Genius (84 page)

238 B
Y HIS SOPHOMORE YEAR
: Dyson 1987.

238 P
ROFESSOR
L
ITTLEWOOD
: Dyson 1944; Dyson, interview.

238 I
AM LEAVING PHYSICS FOR MATHEMATICS
: Kac 1985, xxiii; Dyson, interview.

238 H
E PLAYED HIS FIRST GAME OF POKER
: “… and found I was rather good at it,” he wrote his parents, 11 June 1948.

238 H
E EXPERIENCED THE AMERICAN FORM
: Dyson to parents, 11 June 1948.

238 W
E GO THROUGH SOME WILD COUNTRY
: Dyson to parents, 19 November 1947.

239 H
E HAS DEVELOPED A PRIVATE VERSION
: Ibid.

239 H
E TELEPHONED FEYNMAN
: NL, 449.

239 I
T WAS A BLUNT
L
OS
A
LAMOS-STYLE ESTIMATE
: It diverged, but it only diverged logarithmically, heading ever higher, but ever more slowly, like the series 1 +
½ + 1/3 + ¼ + …
—after a million terms this has not even reached 15, but it never does stop rising. When the news reached Russia, the great Lev Landau said with obscure Slavic wisdom, “A chicken is not a bird, and a logarithm is not infinity.” Weinberg 1977a, 30; Sakharov 1990, 84.

239 B
UT THEY DID NOT COINCIDE
: Bethe, interview.

240 K
RAMERS PROPOSED A METHOD
: Bethe had also talked with Schwinger and Weis-skopf, both of whom had suggested forms of renormalization.

240 D
YSON COULD SEE
: Dyson, interview.

241
ONE-MAN PERCUSSION BAND
: Dyson to parents, 19 November 1947.

241 D
ID YOU KNOW THERE ARE TWICE AS MANY NUMBERS
: Henry Bethe to Gweneth, 17 February 1988, in WDY, 101.

241 F
OR A WHILE, BECAUSE FEYNMAN
: Dyson, interview. 241
HALF GENIUS AND HALF BUFFOON
: Dyson to parents, 8 March 1948.

241 F
EYNMAN IS A MAN WHOSE IDEAS
: Dyson to parents, 15 March 1948.

242
THE THOUGHT THAT THE LAWS OF THE MACROCOSMOS
: Quoted in Miller 1984, 129.

242 W
E ARE THEREFORE OBLIGED TO BE MODEST
: Bohr 1922, 338.

242 J
UST IMAGINE THE ROTATING ELECTRON
: Quoted in Miller 1984, 143.

242 I
UNDERSTAND THAT WHEN AN ATOM
: WDY, 18–19.

244 I
T IS WRONG TO THINK THAT THE TASK
: Quoted in Gregory 1988, 185.

244 F
EYNMAN SAID TO
D
YSON
: Dyson 1979, 62.

244 A C
ORNELL DORMITORY NEIGHBOR
: Theodore Schultz, interview, Yorktown Heights, NY.

244 S
PACE IS A SWARMING IN THE EYES
: Pencil note, CIT. Vladimir Nabokov,
Pale Fire
(New York: Vintage, 1990), 40.

244 W
HAT
I
AM REALLY TRYING TO DO
: F-Sch.

245 W
HEN
I
START DESCRIBING
: Lectures, II-20–3.

245 A
T ANY RATE DIAGRAMS HAD BEEN RARE
: See Miller 1984.

246 W
HEN HE FINALLY DID
: Feynman 1948a.

247 H
E STATED THE CENTRAL PRINCIPLE
: Ibid., 367.

249
THE EDITORS NOW REJECTED THIS PAPER
: Feynman and several other people recalled this, although the journal has no record of it. E.g., F-W, 485; Baranger, interview.

249 T
HERE IS A PLEASURE
: Feynman 1948a, 367.

249 H
E LATER FELT THAT HE WAS BETTER KNOWN
: Kac 1985, 115–16.

250 T
HE ELECTRON DOES ANYTHING
: Quoted by Dyson in “Comment on the Topic ‘Beyond the Black Hole,’” in Woolf 1980, 376.

250 F
EYNMAN FELT THAT HE HAD UNCOVERED
: Feynman 1948a, 377–78.

250
THE TREACHEROUSLY INNOCENT EXERCISES
: See QED.

251
SEMIEMPIRICAL SHENANIGANS
: NL, 451; F-W, 459.

251 H
E PROMISED BETHE AN ANSWER
: NL, 449; F-W, 459.

251 W
HEN FEYNMAN HEARD LATE IN THE FALL
: F-W, 462 f.

251 G
OD IS GREAT
: Rabi to Bethe, 2 December 1947, and Bethe to Rabi, 4 December 1947, BET. Quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

252
THE
S
CHWINCER
-W
EISSKOPF
-B
ETHE CAMP
: Feynman to Corbens, 20 March 1948, CIT.

252 H
IS LECTURE DREW A CROWD
: “The Prodigy Who Grew,”
Newsweek,
23 February 1948, 45–46; William L. Laurence, “New Guide Offered on Atom Research,”
New York Times
, 1 February 1948; Stephen White, “Physics Society Hears Theory of Electron Action,” New
York Herald Tribune,
1 February 1948, 51.

252 I
DID IT TOO
, D
ADDY
: F-W, 463–64.

252 I’
M SO SORRY
: Rose McSherry to Feynman, 21 January, 1948, PERS.

253 M
ONTHS PASSED BEFORE
F
EYNMAN CALLED
: Feynman formally acknowledged the error in a footnote to a paper published the next year; he juggled the footnotes so that the apology would fall in number 13: “That the result… was in error was repeatedly pointed out to the author, in private communication, by V. F. Weisskopf and J. B. French…. The author feels unhappily responsible for the very considerable delay in the publication of French’s result occasioned by this error.” Feynman 1949b, 777; Weisskopf, interview; Weisskopf 1991, 168.

253 A
HOLE IF THERE WERE ONE
: Dirac in
Proceedings of the Royal Society of London
A 133(1931):60.

253 S
UPPOSE A BLACK THREAD
: Feynman 1948
f
2–3.

254 A C
ORNELL STUDENT WHO HAD SERVED
: Schweber 1986a, 488.

254 A
BOMBARDIER WATCHING A SINGLE ROAD
: Feynman 1948
f
, 4; cf. Feynman 1949a, 749.

254
HE KNEW FROM HIS OLD WORK
: Feynman 1947, 1.

255 U
SUAL THEORY SAYS NO
: Ibid., 4.

255 I
T MAY PROVE USEFUL IN PHYSICS
: Ibid.

256 F
EYNMAN GLEEFULLY SAID
: Marshak, interview. Instead these mesons were named muon and pion, after Greek letters.

256 A
S THE
P
OCONO MEETING OPENED
: Wheeler 1948.

256
EACH SMALL VOLUME OF SPACE
: Ibid.

257 S
CHWINGER HATED THIS
: Schwinger, interview.

257 B
ETHE NOTICED THAT THE FORMAL MATHEMATICS
: F-W, 469; Bethe, interview.

257 F
ERMI, GLANCING ABOUT
: Segrè 1970, 174.

257 T
HIS IS A MATHEMATICAL FORMULA
: F-W, 470.

258 H
E THOUGHT IT INTELLECTUALLY REPULSIVE
: Schwinger, interview.

258 B
OHR
H
AS
R
AISED
T
HE
Q
UESTION
: Wheeler 1948.

258 B
OHR CONTINUED FOR LONG MINUTES
: F-W, 473; cf. Pais 1986, 459, but this conflates Teller’s and Bohr’s objections.

258 I
HAD TOO MUCH STUFF
: F-Sch.

258 O
N HIS FIRST DAY BACK
: Arthur Wightman, interview, Princeton, N.J.

259
YOU CAN IMAGINE THAT I WAS HIGHLY PLEASED
: Quoted in Schweber, forthcoming. 259
ANONYMOUSLY, HE HOPED
: Feynman 1948e, 9.

259 A
MAJOR PORTION OF THE CONFERENCE
: Ibid., 5.

259 W
HEN
S
CHWINGER SAW
F
EYNMAN’S NAME
: Schwinger 1983, 342.

260 T
OMONAGA, A NATIVE OF TOKYO
: Tomonaga 1966, 127–29.

260 A
FTER SUPPER
I
TOOK UP MY PHYSICS
: Quoted in Julian Schwinger, ‘Two Shakers of Physics,” in Brown and Hoddeson 1983, 357–58.

260 H
E MADE A HOME
: Schweber, forthcoming.

261 J
UST BECAUSE WE WERE ABLE
: Oppenheimer to Members of the Pocono Conference, 5 April 1948, OPP.

261 O
THER PEOPLE PUBLISH TO SHOW HOW
: Dyson 1965a, 428.

261 S
CHWINGER OCCASIONALLY HEARD
: Schwinger 1983, 341.

261 I
GATHER I STAND ACCUSED
: Ibid.

261 A
RE WE TALKING ABOUT PARTICLES
: Schwinger, interview.

262 Y
OUR SUDDEN DEPARTURE FROM ITHACA
: Lloyd P. Smith to Feynman, 13 June 1947, CIT.

263 F
EYNMAN THOUGHT
D
YSON
: WDY, 65.

263 D
YSON LIKED THE ROLE
: Dyson to parents, 25 June 1948.

263 H
E HAD DECIDED THAT MODERN
A
MERICA
: Dyson to parents, 14 June 1948.

263
AN ATOMIC BLAST ON
E
AST
20
TH
S
TREET
: Morrison 1946; SYJ, 118.

264 D
YSON SUDDENLY FELT THAT FEYNMAN
: Dyson 1979, 59; Dyson to parents, 25 June 1948.

264 A
S WE DROVE THROUGH
C
LEVELAND
: Dyson 1979, 60–61.

264 S
OMETIMES IT OCCURRED TO HIM
: F-W, 532.

264 D
YSON HAD NEVER SEEN RAIN
: Dyson 1979, 59.

264 T
HE CAR RADIO REPORTED
: Dyson to parents, 25 June 1948.

264 T
HIS HOTEL IS UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT
: WDY, 65.

265 I
N THAT LITTLE ROOM
: Dyson 1979, 59.

265 T
HE ROOM WAS FAIRLY CLEAN
: WDY, 66. Dyson, far from taking offense, merely commented that he had left out “the best part of the story.” Dyson 1989, 38.

266 T
HAT STORMY NIGHT IN OUR LITTLE ROOM
: Dyson 1979, 63.

266 O
N
W
EDNESDAY
O
PPENHEIMER RETURNS
: Dyson to parents, 10 October 1948, quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

267 T
HERE WASN’T ENOUGH ROOM
: Leonard Eyges to Dyson, quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

267
A UNIFIED DEVELOPMENT OF THE SUBJECT
: Dyson 1949a, 486.

267 T
HERE IS THE
F
ATHER INCOMPREHENSIBLE
: Dyson 1989, 35–36.

267
ANY MODERATELY INTELLIGIBLE ACCOUNT
: Dyson to parents, 4 October 1948.

267 S
O THE RESULT OF ALL THIS
: Ibid.

268
THEIR EVALUATION GIVES RISE
: Dyson 1949a, 491.

268
WRITE DOWN THE MATRIX ELEMENTS
: Ibid., 495.

268 I
T WAS
“S
CHWINGER’S THEORY"
: Oppenheimer 1948.

269 D
EAR
F
REEMAN
: I
HOPE YOU DID NOT GO BRAGGING
: Feynman to Dyson, 29 October 1948, CIT.

270 W
ELL
, D
OC, YOU’RE IN
: Dyson to parents, quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

270 F
EYNMAN HAD NOT LEARNED
: NL, 452.

271
HE BUTTONHOLED
S
LOTNICK
: F-W, 489–92.; NL, 452; F-Sch; Schweber, forthcoming.

271 W
HAT ABOUT
S
LOTNICK’S CALCULATION?
: Later Case sent Feynman his manuscript, and Feynman found an algebraic error that undermined the proof. F-W, 495–96.

271 T
HERE WERE VISIONS AT LARGE
: Schwinger 1983, 343.

272 T
HE REST MASS PARTICLES HAVE
: Feynman 1948b, 943.

272 F
EYNMAN AND
I
REALLY UNDERSTAND EACH OTHER
: Dyson to parents, 1 November 1948.

272 F
EYNMAN’S STUDENTS, HOWEVER, SOMETIMES NOTICED
: Baranger, interview.

272 H
E HAD STARTED HEARING ABOUT
D
YSON GRAPHS
: Cf. F-W, 501.

272 W
ENTZEL HIMSELF
: Crease and Mann 1986, 143.

273 F
EYNMAN STRESSED HOW FREE
: Feynman 1949b, 773.

275 F
OR A WHILE IT WAS ALL
S
CHWINGER
: F-W, 499.

275 I
N THE SUMMER OF
1950: J. Ashkin, T. Auerbach, and R. Marshak, “Notes on a Possible Annihilation Process for Negative Protons,”
Physical
Review 79(1950):266.

275
A TECHNIQUE DUE TO
F
EYNMAN
: K. A. Brueckner, “The Production of Mesons by Photons,”
Physical Review
79(1950):641.

275 T
HE UNREASONABLE POWER OF THE DIAGRAMS
: Segrè 1980, 274.

276 L
IKE THE SILICON CHIP
: Schwinger 1983, 343. 276
PEDAGOGY, NOT PHYSICS
: Ibid., 347.

276 Y
ES, ONE CAN ANALYZE EXPERIENCE
: Ibid., 343.

277 A
LTHOUGH ‘ONE’ IS NOT PERFECTLY
: Bernstein 1987, 63.

277 T
HEY ALSO WORRIED ABOUT SCHWINCER’S ABILITY
: Sheldon Glashow, interview, Cambridge, Mass.

277 M
URRAY
G
ELL
-M
ANN LATER SPENT A SEMESTER
: Murray Gell-Mann, interviews, Pasadena and Chicago.

278 T
HERE WAS A NEW NOTE
: E.g., Virginia Prewett, “I Homesteaded in Brazil,”
Saturday Evening Post,
22 April 1950, 10, began, “It’s going to be the first atomic-bomb shelter in the New World.” Cf. F-W, 551.

278
AT LEAST A 40 PERCENT CHANCE OF WAR
: Wheeler to Feynman, 29 March 1951, CIT.

278 W
HEN A
B
RAZILIAN PHYSICIST
: Lopes 1988; J. Leite Lopes, personal communication.

278 L
ATE THE NEXT WINTER HE IMPULSIVELY ASKED
: Jayme Tiomno to Feynman, 6 March 1950, PERS. The Brazilians replied that a one-year appointment was the best they could offer at the time.