Genius (81 page)

139 T
HIS PREOCCUPATION WITH
: Ibid.

139 T
HERE WAS A POSSIBILITY
: Wilson, interview.

139 A
N EXPATRIATE
G
ERMAN CHEMIST
: Peierls 1985, 169.

140
ONE MORNING HE HAD GONE INTO HIS KITCHEN
: Rhodes 1987, 340.

140 S
TUDENTS WERE ASKED TO CHOOSE
: Lavatelli, interview.

140 I
F THERE WAS ANY BALONEY
: Wilson, interview.

140 T
O HIS DISMAY
: Ibid.; F-W, 297.

140
SLIGHTLY DISILLUSIONED WITH WAR WORK
: “I guess my patriotism had disintegrated or something.” F-W, 297.

140 L
ONG AFTERWARD, AFTER ALL THE BOMB MAKERS
: Ibid.

141 T
O GET HELP WITH THE ELECTRONICS
: Wilson, interview.

141 T
HE SENIOR THEORETICIAN CRUMPLED
: Olum, interview.

142 W
HAT’S HAPPENING HERE?
: Ibid.

142 I
T WAS LIKE A CARTOON
: F-W, 298.

142 E
RNEST
L
AWRENCE WAS CALLING A COMPETING DEVICE
: Heilbron and Seidel 1989, 515–16.

143 W
HEN EXPERIMENTERS TRIED HIGHER VOLTAGES
: F-W, 320.

143 T
HE PHYSICISTS HAD TO INVENT
: Ernest D. Klema, n.d., Response to Nuclear Physics Questionnaire. AIP.

143 M
EANWHILE THE PROJECT’S WORST ENEMY
: R. Wilson 1972, 474–75.

143 W
HEN
G
ENERAL
L
ESLIE
R. G
ROVES
: Groueff 1967, 36–38.

144 F
EYNMAN CARRIED THE ISOTRON’S FLYSPECK
: F-W, 325–26. 144
THE FIRST SCIENTIFIC LECTURE HE HAD EVER HEARD
: Ibid., 325.

144 W
ILSON WAS STUNNED
: He wrote Smyth nearly a year later, from Los Alamos: “I am still not able to think objectively about the closing down of our project. It was certainly a hysterical move for the committee to shut the project down before the completion of the contract.” Wilson to Smyth, 27 November 1943, LANL.

144 S
MYTH AND
W
IGNER BOTH FELT PRIVATELY
: Davis 1968, 136.

144 L
AWRENCE’S CALUTRON SIMPLY USED
: Lavatelli, quoted in Davis 1968, 135.

144 F
EYNMAN HAD PRODUCED DETAILED CALCULATIONS
: Feynman 1942
f;
Feynman 1943a; Smyth and Wilson 1942, 5.

145 M
Y WIFE DIED THREE YEARS AGO
: Olum, interview.

146 I
T WAS TIME TO FINISH HIS THESIS
: Wheeler to Feynman, 26 March 1942, AIP.

146 L
ATER HE REMEMBERED
: F-W, 281.

146
GREAT DIFFICULTIES HAVE ARISEN
: Feynman 1942a.

146 M
ESON FIELD THEORIES HAVE BEEN SET UP
: Feynman 1942b, 1 n.

146
DERIVED CONCEPT
: Feynman 1942a.

146 W
E CAN TAKE THE VIEWPOINT
: Ibid.

147
IS IN FACT INDEPENDENT OF THAT THEORY
: Feynman 1942b, 5.

147 W
HEN HE WAS DONE
: Wheeler and Wigner 1942.

147 F
EYNMAN CONCLUDED WITH A BLUNT CATALOG
: Feynman 1942b, 73–74.

147 I
N THE MATHEMATICS WE MUST DESCRIBE
: Ibid.

148
HONORARY ELECTRICIAN’S LICENSE
: Feynman to George W. Beadle, 4 January 67, CIT. Turning down the first honorary degree he was offered, he told the president of the University of Chicago that he remembered “the guys on the same platform receiving honorary degrees without work—and felt an ‘honorary degree’ was a debasement of the idea of a ‘degree which confirms certain work has been accomplished.’ … I swore then that if by chance 1 was ever offered one I would not accept it. Now at last (25 years later) you have given me a chance to carry out my vow.”

148 T
HE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUSBAND AND WIFE
: Flick 1903, 289.

148 M
ANY A YOUNG CONSUMPTIVE MOTHER
: Ibid., 288.

148 M
ARRIAGE IS APT TO BE
: Underwood 1937, 342.

149 T
HEY WERE BOTH SO YOUNG
: Solomon 1952, 122.

150 Y
OUR HEALTH IS IN DANCER
: Lucille Feynman to Feynman, “Why I object to your marriage to Arline at this time,” n.d,, PERS.

150 H
E TOLD HIS FATHER
: Feynman to Melville Feynman, 15 June 1942, PERS.

150 B
UT JUST A FEW DAYS LATER
: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, “Why I want to get married,” June 1942, PERS.

150
IN NO TIME FLAT
: Arline Greenbaum to Feynman, June 1942, PERS.

151 S
HE WALKED DOWN
: Jules Greenbaum, telephone interview.

151 T
HEY MARRIED IN A CITY OFFICE
:
WDY,
42–43.

151 F
EARFUL OF CONTAGION
: “I knew not to kiss her… because the disease, I was afraid to catch it” (F-L); by contrast, the edited version, in SYJ, 43, says that Feynman, “bashful,” kissed Arline on the cheek.

LOS ALAMOS

I did not seek the security clearance necessary to make direct use of the archives of the Los Alamos National Laboratory; however, the archives eventually provided a body of declassified material, including the notebook Feynman began keeping in his first days on the site, portions of his personnel record, and many technical documents—critical-mass calculations, analyses of computing issues, and notes and diagrams from Feynman’s inspections of the Oak Ridge plant. Lillian Hoddeson and Gordon Baym shared their interview with Feynman about many of his classified notes. Also declassified is Feynman’s manuscript for the account of the theoretical-physics division in what became the Smyth report,
Atomic Energy for Military Purposes,
and a related correspondence between Smyth, Oppenheimer, and Groves. Mary D. Lee had preserved a copy of Feynman’s 9 August 1945 letter to his mother, describing the Trinity test. Feynman had saved Arline’s personal papers, including their correspondence, her correspondence with her family, and other items. Much has been written about the Manhattan Project and the scientists who participated in it. Still, one or two things may remain to be said. Many individual memoirs are available. The best overall history is Richard Rhodes’s
Making of the Atomic Bomb.
Hawkins et al. 1983 is extremely useful for its technical detail. If there was ever a time when eyewitness accounts could be obtained uncontaminated by hindsight and by many previous tellings, it is long past. I reinterviewed some participants and friends of Feynman anyway (Bethe, Weisskopf, Wilson, Olum, Welton, Rose Bethe, Philip Morrison, Robert Bacher, Robert Christy,

Robert Walker, Dorothy Walker). Nicholas Metropolis expanded on his published recollections of the laboratory’s nascent computer science. Other sources on computation include Alt 1972, Asprey 1990, Bashe et al. 1986, Goldstine 1972, Nash 1990, and Williams 1985. Feynman retold his best stories in a talk (1975) at the University of California, Santa Barbara. The tone of his letters in 1945–45 is very different, and I have relied most heavily on these.

153 H
E SWEATED
: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 9 August 1945, PERS.

153 T
HEN, SUDDENLY, MUSIC
: Ibid.; Weisskopf, interview. But one of the oddities in the memories of that moment is how many different scientists heard different music. James W. Kunetka, for example, (1979) heard “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

154 M
INUS THIRTY MINUTES
: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 9 August 1945.

154 A
ND THEN, WITHOUT A SOUND
: Frisch 1979, 164.

154 I
T BLASTED; IT POUNCED
: Talk at Boston Institute for Religious and Social Studies, 3 January 1946. In Rabi 1970, 138–39.

155 W
HAT WAS THAT?
: Peierls 1985, 202; Feynman 1975, 131. The correspondent was William L. Laurence. Eventually he came to terms with the sound he heard: “Then out of the great silence came a mighty thunder … the blast from thousands of blockbusters going off simultaneously … the big boom … earthquake … the first cry of a newborn world.” Laurence 1959, 117.

155 E
NRICO
F
ERMI, CLOSER TO THE BLAST
: E.g., Kunetka 1979, 169.

155
ANOTHER PHYSICIST THOUGHT
F
EYNMAN
: Jette 1977, 105.

155 N
OW HE HAD BEEN DRIVEN SO LOW
: Frisch 1979, 155.

156
A CHILL, WHICH WAS NOT THE MORNING COLD
: Quoted in Rhodes 1987, 675.

156 I
T’S A TERRIBLE THING THAT WE MADE
: SYJ, 118.

156 W
E JUMPED UP AND DOWN
: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 9 August 1945.

157 I
T IS A WONDERFUL SIGHT
: Ibid.

157 W
E BECAME THEN
: R. Wilson 1972, 475.

157 H
AVE THEM DESCRIBE TO YOU
: F-W, 328; Wilson, interview.

157 H
E DID GATHER INFORMATION
: F-W, 329.

157 W
E ALL CAME TO MEET THIS BRASH CHAMPION
: Morrison 1988, 42; also Morrison, oral-history interview, 7 February 1967, AIP, 34: “He was already heralded as this very clever fellow from Princeton who knew everything. And he did know everything, you know.”

157 F
EYNMAN SAW THAT THE PROBLEM
: F-W, 330.

158 S
CHWINGER, WHO WAS AMBIDEXTROUS
: Bernard Feld, quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

158 S
OMEDAY WHEN THEY MAKE A MOVING PICTURE
: F-W, 332; Olum, interview.

159 O
PPENHEIMER’S FORMULA
: Peierls, quoted in Heilbron and Seidel 1989, 256. 159
A PHYSICS OF BANK SHOTS
: Rhodes 1987, 149.

159 W
HY DON’T YOU HAVE FISH
: Peierls 1985, 190.

159 H
E CALLED LONG-DISTANCE
: F-W, 337.

160 N
OBODY COULD THINK STRAIGHT
: Davis 1968, 163.

160 T
HE STATE OF SECRECY WAS SUCH
: F-W, 332.

160 F
EYNMAN’S CONTRARIETY WARRED
: Feynman 1975, 108.

160 S
HE HAD BEGGED RICHARD
: Arline Feynman to Feynman, 26 March 1943, PERS.

160 A
RLINE CRIED NIGHT AFTER NIGHT
: Ibid. and Arline Feynman to Feynman, 19 March 1943, PERS.

161 Y
ET ONE POSSIBILITY WAS PLAYING ITSELF OUT
: F-H, 5.

161 A
T FIRST THE ONLY TELEPHONE LINK
: John H. Manley, “A New Laboratory Is Born,” in Badash et al. 1980, 31.

161
WATER BOILER
: Hawkins et al. 1983, 104–5; F-H, 4–6.

162
A TABLE BEHIND A HEAVY CONCRETE WALL
: Groueff 1967, 210.

162
THE DRIVER’S LICENSE OF A NAMELESS ENGINEER
: State of New Mexico Operator’s License no. 185, 1944, PERS.

162 W
ELCOME TO
L
OS
A
LAMOS
: Frisch 1979, 150.

163 T
ALKS ARE NOT NECESSARILY ON THINGS
: Notebook, “A-83–002 7–7,” LANL.

163
REFLECT NEUTRONS … KEEP BOMB IN
: Ibid.

164 M
OST OF WHAT WAS TO BE DONE
: Feynman 1944.

164 T
HE GHOSTWRITER WAS FEYNMAN
: Smyth to Oppenheimer, 1 February 1945, and Oppenheimer to Smyth, 14 April 1945, LANL.

164 F
EYNMAN, GIVING
S
MYTH A TOUR
: SYJ, 118; Groueff 1967, 326.

164 A
REQUEST FOR OSMIUM
: Groueff 1967, 326.

164 T
HE FIRST DOT OF
P
LUTONIUM
: Hawkins et al. 1983, 72.

165
LISTED THE MAIN QUESTIONS
: Feynman 1944. Feynman’s references to tamper materials, along with some other sensitive technical details, were deleted from the report as published.

165 W
HEN THEY HEARD THAT LAUGH
: E.g., Joseph O. Hirschfelder, “Scientific-Technological Miracle at Los Alamos,” in Badash et al. 1980, 81.

165 B
ETHE AND
F
EYNMAN—STRANGE PAIR
: Frisch 1979, 154.

165 Y
OU’RE CRAZY
: F-W, 339; Bethe, interview; Groueff 1967, 205.

166 I
F
F
EYNMAN SAYS IT THREE TIMES
: Schweber, forthcoming.

166 He had worked on: Groueff 1967, 207.

166
A
W
ESTERN
U
NION KIDDIEGRAM
: Rhodes 1987, 416.

166 B
ETHE HAD LEARNED HIS PHYSICS
: Bernstein 1980, 29.

166 A
T
R
OME
: L. Fermi 1954, 217.

166
LIGHTNESS OF APPROACH
: Bernstein 1980, 31.

168 B
ETHE LEFT THE INITIAL LECTURES
: F-H, 40; Bethe, interview.

168 T
HE DANGEROUS PRACTICALITIES
: Hawkins et al. 1983, 13.

168 F
EYNMAN SPENT A LONG TIME TήINKING
: F-H, 12–13.

168
BRANCHING-PROCESSES THEORY
: Ulam 1976, 153; Harris 1963; David Hawkins, “The Spirit of Play,” in Cooper 1989.

169 H
E ARRIVED AT A PRACTICAL METHOD
: Bethe, interview. 169
BEGAN TO LOVE
H
ANS
B
ETHE
: F-W, 409–10.

169 H
E HAD INVITED ONE OF HIS
MIT
FRATERNITY FRIENDS
: Feynman to Daniel Robbins, 24 June 1942, PERS.

169 H
E WOULD BE PARTLY OUT OF THE RUSH
: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 24 June 1943, PERS.

169 W
HEN HE WAS INVITED TO MEET A STRANGER
: Welton 1983, 7.

170 D
O YOU KNOW WHAT WE’RE DOING HERE?
: Ibid.

170 I
T STINKS
: Davis 1968, 215.

170 A
S
W
ELTON LISTENED
: Welton, interview.

170 H
E WAS AMUSED AND IMPRESSED
: Welton 1983, 8–9; Welton, interview.