WOULD STRIKE
: Ibid., 21.

32
HIS FIRST CHEMISTRY SET
: F-W, 33

32
GOODY-GOOD
: Ibid., 21; Feynman 1965
d
, 11.

32 I
N PHYSICS CLUB
:
The Dolphin
, Far Rockaway High School, June 1935, 33.

33
MATH TEAM
:
SYJ
, 10–11; Jerry Bishop, telephone interview; Novera H. Spector, telephone interview.

34
A LOUD SIGH
: Feynman 1965
d
, 12.

34 F
EYNMAN PLACED FIRST
:
The Dolphin
, Far Rockaway High School, June 1935, 33.

34 T
WO
C
HILDREN IN
H
IGH
S
CHOOL
: F-W, 63; Mautner, interview.

36 M
R.
A
UGSBURY ABDICATED
: Harold I. Lief to Ralph Leighton, 10 December 1988.

36 M
AD
G
ENIUS
:
The Dolphin
, Far Rockaway High School, June 1935.

36
SOME OBSERVATIONS SUPPORTED THE NOTION
: Melsen 1952, 22.

37 H
OW DO SHARP THINGS STAY SHARP
: F-W, 46.

37 A
LL THINGS ARE MADE OF ATOMS
:
Lectures,
I-1–2

38
BELIEVE THE EXISTENCE OF ATOMS
: Bohr 1922, 315.

38
PURE CHEMISTRY, EVEN TO-DAY
:
Encyclopaedia Britannica,
13th ed., 1926, 870.

39 M
ATTER IS UNCHANGEABLE
: Boscovitch 1922, 36; Park 1988, 200–201.

40 T
HE SCIENCE KNOWN AS CHEMICAL PHYSICS
: Slater 1975, 193.

40 W
E HAVE BEEN FORCED TO RECOGNIZE
: Bohr was creating publicity for his philosophical interpretation of quantum mechanics. The press cooperated enthusiastically, although it posed difficulties for headline writers. William L. Laurence of the New York Times wrote optimistically: “The new theory is expected … to take its place alongside relativity and quantum mechanics as one of the revolutionary developments of modern scientific thought…. Professor Bohr, after a lifetime of contemplation of both the ponderables and the imponderables of the physical and mental world, has come to discover an inherent essential duality…. In other words the very process of knowing one aspect of nature makes it impossible for us to know the other aspect.” “Jekyll-Hyde Mind Attributed to Man,” New
York
Times, 23 June 1933, 1.

40 F
OR THE OCCASION
: Joan Feynman-Weiner, 28–29.

40 K
NOWLEDGE
I
S
P
OWER
: F-W, 78.

41 N
EW
Y
ORK IN
1982: Chase 1932, 13.

41 E
LECTRICITY POWERED THE HUMAN BRAIN
: William A. Laurence, “Brain Phone Lines Counted as 1 Plus 15 Million Zeroes,” New
York Times,
25 June 1933.

41 I
N AN OPENING-DAY STUNT
: Dedmon 1953, 334.

41 H
ERE ARE CATHERED THE EVIDENCES
: “Chicago Fair Opened by Farley; Rays of Arcturus Start Lights,” New
York
Times, 28 May 1933.

41
A
151 -
WORD WALL MOTTO
: “Science in 151 Words,” New
York
Times, 4 June 1933.

42 E
INSTEIN’S SUPPOSED CLAIM
: Cf. Kevles 1987, 175, and Pais 1982, 309. Einstein seems not to have disavowed the remark when given the chance.

42 L
IGHTS
A
LL
A
SKEW IN THE
H
EAVENS
: New
York Times,
9 November 1919, quoted in Pais 1982, 309.

42 A
SERIES OF EDITORIALS
: Pais 1982, 309.

42 M
ORE THAN ONE HUNDRED BOOKS
: Clark 1971, 247.

42
TRANSMITTED BY UNDERWATER CABLE
: Kevles 1987, 175.

42 W
E HAVE
E
INSTEIN’S SPACE
: Quoted in Clark 1971, 242.

44 T
HERE ARE NO PHYSICISTS IN AMERICA
: Raymond T. Birge to John van Vleck, 10 March 1927, quoted in Schweber 1986ft, 55–56.

45 I
BELIEVE THAT
M
INNEAPOLIS
: Quoted in Kevles 1987, 168.

45 O
N THE BEACH SOME DAYS
: Lewine, interview; Joan Feynman, interview; Joan Feynman-Weiner.

45 S
HORTLY HE FOUND HIMSELF LYING
: F-W, 117.

45
ONE HORRIBLY RUDE BOY
: Ibid., 118

46
ALL LEFT HIM FEELING INEPT
: WDY, 20–23.

46 W
ITH THE COMING OF THE
D
EPRESSION
: Joan Feynman-Weiner.

46
TO THE
M
ETROPOLITAN
M
USEUM
: Ibid., 31—32.

46
THE RADIO HAD PENETRATED
: “Modernistic Radios,” New
York Times,
4 June 1933.

46 H
E REWIRED A PLUG
: F-W, 105–7.

46 H
E
F
IXES
R
ADIOS BY
T
HINKING!
:
SYJ,
3.

47 W
HAT ARE YOU DOING?
: F-W, 107–8;
SYJ,
7–8.

47 M
ERELY TO FIND A MATHEMATICS TEXTBOOK
: Feynman 1965d, 10.

47 I
F A BOY NAMED
M
ORRIE
J
ACOBS
: Feynman to Morris Jacobs, 27 January 1987, CIT.

47
HE RECOGNIZED THE PLEASURE
: Feynman 1965d, 11.

48 S
CHWINGER KNEW HOW TO FIND BOOKS
: Schweber, forthcoming. 48
THE
P
HYSICAL
R
EVIEW
: Kevles 1987, 218.

48 T
HAT YEAR HE CAREFULLY TYPED OUT
: Julian Schwinger, interview, Bel Air, Calif.; Schwinger 1934. He later said (1983), he had been “parrot[ing] the wisdom of my elders, to be later rejected.”

49
THEY AMAZED A DINNER PARTY
: Marvin Goldberger, interview, Pasadena. 49
HE LONG RESENTED THE LOSS
: F-W, 113; WDY, 33.

MIT

Among Feynman’s fellow students and fraternity brothers, T. A. Welton, Conyers Herring, John L. Joseph, Monarch L. Cutler, Leonard Mautner, Maurice A. Meyer, and Daniel Robbins contributed the most revealing interviews. Welton has set down his recollections of Feynman in a manuscript titled “Memories” (CIT), and the American Institute of Physics has the notebook in which he and Feynman developed their view of quantum mechanics. Feynman’s MIT transcript and some other academic records were preserved in his personal papers. The archives of MIT provided some correspondence and yearbooks. Joan Feynman made available her brother’s letters to her and her parents. Other important sources include: on physics at MIT, the memoirs of John C. Slater (1975) and Philip Morse (1977), and Schweber’s profile of Slater (1989); on the early development of American quantum physics, Kevles 1987, Schweber, forthcoming, and Sopka 1980; on the principle of least action.
Lectures
II-19, Park 1988, Gregory 1988, and QED; on anti-Semitism in science, Silberman 1985, Steinberg 1971, Lipset and Ladd 1971; Dobkowski 1979, and the remarkable correspondence between Feynman’s MIT professors and Harry D. Smyth (MIT and a confidential file at PUL).

52 I
N THAT CASE YOU ARE COMPLETELY LOST
: Heisenberg 1971, 15–16.

52 T
HE
A
MERICAN MIND
: Menge 1932, 11.

53 F
EYNMAN CHANCED
: F-W, 131.

53 B
UT THE
D
EPRESSION HAD FORCED
: Kevles 1987, 250–51.

53
NIGHTMARE
: Ibid.

53
FEEL THE CRAVING
: Menge 1932, 10.

53
DESPITE ANTI
-
SEMITIC MISGIVINGS
: Rabi, for example, recalled Columbia’s reluctance in appointing him as its first Jew in 1929: “What happened in the American universities was [that] a department was in some sense like a club, very collegiate, family… and certainly the Jews were different, they didn’t fit in too well. “Quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

53 H
E HAD BEEN ONE OF THE YOUNG
A
MERICANS
: Slater 1975, 131.

53 S
LATER KEPT MAKING MINOR DISCOVERIES
: Ibid., 130–35.

54 I
DO NOT LIKE MYSTIQUES
: Slater, oral-history interview, AIP. Quoted in Schweber 1989, 53.

54 H
E DOES NOT ORDINARILY ARGUE
: Quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

54
THEY STUDY CAREFULLY THE RESULTS
: Ibid.

55
ASSEMBLING A PHYSICS DEPARTMENT
: Karl T. Compton, “An Adventure in Education,”
New York Times,
15 September 1935.

55
BARELY A DOZEN GRADUATE STUDENTS
: Morse 1977, 125

56 T
HE INSTRUCTORS TOLD THE STUDENTS
: Slater and Frank 1933, v-vii.

56 W
HY DON’T YOU TRY
B
ERNOULLI’S
: F-W, 136

56 T
HE FIRST DAY EVERYONE HAD TO FILL OUT
: Welton 1983; F-W, 137. 56
COOPERATION IN THE STRUGGLE
: Ibid.

56 M
R.
F
EYNMAN, HOW DID YOU
: Ibid. Welton added that Feynman’s solutions were “always correct and frequently ingenious” and that “Stratton never entrusted his lecture to me or any other student.”

57 A
LIFEGUARD, SOME FEET UP THE BEACH
: QED, 51–52.

58 O
UR FRIEND
D
IRAC, TOO
: Quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

58 T
HERE CANNOT BE ANY ATOMS
: Descartes 1955, 264.

59
AT THE SAME TIME
: Ibid., 299.

60 F
EYNMAN WOULD RESORT TO INGENIOUS COMPUTATIONAL TRICKS
: F-W, 139

60 F
EYNMAN HAD FIRST COME ON THE PRINCIPLE
:
Lectures,
II-19.

61
SEEMED TO
F
EYNMAN A MIRACLE
: Ibid., II-19–2.

61 I
T SEEMS TO KNOW
: Gregory 1988, 32–33.

61 T
HIS IS NOT QUITE THE WAY
: Park 1988, 250.

61 I
T IS NOT IN THE LITTLE DETAILS
: Quoted in Jourdain 1913, 11.

61 P
ARK PHRASED THE QUESTION
: Park 1988, 252.

62 L
ET NONE SAY THAT THE ENGINEER
:
The Tech,
MIT, 1938, 275.