Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman - James Gleick (1993)

EPILOGUE

ABBREVIATIONS

AIP: Niels Bohr Library, Center for the History of Physics, American Institute of Physics.

BET: H. A. Bethe papers, Cornell University.

CIT: California Institute of Technology Archives.

CPL: The Character of Physical Law.

F-H: Interview with Lillian Hoddeson and Gordon Baym, 16 April 1979. LANL.

F-L: Interviews with Ralph Leighton. Tapes courtesy of Leighton.

F-Sch: Interview with Silvan S. Schweber, 13 November 1988. Tape courtesy of Schweber.

F-Sy: Interview with Christopher Sykes, recorded in preparation for The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, BBC-TV, 1981. Tape courtesy of Sykes.

F-W: Interviews with Charles Werner, 4 March 1966, 27-28 June 1966, and 4 February 1973. AIP.

FOI: Feynman’s FBI files and documents from other federal agencies, obtained through the Freedom of Information Act.

LANL: Los Alamos National Laboratory Archives.

Lectures: The Feynman Lectures on Physics.

LOC: Library of Congress.

MIT: Massachusetts Institute of Technology Libraries.

NL: “The Development of the Space-Time View of Quantum Electrodynamics.” Nobel lecture (Feynman 1965a; cf. Feynman 1965b and 1965c). For convenience, page numbers refer to the Weaver 1987 reprint.

OPP: J. R. Oppenheimer papers. LOC.

PERS: Personal papers obtained by the author.

PUL: Princeton University Libraries.

QED: QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.

SMY: H. D. Smyth papers, American Philosophical Society.

SYJ: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!

WDY: What Do You Care What Other People Think?

WHE: J. A. Wheeler papers, American Philosophical Society.

PROLOGUE

The account of the Pocono meeting is based on interviews with several of the participants (Hans Bethe, Robert Marshak, Abraham Pais, Julian Schwinger, Victor Weisskopf, and John Archibald Wheeler), on Feynman’s account in Physics Today (Feynman 1948d) and his recollections in F-W, on Wheeler’s handwritten and mimeographed notes (Wheeler 1948), on correspondence in the J. R. Oppenheimer papers, on historical essays by Silvan S. Schweber (1985 and forthcoming), and on my visit to the site.

3 NOTHING IS CERTAIN: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 9 May 1945, PERS.

3 IT GNAWED AT HIM: Feynman 1975, 132.

3 WOMEN SIDLED AWAY: AIP, 423.

3 HALF GENIUS AND HALF BUFFOON: Freeman Dyson to his parents, 8 March 1948; Dyson, interview, Princeton, N.J.

4 NO TRANSCRIPT: John Archibald Wheeler made and later circulated several dozen pages of handwritten notes, however (Wheeler 1948).

5 PRINCIPLES: “Addresses,” notebook, PERS.

6 THE MOST BRILLIANT YOUNG PHYSICIST: “He is by all odds the most brilliant young physicist here, and everyone knows this.” Smith and Weiner 1980, 268.

6 THE KEY EQUATION: Hans Bethe, interview, Ithaca, N.Y.

6 TWISTING A CONTROL KNOB: Victor Weisskopf had brought the trains from Russia. “He played the following game. The guy with the switches has to avoid an accident and the other one has to produce an accident. It was the most nervewracking game you can imagine, and Dick was absolutely into it. It didn’t matter which role he played.” Weisskopf, interview, Cambridge, Mass.

6 WHAT ABOUT THE EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE?: F-W, 471.

7 IS IT UNITARY?: Ibid., 472.

7 THIS WONDERFUL VISION OF THE WORLD: Dyson 1979, 62.

7 THANK GOD: W.H. Auden, “After Reading a Child’s Guide to Modern Physics,” Selected Poetry of W. H. Auden (New York: Vintage, 1971), 214.

7 A POEM FEYNMAN DETESTED: Feynman to Mrs. Robert Weiner, 24 October 1967, CIT. Auden wrote, “This passion of our kind/For the process of finding out/Is a fact one can hardly doubt”—and Feynman resented his adding, “But I would rejoice in it more/If I knew more clearly what/We wanted the knowledge for.” Feynman said: “We want it so we can love Nature more… . A modern poet is directly confessing not understanding the emotional value of knowledge of nature.”

9 WE PUT OUR FOOT IN A SWAMP: Albert R. Hibbs, interview, Pasadena, Calif.

9 A LITTLE BIZARRE: Snow 1981, 142-43.

10 A SHALLOW WAY TO JUDGE: Morrison 1988, 42.

10 WE GOT THE INDELIBLE IMPRESSION: David Park, personal communication.

10 DICK COULD GET AWAY WITH A LOT: Sidney Coleman, interview, Cambridge, Mass.

10 FEYNMAN TRIED TO STAND ON HIS OWN: Kac 1985, 116.

10 THERE ARE TWO KINDS OF GENIUSES: Ibid., XXV.

11 ANGERED HIS FAMILY: E.g., Gweneth Feynman, interview, Altadena, Calif.; Gell-Mann 1989a, 50.

11 HE’S NO FEYNMAN, BUT: Morrison 1988, 42.

12 A HALF-SERIOUS DEBATE: Coleman, interview.

12 BOOK II, CHAPTER 41, VERSE 6: D. Goodstein 1989, 75.

13 PHILOSOPHERS ARE ALWAYS ON THE OUTSIDE: CPL, 173.

13 IT HAS NOT YET BECOME OBVIOUS: Feynman 1982, 471.

13 DO NOT KEEP SAYING TO YOURSELF: CPL, 129

13 NATURE USES ONLY THE LONGEST THREADS: Ibid., 34; draft, PERS.

15 AN OFFICIAL SECRECY ORDER: U. S. Department of Commerce Rescinding Order, 7 January 1966, CIT.

15 HE DID THE TRAINING IN STAGES: Ralph Leighton, interview, Pasadena.

16 A TWO-HANDED POLYRHYTHM: Theodore Schultz, interview, Yorktown Heights, N.Y.

16 AN HONEST MAN: Schwinger 1989, 48.

FAR ROCKAWAY

Family members and childhood friends provided recollections and copies of correspondence from the 1920s and 1930s: Joan Feynman, Frances Lewine, Jules Greenbaum (Arline Greenbaum’s brother), Leonard Mautner, Jerry Bishop, Mary D. Lee, and Novera H. Spector. Far Rockaway High School and the Brooklyn Historical Society had records, school newspapers, Chamber of Commerce publications, and other useful documents from the period. Sali Ann Kriegsman and Charles Weiner kindly shared transcripts of oral-history interviews they had conducted with Lucille Feynman.

18 HE ASSEMBLED A CRYSTAL SET: F-W, 35.

18 WHEN ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS WERE RIGHT: SYJ, 5.

18 EINSTEIN WAS SHOWING: Einstein 1909.

18 IT SEEMS THAT THE AETHER: Weyl 1922, 172.

19 “THE SHADOW” and “UNCLE DON”: F-W, 35.

19 A COIL SALVAGED FROM A FORD: SYJ, 4.

19 STANDARD EMERGENCY PROCEDURE: Frances Lewine, interview, Washington, D.C., and Far Rockaway.

19 DANGLING HIS METAL WASTEBASKET: Lucille Feynman to Feynman, 8 August 1945, PERS.

19 HIS SISTER, JOAN: Joan Feynman, interview, Pasadena.

20 RICHARD WALKED TO THE LIBRARY: Feynman, interview conducted by Sali Ann Kriegsman, 27 October 1975.

21 WHEN I WAS A CHILD: Kazin 1951, 8-10.

21 IT SOMETIMES SEEMED THAT THE THINGS NEAR THE SEA: Feynman-Kriegsman.

21 SOMETIMES FELT GAWKY: Evelyn Frank, interview, Marina del Rey, Calif.

22 IF WE STAND ON THE SHORE: Lectures, II-2-1.

22 IS THE SAND OTHER THAN THE ROCKS?: Ibid.

22 WHEN FEYNMAN RETURNED: Gweneth Feynman, interview, Altadena; Feynman-Kriegsman.

22 THOSE LITTLE HATS THAT THEY WEAR: Feynman-Kriegsman.

23 THAT WAS THE WAY THE WORLD WAS: Ibid.

24 LUCILLE WAS THE DAUGHTER: Lucille Feynman, interview conducted by Charles Weiner, MIT Oral History Program, 4 February 1981.

25 DON’T GET MARRIED: Ibid.

25 DON’T COUNT YOUR CHICKENS: Ibid.

25 BEFORE 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 HER MOTHER SUFFERED: Joan Feynman, interview.

26 WITήIN DAYS THE BABY: Ibid.

26 A BIRTH CERTIFICATE AND A HAT: Ibid.

26 SOME EVENINGS THE ADULTS: Lewine, interview.

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

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

27 RITT? WIRED HIS LABORATORY: F-W, 35-37.

27 IT 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 WHEN A CHILD DOES SOMETHING: Ibid.

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

28 SEE THAT BIRD?: WDY, 13-14.

29 “THAT,” 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 IT’S A WAY OF DOING PROBLEMS: F-W, 15.

30 JOANIE, IF 2x: Joan Feynman-Weiner.

30 ALGEBRA 2, TAUGHT BY MISS MOORE: Leonard Mautner, interview. Pacific Palisades, Calif.

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

30 AN INTELLECTUAL DESERT: F-W, 39

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

30 ALL FEYNMAN REMEMBERED: Ibid., 38

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

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

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

32 THE SIGHT OF A BALL: WDY, 24.

32 ANXIETY WOULD STRIKE: Ibid., 21.

32 HIS FIRST CHEMISTRY SET: F-W, 33

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

32 IN 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 1965d, 12.

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

34 TWO CHILDREN IN HIGH SCHOOL: F-W, 63; Mautner, interview.

36 MR. AUGSBURY ABDICATED: Harold I. Lief to Ralph Leighton, 10 December 1988.

36 MAD GENIUS: The Dolphin, Far Rockaway High School, June 1935.

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

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

37 ALL 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 MATTER IS UNCHANGEABLE: Boscovitch 1922, 36; Park 1988, 200-201.

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

40 WE 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 FOR THE OCCASION: Joan Feynman-Weiner, 28-29.

40 KNOWLEDGE IS POWER: F-W, 78.

41 NEW YORK IN 1982: Chase 1932, 13.

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

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

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

42 LIGHTS ALL ASKEW IN THE HEAVENS: New York Times, 9 November 1919, quoted in Pais 1982, 309.

42 A SERIES OF EDITORIALS: Pais 1982, 309.

42 MORE THAN ONE HUNDRED BOOKS: Clark 1971, 247.

42 TRANSMITTED BY UNDERWATER CABLE: Kevles 1987, 175.

42 WE HAVE EINSTEIN’S SPACE: Quoted in Clark 1971, 242.

44 THERE 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 MINNEAPOLIS: Quoted in Kevles 1987, 168.

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

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

45 ONE HORRIBLY RUDE BOY: Ibid., 118

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

46 WITH THE COMING OF THE DEPRESSION: Joan Feynman-Weiner.

46 TO THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM: Ibid., 31—32.

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

46 HE REWIRED A PLUG: F-W, 105-7.

46 HE FIXES RADIOS BY THINKING!: SYJ, 3.

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

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

47 IF A BOY NAMED MORRIE JACOBS: Feynman to Morris Jacobs, 27 January 1987, CIT.

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

48 SCHWINGER KNEW HOW TO FIND BOOKS: Schweber, forthcoming. 48 THE PHYSICAL REVIEW: Kevles 1987, 218.

48 THAT 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 IN THAT CASE YOU ARE COMPLETELY LOST: Heisenberg 1971, 15-16.

52 THE AMERICAN MIND: Menge 1932, 11.

53 FEYNMAN CHANCED: F-W, 131.

53 BUT THE DEPRESSION 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 HE HAD BEEN ONE OF THE YOUNG AMERICANS: Slater 1975, 131.

53 SLATER KEPT MAKING MINOR DISCOVERIES: Ibid., 130-35.

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

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

56 WHY DON’T YOU TRY BERNOULLI’S: F-W, 136

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

56 MR. FEYNMAN, 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 OUR FRIEND DIRAC, TOO: Quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

58 THERE CANNOT BE ANY ATOMS: Descartes 1955, 264.

59 AT THE SAME TIME: Ibid., 299.

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

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

61 SEEMED TO FEYNMAN A MIRACLE: Ibid., II-19-2.

61 IT SEEMS TO KNOW: Gregory 1988, 32-33.

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

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

61 PARK PHRASED THE QUESTION: Park 1988, 252.

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

62 BUT AFTER THEY HAVE CONQUERED: Ibid.

62 ONE ENJOYED A WOOING PROCESS: SYJ, 17.

62 THEIR FRATERNITY BROTHERS DROVE FEYNMAN: SYJ, 19; F-W, 200-201.

63 OPPORTUNITIES TO HARASS FRESHMEN: Daniel Robbins, telephone interview.

63 THE SECOND AND THIRD FLOORS: Maurice A. Meyer, telephone interview.

63 SO WORRIED ABOUT THE OTHER SEX: SYJ, 18.

63 COURSE NOTES TO BE HANDED DOWN: Michael Oppenheimer, interview, New York.

64 DICK FELT HE GOT A GOOD BARGAIN: SYJ, 18.

64 LONG HOURS AT THE RAYMORE-PLAYMORE: Robbins, interview.

64 THE FEYNMANS LET HER PAINT A PARROT: Lewine, interview.

64 SPARED DICK THE NECESSITY: SYJ, 18.

64 ARLINE WATCHED UNHAPPILY: Meyer, interview.

64 HIS SECOND PROPOSAL OF MARRIAGE: F-W, 302 and 122.

65 THE IMPORTANCE OF SCIENCE IN AVIATION: WDY, 31.

65 AT ONE OF THE FATEFUL MOMENTS: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 9 August 1945, PERS; Weisskopf, interview.

66 THE INSTITUTE JUSTIFIED: F-W, 164 66 A PAIN IN THE NECK: Ibid.

66 IN ONE COURSE HE RESORTED: He admitted it thirty years later, embarrassed—“I lost my moral sense for a while”—to a scholar taking oral history for a science archive. F-W, 164.

66 WHY DIDN’T THE ENGLISH PROFESSORS: Ibid, 165.

66 HE READ JOHN STUART MILL’S: F-L; SYJ, 30.

66 HE READ THOMAS HUXLEY’S: F-W, 170-73.

66 MEANWHILE IN PHYSICS ITSELF: “Subjects taken in physics at Mass. Institute of Technology,” typescript, PUL.

67 WHOM ARLINE WAS READING: F-W, 165-66.

67 HE KNEW ALL ABOUT IMPERFECTION: WDY, 29.

67 PEOPLE LIKE DESCARTES WERE STUPID: F-W, 166.

67 HE TOOK A STRIP OF PAPER: WDY, 29-30.

68 IN THE DISCOVERY OF SECRET THINGS: Gilbert, De Magnete (1600). 68 LIKE A PRIME MINISTER: F-W, 167.

68 THE PRAGMATIC SLATER: Schweber 1989, 58.

68 NOT FROM POSITIONS OF PHILOSOPHERS: Harvey, De Motu Cordis et Sanguinis (1628).

68 UP IN HIS ROOM: F-W, 169-70.

69 I WONDER WHY I WONDER WHY: Ibid., 170; F-L (SYJ, 33).

69 A DISMAYED, DISORIENTED MOMENT: F-L.

70 HE DID DEVELOP A RUDIMENTARY THEORY: SYJ, 36.

70 HE SAT THROUGH LECTURES: Ibid., 32.

70 SO MUCH STUFF IN THERE: F-W, 166.

70 SPACE OF ITSELF AND TIME OF ITSELF: Quoted by Feynman in Lectures, I-17-8.

72 A SMALL FABLE: Dirac 1971.

72 MY WHOLE EFFORT IS TO DESTROY: Quoted in Park 1988, 318.

73 OF COURSE QUITE ABSURD: DiraC 1971, 41.

74 DURING A LATE EROTIC OUTBURST: Pais 1986, 251-52.

74 THEY FILLED A NOTEBOOK: Feynman and Welton 1936-37.

74 JUST AS SCHRÖDINGER HAD DONE: F-W, 146

76 BOTH BOYS WERE WORRYING: Feynman and Welton 1936-37; F-W, 141.

76 WELTON WOULD SET TO WORK: F-W, 210-11.

77 THE CHUG-CHUG-DING-DING: Welton 1983; Welton, interview; F-W, 142-44.

77 THEY WORKED OUT FASTER METHODS: F-W, 152-53.

77 ALL I’VE DONE IS TAKE: Quoted in “Bright Flashes from a Mind of Marvel,” Washington Post, 6 January 1990.

78 UTTER CERTAINTY: Heisenberg 1971, 11.

78 MORE THAN THAT OF ALL MANKIND: Ibid., 10.

78 FEYNMAN WANTED TO BE A SHOP MAN: F-W, 154-56; F-L.

79 ENRICO FERMI MADE HIS OWN: Segrè 1980, 204-6; Rhodes 1987, 210-12.

79 UNEXPECTEDLY, THE SLOW NEUTRONS: Enrico Fermi, “Artificial Radioactivity Produced by Neutron Bombardment,” in Weaver 1987, 2:74.

79 FEYNMAN AND WELTON, JUNIORS: F-W, 162.

80 THERE WAS JUST ONE ESSENTIAL TEXT: Bethe et al. 1986.

80 THAT CLOUDS SCATTERED SUNLIGHT: F-W, 176.

81 IT CAME JUST ONE STEP PAST: Lectures, I-32-8.

81 ONE FOGGY DAY: F-W, 176.

82 FEYNMAN’S FIRST PUBLISHED WORK: Vallarta and Feynman 1939.

82 A PROVOCATIVE AND CLEVER IDEA: “Suppose we consider a particle sent into an element of volume dV of scattering matter in a direction given by the vector R. Let the probability of emerging in the direction R’ be given by a scattering function f(R,R’) per unit solid angle. Conversely a particle entering in the direction R’ will have a probability f(R’,R) of emerging in the direction R. Let us assume that the scatterer (magnetic field of the star) has the reciprocal property so that f(R,R’) = f(R’, R). In our case the property is satisfied provided the particle’s sign is reversed at the same time as its direction of motion. That is, the probability of electrons going by any route is equal to the probability of positrons going by the reverse route….” Ibid.

82 SUCH AN EFFECT IS NOT TO BE EXPECTED: Heisenberg 1946, 180.

82 YOU’RE THE LAST WORD: F-W, 178.

82 HE CAUGHT ONE CLASSMATE: Monarch L. Cutler, telephone interview and personal communication; F-W, 179; Cutler, “Reflection of Light from Multi-Layer Films,” senior thesis, MIT, 1939. The professors were Hawley C. Cartwright and Arthur F. Turner.

83 THE PUTNAM COMPETITION: Joseph Callian, Andrew Gleason, telephone interview.

83 ONE OF FEYNMAN’S FRATERNITY BROTHERS: Robbins, interview.

83 FEYNMAN LEARNED LATER: F-W, 191.

83 HIS FIRST THOUGHT HAD BEEN TO REMAIN: Ibid., 193-94.

83 PRACTICALLY PERFECT: John C. Slater to Dean of Graduate School, Princeton, 12 January 1939, PUL. 83 THE BEST UNDERGRADUATE STUDENT: Philip Morse to H. D. Smyth, 12 January 1939, PUL.

83 DIAMOND IN THE ROUGH: Wheeler 1989.

84 HAD NEVER BEFORE ADMITTED: Ibid.

84 THE PHYSICS SCORE WAS PERFECT: Individual Report of the Graduate Record Examination: Feynman, Richard P., 1939, PERS. Besides achieving a perfect physics result, he scored high in the 99th percentile in mathematics; on the other hand, 69 percent of those taking the test outscored him in verbal skills, 85 percent in literature, and 93 percent in fine arts.

Feynman also applied to the University of California at Berkeley; the department there made it clear that he would be accepted but approved him only as the eighth alternate for a $650-a-year fellowship. Robert Sproul to Feynman, 30 March 1939, and Raymond T. Birge to Feynman, 1 June 1939, PERS.

84 IS FEYNMAN JEWISH?: H. D. Smyth to Philip Morse, 17 January 1939, MIT.

84 FEYNMAN OF COURSE IS JEWISH: Slater to Smyth, 7 March 1939, PUL.

84 PHYSIOGNOMY AND MANNER, HOWEVER: Morse to Smyth, 18 January 1939, MIT. Princeton was persuaded. Smyth later heard about Feynman’s success in the Putnam competition and wrote: “My colleagues keep insisting that Feynman is not coming here next year because he took an examination and won a prize fellowship at Harvard. My position is that as long as I have his acceptance and no further word from him he is coming here even if he has been offered the presidency of Harvard.” Smyth to Morse, 8 June 1939, MIT.

85 WE KNOW PERFECTLY WELL: Quoted in Silberman 1985, 90.

85 THEY TOOK OBVIOUS PRIDE: Francis Russell, “The Coming of the Jews,” quoted in Steinberg 1971, 71.

85 BECAUSE, BROTHER, HE IS BURNING: Thomas Wolfe, You Can’t Co Home Again (New York: Dell, 1960), 462. Quoted in Kevles 1987, 279.

85 IT WAS ALSO UNDERSTOOD: Sopka 1980, 4:105.

85 NEW YORK JEWS FLOCKED OUT HERE: Davis 1968, 83.

85 A FRUSTRATED OPPENHEIMER: J. R. Oppenheimer to Raymond T. Birge, 4 November 1943, 26 May 1944, and 5 October 1944, in Smith and Weiner 1980, 268, 275, and 284.

85 IF FEYNMAN EVER SUSPECTED: Silberman 1985, 91-92; F-W, 198.

86 HALF A LINE: F-W, 182.

87 INSTEAD OF SPINNINC: Ibid., 180.

87 A SCIENCE OF MATERIALS: C. Smith 1981, 121-22.

87 MATTER IS A HOLOGRAPH OF ITSELF: Ibid., 122

88 AS FEYNMAN CONCEIVED THE STRUCTURE: Feynman 1939a and b.

90 IT IS TO BE EMPHASIZED: Feynman 1939a, 3; Conyers Herring, telephone interview.

90 HE COMPLAINED THAT FEYNMAN WROTE: Robbins interview.

90 SO HE WAS SURPRISED TO HEAR: F-W, 186. Slater, in his textbooks, preferred “Feynman’s theorem” as late as 1963, though he had found that a German, H. Hellmann, had made the same discovery two years earlier. Slater 1963, 12-13; H. Hellmann, Einführung in die Quantenchemie (Leipzig: Deuticke, 1937).

91 THAT’S ALL I REMEMBER OF IT: F-W, 196.

91 IT SEEMED TO SOME THAT SLATER: Silvan S. Schweber, interview, Cambridge, Mass.

91 MY SON RICHARD IS FINISHING: Morse 1977, 125-26.

91 MORSE TRIED NOT TO LAUGH: Ibid. Although Morse did not say so, part of Melville’s concern was whether anti-Semitism would block a career in physics; he expressed this in a similar conversation with John Wheeler a few years later (Wheeler 1989).

PRINCETON

Wheeler and many of his later students gave me some understanding of the relationship between Wheeler and Feynman. Wheeler 1979a and Klauder 1972 are sources of recollections. Wheeler shared the draft of his talk for a 1989 memorial session (Wheeler 1989). H. H. Barschall, Leonard Eisenbud, Simeon Hutner, Paul Olum, Leo Lavatelli, and Edward Maisel provided recollections of Feynman and the Princeton of the late thirties and early forties. John Tukey and Martin Gardner illuminated the history of Hexagons. Robert R. Wilson discussed the isotron project and Feynman’s initiation into the Manhattan Project, as well as much later history. The declassified documentary record of the isotron project, including a series of technical papers by Feynman, is in the Smyth papers at the American Philosophical Society.

93 A BLACK HOLE HAS NO HAIR: Wheeler and Ruffini 1971.

93 THERE IS NO LAW EXCEPT THE LAW: In Mehra 1973, 242.

93 I ALWAYS KEEP TWO LEGS GOING: John Archibald Wheeler, interview, Princeton, N.J.

93 IN ANY FIELD FIND THE STRANGEST THING: Boslough 1986, 109.

93 INDIVIDUAL EVENTS: Quoted in Dyson 1980, 54. As Dyson says, “It sounds like Beowulf, but it is authentic Wheeler.”

94 SOMEWHERE AMONG THOSE POLITE FAÇADES: In Steuwer 1979, 214-15.

94 WHEN HE WAS A BOY: Bernstein 1985, 29; Wheeler 1979a, 221.

94 SLATER AND COMPTON PREFERRED: Slater 1975, 170-71.

94 WHEELER STILL REMEMBERED: Wheeler 1979a, 224.

94 WHEN WHEELER MET HIS SHIP: Ibid., 272.

95 IT WAS THIS LAST IMAGE: Bohr and Wheeler 1939.

95 THEY SPENT A LATE NIGHT TRYING: Bernstein 1985, 38.

96 WHEELER SAID THAT HE WAS TOO BUSY: H. H. Barschall, telephone interview.

96 YOU LOOK LIKE YOU’RE GOING TO BE: F-W, 209; Leonard Eisenbud, telephone interview.

96 THE NEXT TIME FEYNMAN SAW BARSCHALL: Barschall, interview.

96 WHEELER’S POINTED DISPLAY: F-W, 194 and 215-16.

97 LAZY AND GOOD-LOOKING: Mizener 1949, 34 and 38.

97 A QUAINT CEREMONIOUS VILLAGE: Einstein to Queen Elizabeth of Belgium, 20 November 1933, quoted in Pais 1982, 453. 97 THE OBLIGATORY BLACK GOWNS: SYJ, 49.

97 WHEN THE MATHEMATICIAN CARL LUDWIG SIEGEL RETURNED: Dyson 1988b, 3.

97 SURELY YOU’RE JOKING: F-W, 209; SYJ, 48-49.

97 IT BOTHERED HIM THAT THE RAINCOAT: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 11 October 1939, PERS.

98 HE TRIED SCULLING: Ibid.

98 WHEN HE ENTERTAINED GUESTS: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, [?] October 1940, PERS.

98 HE EARNED FIFTEEN DOLLARS A WEEK: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 3 March 1940, PERS.

98 THEY LISTENED WITH AWE: Edward Maisel, telephone interview; cf. F-W, 254.

98 AS WHEELER’S TEACHING ASSISTANT: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 11 October 1939; Feynman notes on nuclear physics, H. H. Barschall papers, AIP.

99 IN CHOOSING A THEME: Schweber, forthcoming.

99 IT SEEMS THAT SOME ESSENTIALLY NEW: Dirac 1935, 297; NL, 434.

99 WILHELM RÖNTGEN, THE DISCOVERER OF X RAYS: Dresden 1987, 11.

100 EVEN NOW FEYNMAN DID NOT QUITE UNDERSTAND: F-W, 230.

100 HE PROPOSED—TO HIMSELF: NL, 434.

100 SHAKE THIS ONE: Ibid.

101 IT IS FELT TO BE MORE ACCEPTABLE: Bridgman 1952, 14-15.

102 THE TENSION IN THE MEMBRANE: Weinberg 1977a, 19.

102 WHEELER, TOO, HAD REASONS: Wheeler, interview.

102 HE ENJOYED TRYING TO GUESS: SYJ, 69-71.

103 ALTHOUGH HE TEASED THEM: F-L, for SYJ, 71.

104 “FLEXAGONS” LAUNCHED GARDNER’S CAREER: Gardner 1989; Albers and Alex-anderson 1985.

104 SIRS: I WAS QUITE TAKEN: Quoted in Gardner 1989, 13-14.

104 FEYNMAN SPENT SLOW AFTERNOONS: SYJ, 77.

105 DON’T BOTHER ME: F-L; WDY, 56.

105 HUMAN SPERMATOZOA: Maisel, interview.

105 THEY DECIDED THAT THEIR BRAINS: WDY, 55-57.

105 WE WERE INTERESTED AND HAPPY: John Tukey, interview, Princeton, N.J.

105 HE READ SOME POEMS ALOUD: Maisel interview.

105 RHYTHM IS ONE OF THE PRINCIPAL TRANSLATORS: “Some Notes on My Own Poetry,” in Sitwell 1987, 131.

105 WHILE A UNIVERSE GROWS IN MY HEAD: “Tattered Serenade,” in Sitwell 1943, 19.

106 IT’S CLEAR TO EVERYBODY AT FIRST SIGHT: F-L.

106 WHEELER WAS ASKED FOR HIS OWN VERDICT: SYJ, 51; Wheeler 1989, 2-3.

106 THE PALMER PHYSICAL LABORATORY: Princeton University Catalogue: General Issue, 1941-42. PUL.

107 PRINCETON’S GAVE FEYNMAN A SHOCK: SYJ, 49-50.

107 THE HEAD OF THE CYCLOTRON BANISHED FEYNMAN: Wheeler 1989, 3.

107 IT DOES NOT TURN AT ALL: A sound explanation—with a description of a safer experiment than Feynman’s—is in Mach 1960, 388-90. But physicists have never stopped arguing for either of the other answers, and there is an ongoing literature.

109 THERE IS NO SIGNBOARD: Eddington 1940, 68.

109 UNFORTUNATELY HE HAD MEANWHILE LEARNED: F-W, 233; NL, 435.

110 A BROADCASTING ANTENNA, RADIATING ENERGY: Cf. Feynman’s later discussion of radiation resistance, Lectures, I-32-1.

110 HE ASKED WHEELER: F-W, 233-34; NL, 436.

111 TIME DELAY HAD NOT BEEN A FEATURE: Wheeler and Feynman 1949, 426.

111 THE WAVES WERE NOW RETARDED: Lectures, I-28-2.

111 VIEWED IN CLOSE-UP: Morris 1984, 137.

112 SHAKE A CHARGE HERE: F-W, 237.

112 OH, WHADDYAMEAN, HOW COULD THAT BE?: Feynman 1965b.

112 THE WORK REQUIRED INTENSE CALCULATION: He wrote his parents in November: “… last week things were going fast & neat as all heck, but now I’m hitting some mathematical difficulties which I will either surmount, walk around, or go a different way—all of which consumes all my time—but I like to do very much & and am very happy indeed. I have never thought so much so steadily about one problem … I’m just beginning to see how far it is to the end & how we might get there (altho aforementioned mathematical difficulties loom ahead)— SOME FUN!” Feynman to Lucille Feynman, November 1940, PERS.

112 FOR THOSE WHO WERE SQUEAMISH: Feynman 1941a, fig. 3 caption.

112 THEN THE EFFECT OF THE SOURCE: Feynman 1948b, 941.

113 HE DESCRIBED IT TO HIS GRADUATE STUDENT FRIENDS: F-W, 237-38.

113 FOR EXAMPLE, COULD ONE DESIGN A MECHANISM: Wheeler and Feynman 1949, 426-27; Hesse 1961, 279.

113 AS LONG AS THE THEORY RELIED ON PROBABILITIES: Feynman 1941a, 20.

113 HE CONTINUED TO CHERISH A NOTION: Wheeler, oral-history interview, 17 November 1985, 12, AIP.

113 EARLY IN 1941 HE TOLD FEYNMAN: Cf. Recommendation of Richard Phillips Feynman for Appointment as Porter Ogden Jacobus Fellow for 1941-1942, PUL.

113 AS THE DAY APPROACHED: F-W, 242-44; SYJ, 64-66.

115 PAULI DID OBJECT: Wheeler 1989, 26. Much later Feynman said of Pauli’s objection: “It’s too bad that I cannot remember what, because the theory is not right and the gentleman may well have hit the nail right on the bazeeto.” F-W, 244. Pauli also presumably saw that the theory could not be quantized.

115 DON’T YOU AGREE, PROFESSOR EINSTEIN: F-W, 244.

115 HIS OWN EQUIVOCAL BALANCE SHEET: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 3 March 1940, PERS.

115 LECTURE HIS FRIENDS: Simeon Hutner, telephone interview.

116 HOURS WHEN I HAVEN’T MARKED DOWN: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, November 1940, PERS.

116 BEFORE REVEALING IT TO ARLINE: Paul Olurn, telephone interview.

116 SHE SENT HIM A BOX OF PENCILS: WDY, 43-44.

116 IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE THINGS I DO: Arline Greenbaum to Feynman, n.d., PERS.

117 THIS STYLE OF TREATMENT: Teller 1988, 97.

117 AN OLD FRATERNITY FRIEND PICKED HER UP: Robbins, interview.

117 HE CERTAINLY BELIEVES IN PHYSICAL SOCIETY: Ibid.

117 STILL, HE WORRIED: F-W, 252-53; Feynman 1941a is the manuscript on which he based the talk. Feynman and Wheeler 1941 is the published abstract.

117 THE ACCELERATION OF A POINT CHARGE: Feynman 1941a.

118 WHEELER NEEDED LITTLE ENCOURAGEMENT: Feynman (F-W, 243) thought the visit to Einstein “probably” came before his lecture; Wheeler remembers it coming after, and the acknowledgments in Feynman 1941a and Wheeler and Feynman 1945 suggest that Wheeler must be right.

118 EINSTEIN RECEIVED THIS PAIR: Wheeler 1989, 27.

118 FEYNMAN WAS STRUCK: F-W, 254.

118 AN OBSTINATE HERETIC: Quoted in Pais 1982, 462.

118 THE STRANGE LITTLE PAPER: Physikalische Zeitschrift 10(1909):323; Wheeler 1989, 27; Pais 1982, 484.

119 WE MUST DISTINGUISH BETWEEN TWO TYPES: Feynman 1941a, 13; Schweber 1986a, 459.

119 “PROF WHEELER,” HE WROTE: Feynman 1941a, 13.

120 THE SUN WOULD NOT RADIATE: Zeitschrift für Physik 10(1922):317, quoted in Wheeler and Feynman 1945, 159-60.

120 LEWIS, TOO, WORRIED: Stuewer 1975, 485 and 499.

120 I AM GOING TO MAKE: Lewis, “The Nature of Light,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 12(1926):22, quoted in Wheeler and Feynman 1945, 159 n.

121 THESE WERE DEAD ENDS: F-W, 260.

121 IT PROVED POSSIBLE TO COMPUTE PARTICLE INTERACTIONS: The first application of the least-action principle in this context came in work of which Wheeler and Feynman were not yet aware: a paper by A. D. Fokker in Zeitschrift für Physik 58(1929):386.

121 IN THE ABSORBER THEORY: NL, 438-39.

121 THE MORE FEYNMAN WORKED: Ibid., 440.

121 WE HAVE, INSTEAD: Ibid.

122 AN IMAGE, SO TO SPEAK: Minkowski, “Space and Time,” in Weaver 1987, 2:156; Galison 1979.

122 FEYNMAN, I KNOW WHY: NL, 441.

122 IT WAS THE FIRST ANTIPARTICLE: Dirac, however, was reluctant to accept the idea of a new antiparticle; he first assumed that this positively charged particle must be the proton, despite the enormous discrepancy in mass.

123 EINSTEIN HAD WORRIED ABOUT THIS: Park 1988, 234.

123 A PHILOSOPHER, ADOLPH CRÜNBAUM: “The Anisotropy of Time,” in Gold 1967, 149; Adolph Grünbaum, telephone interview.

123 MR. X: Feynman was enraged at the postconference suggestion that the proceedings be published; he surprised the other participants by declaring that there was no such subject as “the nature of time.” Grünbaum said later: “Who was he worried about? If he was worried about people in the know then this device failed. I don’t see how a man of his towering eminence could feel his reputation would be jeopardized.” Grünbaum, interview.

123 GRÜNBAUM: I WANT TO SAY: Gold 1967, 178-79.

124 WHATEVER HIDDEN BRAIN MACHINERY: Ibid., 183.

124 ONE’S SENSE OF THE NOW: Morris 1984, 146.

124 ONE CAN SAY EASILY ENOUGH: Park 1988, 234.

125 IT’S A POOR MEMORY: Gold 1967, 235.

125 THIS PROCESS LEADS: Ibid., 4.

126 THREE ARROWS OF TIME: Ibid., 13-14.

126 IT’S A VERY INTERESTING THING: Ibid., 186.

126 HE HAD COME TO BELIEVE: F-W, 301.

127 HE READ UP ON TYPHOID: Ibid., 303; WDY, 34-35.

127 FEYNMAN HAD FELT FROM THE BEGINNING: F-W, 246.

127 SOMETIMES WHEELER TOLD FEYNMAN: Ibid., 268. 127 “OH?” PAULI SAID: Ibid., 245-46; cf. SYJ, 66.

127 WHEELER CANCELED THE LECTURE: F-W, 255 (“Q: The culmination of this grand paper was what? A: The culmination was, his grand paper has never come out").

128 DIRAC HAD PUBLISHED A PAPER: Dirac 1933.

128 THE NEXT DAY JEHLE AND FEYNMAN: NL, 443.

129 YOU AMERICANS!: F-W, 272; Schweber 1986a.

130 HERE IS A GREAT MAN: Robert R. Wilson, interview, Ithaca, N.Y.

130 NOTEBOOK OF THINGS: Feynman 1940; F-W, 287-88.

130 FEYNMAN WAS ASKED WHICH COLOR: F-W, 289-90.

130 FEYNMAN HAD BEEN FRUSTRATED: Ibid., 220-21.

131 AS I’M TALKING: WDY, 59.

132 IN FEYNMAN’S MIND A SEQUENCE: F-W, 273-74.

133 ALEXANDER FLEMING HAD NOTICED: Macfarlane 1984; Root-Bernstein 1989, 166-68.

134THAT PATHOLOGICALLY LUXURIANT MORBID GROWTH: Mann 1927, 286-87.

134 FEYNMAN WAS BACK IN THE LIBRARY: The account of Feynman’s relationship with Arline Greenbaum is based in part on two versions by Feynman: in F-W, 304; and in WDY, 35. Though more than twenty years apart, these are not independent versions; their wording is so consistent that Feynman must have reviewed his copy of the AIP interview before tape-recording the version that was then published, with further editing, in Feynman 1988.

135 GOODBYE LOVE LETTER: WDY, 38.

135 WHEN SHE CONFRONTED RICHARD: Cf. Arline Greenbaum to Feynman, 3 June 1941, PERS.

135 HE WAS SUPPORTING HIMSELF: Fellowship records, PUL.

135 WHEN HE TOLD A UNIVERSITY DEAN: F-W, 309.

136 A PHYSICISTS’ WAR: Kevles 1987.

136 A NUMBER IN THE AIR: Wilson, interview.

136 THE HUNGARIAN CONSPIRACY: Rhodes 1987, 308.

136 I NEVER THOUGHT OF THAT: Ibid., 305.

136 WILSON AND SEVERAL OTHER PHYSICISTS: Wilson, interview.

137 THE BRITISH HAD INVENTED: Rigden 1987, 130.

137 IT’S SIMPLE—IT’S JUST A KIND OF WHISTLE: Edward U. Condon, quoted in Kevles 1987, 304.

137 OFFERED TO JOIN THE SIGNAL CORPS: Feynman 1981.

137 FROM THEIR WINDOWS THE BELL RESEARCHERS: SYJ, 83-84.

137 IT WAS A CHANCE TO SERVE: F-W, 294.

138 ONE-FOURTH OF THE NATION’S SEVEN-THOUSAND-ODD PHYSICISTS: Kevles 1987, 320. He estimates that the number included “three quarters of [the physics profession’s] eminent leadership.”

138 THE FIELD OF MECHANISMS, DEVICES: Compton, “Scientists Face the World of 1942,” quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

138 A PRIMITIVE SORT OF ANALOG COMPUTER: F-W, 294-95; SYJ, 85-87.

138 FEYNMAN FOUND HIMSELF DRAWN: Mitchell Feigenbaum, interview, New York.

139 HE CONSIDERED THE CASE OF TWO PARTICLES: Feynman 1941b.

139 THIS PREOCCUPATION WITH: Ibid.

139 THERE WAS A POSSIBILITY: Wilson, interview.

139 AN EXPATRIATE GERMAN CHEMIST: Peierls 1985, 169.

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

140 STUDENTS WERE ASKED TO CHOOSE: Lavatelli, interview.

140 IF THERE WAS ANY BALONEY: Wilson, interview.

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

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

140 LONG AFTERWARD, AFTER ALL THE BOMB MAKERS: Ibid.

141 TO GET HELP WITH THE ELECTRONICS: Wilson, interview.

141 THE SENIOR THEORETICIAN CRUMPLED: Olum, interview.

142 WHAT’S HAPPENING HERE?: Ibid.

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

142 ERNEST LAWRENCE WAS CALLING A COMPETING DEVICE: Heilbron and Seidel 1989, 515-16.

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

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

143 MEANWHILE THE PROJECT’S WORST ENEMY: R. Wilson 1972, 474-75.

143 WHEN GENERAL LESLIE R. GROVES: Groueff 1967, 36-38.

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

144 WILSON 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 SMYTH AND WIGNER BOTH FELT PRIVATELY: Davis 1968, 136.

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

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

145 MY WIFE DIED THREE YEARS AGO: Olum, interview.

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

146 LATER HE REMEMBERED: F-W, 281.

146 GREAT DIFFICULTIES HAVE ARISEN: Feynman 1942a.

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

146 DERIVED CONCEPT: Feynman 1942a.

146 WE CAN TAKE THE VIEWPOINT: Ibid.

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

147 WHEN HE WAS DONE: Wheeler and Wigner 1942.

147 FEYNMAN CONCLUDED WITH A BLUNT CATALOG: Feynman 1942b, 73-74.

147 IN 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 THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN HUSBAND AND WIFE: Flick 1903, 289.

148 MANY A YOUNG CONSUMPTIVE MOTHER: Ibid., 288.

148 MARRIAGE IS APT TO BE: Underwood 1937, 342.

149 THEY WERE BOTH SO YOUNG: Solomon 1952, 122.

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

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

150 BUT 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 SHE WALKED DOWN: Jules Greenbaum, telephone interview.

151 THEY MARRIED IN A CITY OFFICE: WDY, 42-43.

151 FEARFUL 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 HE SWEATED: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 9 August 1945, PERS.

153 THEN, 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 MINUS THIRTY MINUTES: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 9 August 1945.

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

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

155 WHAT 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 ENRICO FERMI, CLOSER TO THE BLAST: E.g., Kunetka 1979, 169.

155 ANOTHER PHYSICIST THOUGHT FEYNMAN: Jette 1977, 105.

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

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

156 IT’S A TERRIBLE THING THAT WE MADE: SYJ, 118.

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

157 IT IS A WONDERFUL SIGHT: Ibid.

157 WE BECAME THEN: R. Wilson 1972, 475.

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

157 HE DID GATHER INFORMATION: F-W, 329.

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

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

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

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

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

159 HE CALLED LONG-DISTANCE: F-W, 337.

160 NOBODY COULD THINK STRAIGHT: Davis 1968, 163.

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

160 FEYNMAN’S CONTRARIETY WARRED: Feynman 1975, 108.

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

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

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

161 AT 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 WELCOME TO LOS ALAMOS: Frisch 1979, 150.

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

163 REFLECT NEUTRONS … KEEP BOMB IN: Ibid.

164 MOST OF WHAT WAS TO BE DONE: Feynman 1944.

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

164 FEYNMAN, GIVING SMYTH A TOUR: SYJ, 118; Groueff 1967, 326.

164 A REQUEST FOR OSMIUM: Groueff 1967, 326.

164 THE FIRST DOT OF PLUTONIUM: 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 WHEN THEY HEARD THAT LAUGH: E.g., Joseph O. Hirschfelder, “Scientific-Technological Miracle at Los Alamos,” in Badash et al. 1980, 81.

165 BETHE AND FEYNMAN—STRANGE PAIR: Frisch 1979, 154.

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

166 IF FEYNMAN SAYS IT THREE TIMES: Schweber, forthcoming.

166 He had worked on: Groueff 1967, 207.

166 A WESTERN UNION KIDDIEGRAM: Rhodes 1987, 416.

166 BETHE HAD LEARNED HIS PHYSICS: Bernstein 1980, 29.

166 AT ROME: L. Fermi 1954, 217.

166 LIGHTNESS OF APPROACH: Bernstein 1980, 31.

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

168 THE DANGEROUS PRACTICALITIES: Hawkins et al. 1983, 13.

168 FEYNMAN 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 HE ARRIVED AT A PRACTICAL METHOD: Bethe, interview. 169 BEGAN TO LOVE HANS BETHE: F-W, 409-10.

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

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

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

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

170 IT STINKS: Davis 1968, 215.

170 AS WELTON LISTENED: Welton, interview.

170 HE WAS AMUSED AND IMPRESSED: Welton 1983, 8-9; Welton, interview.

171 WELTON BECAME THE FOURTH PHYSICIST: Along with Frederick Reines, Julius Ashkin, and Richard Ehrlich.

171 DEFINITELY UNGENTLE HUMOR: Welton 1983, 9.

171 ALL RIGHT, PENCILS: F-H, 42-43.

172 BY DEFINITION, AT CRITICAL MASS: Hawkins et al. 1983, 77.

172 FOR A SPHERICAL BOMB: Welton 1983, 11; Welton, interview.

173 BETHE HAD TOLD THEM: Bethe, interview; F-H, 23.

173 WHEN THE LOS ALAMOS METALLURGISTS: Hawkins et al. 1983, 139.

173 IT PUSHED THE THEORISTS PAST THE LIMITS: Welton 1983, 13.

173 FEYNMAN SOLVED THAT PROBLEM: Feynman and Welton 1947, a book-length report, draws together the chief findings of Feynman and his group on critical-mass calculations and neutron scattering. Feynman’s own contribution to the version of the problem in which neutrons are assumed to have a single characteristic velocity—a practical simplification of methods developed by others— appears in Feynman 1946b.

173 THE EXPERIENCE OF ACTUAL COMPUTATION: F-H, 23-24.

173 AS HE DROVE THE MEN: Welton 1983, 14.

173 THAT SEEMED AN IMPOSSIBLE LEAP: Ashkin, Ehrlich, and Feynman 1944. Welton recalled wryly (1983, 14): “Only a short period of reflection was … required before Feynman announced that we were going to take the accumulated computational results from T-2. put them through the meat grinder, season them with some further insights (yet to be produced) and extrude this mixture as a handy interpolation-extrapolation formula.”

174 UNFORTUNATELY CANNOT BE EXPECTED: Feynman 19466, 3.

174 UNFORTUNATELY THE FIGURES CONTAINED: Ashkin, Ehrlich, and Feynman 1944, 4.

174 THESE METHODS ARE NOT EXACT: Feynman and Welton 1947, 6. 174 AN INTERESTING THEOREM WAS FOUND: Feynman 1946b, 3.

174 IN ALL CASES OF INTEREST: Feynman and Welton 1947, 6.

175 BETHE’S DEPUTY, WEISSKOPF: Weisskopf, oral-history interview, 31, AIP.

176 HE TOLD THEM HE COULD SPOT: F-H, 18.

176 WELL, FOUR HOURS AND TWENTY MINUTES AGO: Nicholas Metropolis, interview, Los Alamos, N.M.

176 YOU KNOW HOW IT IS WITH DAYLIGHT SAVING TIME: Morrison 1988, 42.

177 YOU WANT TO KNOW EXACTLY?: Feynman 1975, 109.

177 THAT’S 1.35: F-H, 41.

178 ALL RIGHT. IT’S PI TO THE FOURTH: Ibid., 39.

178 THEN PAUL OLUM SPOKE UP: Olum, interview; F-L for SYJ, 176.

178 SIMILARLY, WORKING WITH BETHE: Bethe, interview.

179 THEY WERE RARELY USED: Metropolis and Nelson 1982, 348-49.

180 LET’S LEARN ABOUT THESE DAMNED THINGS: Metropolis, interview.

180 THEY SPENT HOURS TAKING APART: Bethe, interview; Metropolis 1990, 237; Metropolis and Nelson 1982, 349.

180 ESCALATION OF THE COMPUTATION EFFORT: Metropolis and Nelson 1982, 350.

181 SO MUCH MORE POWERFUL WERE THEY: Weisskopf 1991, 134.

181 EVEN BEFORE THE IBM MACHINES ARRIVED: F-W, 362-63; Brode 1960; Feynman 1975, 125.

182 HE LEFT FEYNMAN WITH TWO ENDURING MEMORIES: Feynman 1975, 129.

182 FEYNMAN THOUGHT AT FIRST: F-H, 55-56: “We discovered a very annoying thing that we didn’t understand…. When we set up the differential equation, we solved it numerically and the numbers seemed to come out irregularly. Then we would check and it would be the same thing…. The points would sort of wiggle around irregularly, and [von Neumann] explained that that was correct, that was all right, that was very interesting…. And there was nothing we could do about it. We just had to live with it, and we did…. We were terribly surprised by the fact that we would do the numbers over again, and it was the same crazy irregularities.”

182 EACH TIME IT IS TURNED ON. T. Reid 1984, 14; Alt 1972, 693; Metropolis and Nelson 1982, 352.

182 SOME INTERESTING PROPERTIES OF NUMBERS: The lecture later became an element of his course at Cornell in mathematical methods and then, refined once again, became a remarkable set piece in his Feynman Lectures on Physics. Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 29 February 1944; Lectures, I-22.

182 ALL THE MIGHTY MINDS: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 29 February 1944.

184 HE IS BY ALL ODDS THE MOST BRILLIANT: Oppenheimer to Birge, 4 November 1943, in Smith and Weiner 1980, 269.

184 HE IS A SECOND DIRAC: Oppenheimer to Birge, November 4 1943, in Smith and Weiner 1980, 269.

184 SHE LAUGHED, ASKING: Arline Feynman to Lucille and Melville Feynman, 28 June 1943; F-L for SYJ, 46.

185 ONCE, IN A FANCIFUL CONVERSATION: Moss 1987, 68. 185 A PIONEER PEOPLE STARTING A NEW TOWN: Brode 1960, 7.

185 THE MOST EXCLUSIVE CLUB IN THE WORLD: James Tuck, quoted in Davis 1968, 184.

185 WHAT EXACTLY IS SQUARE: Tuck, quoted in Brode 1960, 7.

185 ONE PARTY FEATURED AN ORIGINAL BALLET: Brode 1960, 6.

186 CODES, CIPHERS OR ANY FORM OF SECRET WRITING: Reprinted in Jette 1977, 130.

186 IT’S VERY DIFFICULT WRITING: Feynman 1975, 112.

187 RICHARD AND ARLINE TALKED ABOUT: Ibid.

187 THERE ARE CAPTAINS: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 10 December 1943.

187 I EXPLAINED IT TO HIM: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 8 March 1945.

187 THE SECURITY STAFF TOLERATED THEM: Hirschfelder, in Badash et al. 1980, 79.

187 THE NEW DISPENSER STRUCK FEYNMAN: Olum, interview.

187 HE HAD GOT SO DRUNK: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 9 May 1945, PERS.

188 MORALLER AND MORALLER: Ibid.

188 TWO MEN ARRIVED: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 4 April 1945, PERS.

188 BECAUSE I LIKE PUZZLES SO MUCH: Ibid.

188 THAT ONE INSIGHT: SYJ, 124.

189 THE LOS ALAMOS PHYSICISTS: E.g., Frisch 1979, 154.

189 I OPENED THE SAFES: F-L for SYJ, 121-22.

189 THIS LAST INSIGHT ALONE: SYJ, 133.

189 BY FIDDLING WITH HIS OWN SAFE: Ibid., 124-25.

190 FEYNMAN REVELED IN THE CLOUDS: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 10 December 1943, PERS.

190 SEE, I’M GETTING AN AESTHETIC SENSE: Ibid.

191 NOT CERTAIN WHETHER THIS TIME: Ian McEwan, The Innocent (New York: Dou-bleday, 1990), 85.

191 HE WOULD SIT IN A CROUP: F-W, 317.

191 HE FOUND A WAY: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 3 April 1945, PERS.

191 YOU ARE A STRONG AND BEAUTIFUL WOMAN: Ibid.

192 DON’T GET SCARED THO: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 24 April 1945.

192 YOU’RE NEVER THAT: Arline Feynman to Feynman, February 1945.

192 THE SCIENTISTS WERE IN AN UPROAR: R. Wilson 1974, 160.

193 I DO NOT KNOW—ALTHOUGH THERE ARE THOSE: Cohn 1943, 56-57; Arline Feynman, handwritten notes, PERS.

193 DARLING I’M BEGINNING: Arline Feynman to Feynman, 16 January 1945.

193 SHE REMINDED HIM OF THE FUTURE: Arline Feynman to Feynman, 17 January 1945.

194 WE HAVE TO FIGHT HARD: Ibid.

194 DRINK SOME MILK: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 2 May 1945, PERS.

194 HER WEIGHT HAD FALLEN: Arline Feynman, notebook of medical records and expenses, PERS.

194 YOU ARE A NICE GIRL: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 2 May 1945.

194 TIME PASSES FAST: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 19 April 1945, PERS.

194 HE HAD HEARD ABOUT A NEW DRUG: Feynman to Richard Gubner, draft, n.d:, and Gubner to Feynman, 29 August 1944 and 14 November 1944, PERS.

194 JOAN WAS DAZZLED: Joan Feynman to Arline Feynman, 29 April 1945, PERS.

195 HE THOUGHT HE SAW SYMPTOMS: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 18 May 1945.

195 HAVE IT DONE BY A SPECIALIST: Henry Barenblatt to Arline Feynman, 19 April 1945 and 23 April 1945, PERS.

195 A DOCTOR AT LOS ALAMOS TOLD RICHARD: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 3 May 1945.

195 THE SAME DOCTOR: Ibid.

195 PS. 59-TO-BE: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 15 May 1945.

195 HE DRIFTED THROUGH THE PAGES: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 17 May 1945.

195 KEEP HANGING ON: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 9 May 1945.

195 ENTIRE NATION CELEBRATES: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 10 May 1945.

195 AT THE MAYO CLINIC: Waksman 1964, 127-28.

196 THE DOCTOR WHO FIRST ISOLATED: Ibid., 115-18.

196 WORKERS HANDLING PLUTONIUM: Hawkins et al. 1983, 163-64.

196 ONE MAN, HARRY DAGHLIAN: L. Fermi 1980, 99; de Hoffman 1974, 166-67; Frisch 1979, 159-60.

197 FEYNMAN HIMSELF PROPOSED A SAFER EXPERIMENT: Hawkins et al. 1983, 89.

197 AT TELLER’S REQUEST: E. Teller to R. F. Bacher, 27 March 1944, LANL.

198 HE BECAME RESPONSIBLE FOR CALCULATING: E.g., K. T. Bainbridge to Members of Committee on Fabrication and Assembly of Active Materials, 20 July 1944 and 5 September 1944, LANL.

198 IT IS EXPECTED THAT A CONSIDERABLE FRACTION: Bethe to Oppenheimer, 8 November 1944, and Bethe to Bacher, 3 January 1945, LANL; Robert F. Bacher, interview, Santa Barbara, Calif.

198 COMPLETE AUTHORITY: Bethe to Oppenheimer, 26 January 1945, LANL.

198 DEAR SIR, AT THE PRESENT TIME: J. L. Patterson to Major W. E. Kelley, 19 September 1944, and W. E. Kelley to Feynman, 21 September 1944, LANL.

198 AS SECRE HAD DISCOVERED: Feynman 1975, 119-21.

198 FEYNMAN BEGAN BY RETRACING: F-H, 33.

199 HE REALIZED THAT THE PLANT WAS HEADED: F-W, 353-54.

199 IN ANSWER TO THE EASTMAN SUPERINTENDENT’S QUESTION: Feynman to Major W. E. Kelley, 27 September 1944, LANL.

199 DURING CENTRIFUGING SOME PECULIAR MOTION: Feynman to Colonel Arthur E. Peterson, 18 September 1945.

199 IS CT-1 EMPTY WHEN WE DROP: Notes, LANL.

199 HE ALSO INVENTED A PRACTICAL METHOD: Feynman 1945.

199 A FEW PEOPLE, LONG AFTERWARD: E.g.: “Unknowingly, he saved my life and the lives of everyone at Oak Ridge in those challenging years …” Irwin H. Goodwin to Ralph Leighton, 8 December 1988.

199 FEYNMAN’S FIRST VISIT TO OAK RIDGE: F-L for SYJ, 104.

199 YOU SHOULD SAY: Los Alamos cannot accept: Feynman 1975, 122.

200 HE HAD TO GROW UP FAST: Ibid.

200 SOMETIME THAT SPRING IT STRUCK HIM: F-H, 14.

200 HITCHHIKING BACK ONE SUNDAY NIGHT: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 24 May 1945, PERS.

200 BUT THEY WERE KIND OF UGLY: Ibid.

200 MY WIFE: I AM ALWAYS: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 6 June 1945, PERS.

201 ONE NIGHT HE AWOKE: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 14 June 1945, PERS.

201 THE CROUP’S PRODUCTIVITY HAD RISEN: Bethe, interview.

201 HE HAD INVENTED A SYSTEM: F-W, 371-74.

201 WHEN HE REACHED HER ROOM: Ibid., 343-46; F-L for WDY, 50-53.

202 THE NURSE RECORDED: Certificate of Death, PERS.

202 HE CAME IN AND SAT DOWN: Robert and Dorothy Walker, interview, Tesuque, N.M.

202 WHEN HE COMES IN: Joan Feynman, interview.

202 AN ARMY CAR MET HIM: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 9 August 1945, PERS.

203 IF A MAN HAD MERELY CALCULATED: De Hoffman 1974, 171-72. 203 CREATED NOT BY THE DEVILISH INSPIRATION: Smyth 1945, 223.

204 NO MONOPOLY: Notes, n.d., PERS.

204 MOST WAS KNOWN: Ibid.

204 IT WOULD SEEM TO ME THAT UNDER THESE CIRCUMSTANCES: Oppenheimer to Birge, 26 May 1944, in Smith and Weiner 1980, 276.

204 BIRGE FINALLY CAME THROUGH: Oppenheimer informed Birge of Feynman’s choice in a blisteringly formal tone: “I am glad that you are going to take steps to increase the strength of the department…. Several months ago Dr. Feynman accepted a permanent appointment with the Physics Department at Cornell University. I do not know details of salary and rank, but they are presumably satisfactory to him. I shall of course do my best to call to your attention any men who are available …”(5 October 1944, in Smith and Weiner 1980, 284). The California offer did prompt Cornell, at Bethe’s urging, to raise Feynman’s salary before he arrived. His “potential” salary was $3,000; when Berkeley offered $3,900, Cornell agreed to $4,000. Bethe had written: “I know that it is unusual to raise a man’s salary before he has even seen the University at which he is employed. The justification, I believe, is given by the unusual times and by the intimate knowledge that we here have acquired of Feynman’s qualities.” Bethe to R. C. Gibbs, 24 July 1945, and Gibbs to Feynman, 3 August 1945, CIT.

205 FEYNMAN BECAME THE FIRST OF THE GROUP LEADERS: Hawkins et al. 1983, 304.

205 IT WAS ON HIS LAST TRIP: WYD, 53.

CORNELL

Bethe provided access to his papers. Dyson shared copies of his remarkable letters home during these years (my portrait of him relies on these, on his various memoirs, on Brower 1978, and on Schweber, forthcoming). Schwinger collected the key scientific texts (1958) and gave his own rich perspective (1983). They and the other central figures in the postwar development of quantum electrodynamics all provided their oral recollections, as did Theodore Shultz, Michel Baranger, Evelyn Frank, Arthur Wightman, Abraham Pais, and others. Paul Hartman (1984) shared his entertaining history of the Cornell physics department and correspondence with Feynman about space flight. My discussion of scientific visualization is indebted to Arthur Miller 1984 and 1985, Bruce Gregory 1988, Schweber 1986a, Park 1988, essays by (and a conversation with) Gerald Holton, and Feynman’s own introspection. My accounts of Feynman’s relationships with women, in this chapter and the next, are based on correspondence in his personal papers and on my interviews with each of the women whose relationships are described in any detail; however, in the notes that follow, I usually omit individual citations of these letters and interviews for reasons of privacy.

207 AMONG THE DIVINITIES: Charles Clayton Morrison, “The Atomic Bomb and the Christian Faith,” The Christian Century, 13 March 1946, 330.

207 WHAT OPPENHEIMER PREACHED: Oppenheimer 1945, 316.

208 IT’S A TERRIBLE THING: SYJ, 118.

208 AND RIGHTLY SO: Oppenheimer 1945, 317.

208 WHEN YOU COME RIGHT DOWN TO IT: Ibid.

209 THE EVENTS OF THE PAST FEW YEARS: Truman, “Problems of Post-War America,” 6 September 1945, in Vital Speeches 11(1945):23.

209 BEFORE THE WAR THE GOVERNMENT HAD PAID: Kevles 1987, 341.

209 THE QUIET TIMES WHEN PHYSICS: R. Wilson 1958, 145.

210 THE NATURE OF THE WORK: Oppenheimer 1945, 315-16.

210 IN THE FIRST, HE SAT DOWN: Hartman 1984, 202.

210 IN THE SECOND, TWO MONTHS AFTER HIROSHIMA: Bishop 1962, 560; Hartman 1984, 238.

211 HE DEBARKED WITH A SINGLE SUITCASE: F-W, 415.

211 THE WEEK BEFORE FEYNMAN ARRIVED: Bishop 1962, 556.

211 HUGE RAKED PILES OF LEAVES: F-W, 417.

212 LOOK, BUDDY: Ibid., 419; cf. SYJ, 149-51.

212 SPEECH PATTERNS STRUCK HIM: “It was completely—like the nervousness of working during the war. And this university in the backwoods … was going at the typical university rate … he’s talking so slowly and batting the breeze about the weather.” F-W, 418.

212 OUTSIDE, THREE TENNIS COURTS: Hartman 1984, 204-5.

212 MORRISON HAD BEEN LURED: Philip Morrison, interview, Cambridge, Mass.

212 FEYNMAN DEPRESSED IS JUST A LITTLE MORE CHEERFUL: Quoted in Schweber 1986a, 468; Feynman said, “I got deeper and deeper into a kind of— I wouldn’t say depression, because I wasn’t depressed. I’m a lively and happy fellow….” F-W, 425.

212 HE SPENT TIME IN THE LIBRARY: SYJ, 155.

212 HIS DANCE PARTNERS LOOKED ASKANCE: F-W, 423; SYJ, 154.

212 EVEN BEFORE LEAVING LOS ALAMOS: E.g. Olum, interview; Walker, interview. One physicist’s wife said, “He exploded like a sexual firecracker.”

213 NOW I WANT YOU TO KNOW: Lucille Feynman to Feynman, 17 June 1945, PERS.

213 BEGGING HIM TO COME HOME: Lucille Feynman to Feynman, 21 June 1945, PERS.

213 THIS IS THE PRINCETON TRIANGLE: Lucille Feynman to Feynman, 8 August 1945, PERS.

213 I FELT THRILLED & FRIGHTENED: Ibid.

213 BY THE WAY: Ibid.

214 RICHARD, WHAT HAS HAPPENED: Lucille Feynman to Feynman, n.d., PERS.

215 HE PRIDED HIMSELF ON SPEAKING: Schwinger, interview. 215 A MAN POSSESSED: Polkinghome 1989, 14.

215 I ABANDONED MY BACHELOR QUARTERS: Schwinger 1983, 332. 215 THEIR FIRST ENCOUNTER: E.g., Crease and Mann 1986, 129.

215 ARE YOU A MOUSE OR A MAN?: Norman Ramsey and Rabi, quoted in Schweber, forthcoming; Bernard T Feld, talk at Julian Schwinger’s 60th birthday celebration, February 1978, AIR

216 EVEN BEFORE SCHWINGER GOT HIS COLLEGE DIPLOMA: Schweber, forthcoming.

216 SCHWINGER MADE ONE TOUR: Schwinger, interview.

216 WHEN HE HAD LONG SINCE: Feynman 1978.

216 THE HARVARD COMMITTEE: Schweber, forthcoming.

217 PHENOMENA COMPLEX—LAWS SIMPLE: “Methods of Math Phys 405,” Notebook, PERS.

218 WHETHER HE WOULD SUCCEED: Robert Walker, interview.

218 IN AN ATOM BOMB: “Methods of Math Phys 405.”

218 ANNOUNCER: LAST WEEK DR. FEYNMAN: “The Scientist Speaks,” transcript, radio broadcast, WHCU, 26 April 1946, OPR

218 THE RAYS EMITTED: Ibid.

218 AT LOS ALAMOS HE HAD INVENTED: Hawkins et al. 1983, 308.

218 I BELIEVE THAT INTERPLANETARY TRAVEL: Feynman to Paul Hartman, 5 December 1945, PERS.

219 FLYING UPSIDE DOWN: Ibid.

220 HE RETURNED HOME AND OCCASIONALLY SNEAKED OUT: Joan Feynman, interview.

220 ONE DAY FEYNMAN SAW HIM: F-L.

220 IT IS NOT SO EASY FOR A DOPE: Melville Feynman to Feynman, 10 September 1944, PERS.

220 THE DREAMS I HAVE OFTEN HAD: Ibid.

221 ON FEYNMAN’S FACE WAS A LOOK: Joan Feynman, interview.

221 CORNELL’S 1946 FALL-TERM ENROLLMENT: Bishop 1962, 555.

221 D‘ARLINE, I ADORE YOU: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 17 October 1947, PERS.

223 FEYNMAN’S VERSION OF THE STORY: F-W, 620; SYJ, 137. The latter was dictated more than twenty years later but sometimes tracks the first version with uncanny, verbatim precision. The Selective Service files were destroyed, as the FBI discovered in assembling its dossier on Feynman. FOI.

226 FEYNMAN WAS INVITED: Princeton University 1946; F-W, 433-34; Wigner 1947; Feynman to Dirac, 23 July 1947, PERS.

226 DIRAC’S PAPER: Dirac 1946.

226 WE NEED AN INTUITIVE LEAP: Princeton University 1946, 15.

226 FEYNMAN LOOKED OUT THE WINDOW: F-W, 437.

226 HE HAD A QUESTION: Ibid., 272-73 and 437; Feynman 1948a, 378. Feynman cared about this detail of historical priority. He later emphasized it in his Nobel lecture: “I thought I was finding out what Dirac meant, but, as a matter of fact, had made the discovery that what Dirac thought was analogous, was, in fact, equal” (NL, 10). Schwinger, however, in a tribute delivered at a memorial service to Feynman, made a subtle point of dismissing the possibility that Dirac might not have understood the implications of his paper: “Now, we know, and Dirac surely knew, that to a constant factor the ‘correspondence’ … is an equality…. Why, then, did Dirac not make a more precise, if less general, statement? Because he was interested only in a general question.” Schwinger 1989, 45.

226 OPPENHEIMER HAD INVITED HIM: Feynman to Oppenheimer, 5 November 1946, CIT

226 THE CHAIRMAN OF THE UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA’S PHYSICS DEPARTMENT: G. P. Harnwell to Bethe, 25 February 1947, and Bethe to Harnwell, 4 March 1947, BET.

227 OPPENHEIMER HAD NOW BEEN NAMED: SYJ, 155; Smyth to Feynman, 23 October 1946 and 22 April 1947, CIT.

227 HE EXPERIMENTED WITH VARIOUS TACTICS: F-W, 426.

227 FOR A MOMENT HE FELT LIGHTER: Ibid., 427-28.

227 DON’T WORRY SO MUCH: SYJ, 156; F-W, 428.

227 A CORNELL CAFETERIA PLATE: F-W, 430; SYJ, 157. Also, Benjamin Fong Chao, “Feynman’s Dining Hall Dynamics,” letter, Physics Today, February 1989, 15.

228 WELTON WAS NOW WORKING: Welton, interview.

228 I AM ENGAGED NOW: Feynman to Welton, 10 February 1947, CIT.

228 I AM FEYNMAN: Pais 1986, 23.

229 SPIN WAS A PROBLEM: Schweber 1986a, 469.

229 NO WONDER HIS EYE: “Within a week, altogether, this question of the rotation [of the plate] started me worrying about rotations, and then old questions about the spinning electron, and how to represent it in the path integrals and in the quantum mechanics, and I was in my work again. It just opened the gate.” F-W, 430.

230 FEYNMAN DID NOT ATTEMPT TO PUBLISH: F-W, 444.

230 THE CHALLENGE WAS TO EXTEND: Ibid., 443; Schweber 1986a, 472.

232 THINKING I UNDERSTAND GEOMETRY: Feynman to Barbara Kyle, 20 October 1965, CIT.

232 THE LAST EIGHTEEN YEARS: K. K. Darrow diary, 14 April 1947, AIP.

232 THEORETICIANS WERE IN DISGRACE: Gell-Mann 1983a, 3.

232 THE THEORY OF ELEMENTARY PARTICLES: Weisskopf 1947.

233 SO TWO DOZEN SUIT-JACKETED PHYSICISTS: Schweber 1983, 313.

233 WHEN THEY GATHERED FOR BREAKFAST: Robert Marshak, telephone interview.

233 IT IS DOUBTFUL IF THERE HAS EVER BEEN: Stephen White, “Top Physicists Map Course at Shelter Island,” New York Herald Tribune, 3 June 1947, 23.

233 FEYNMAN TRIED HIS METHODS OUT: Pais 1986, 452.

234 A CLEAR VOICE, GREAT RUSH OF WORDS: K. K. Darrow diary, 14 April 1947, AIP.

234 LAMB HAD GONE TO BED: Lamb 1980, 323.

234 TO SCHWINGER, LISTENING: Schwinger 1983, 337.

234 THE FACTS WERE INCREDIBLE: Quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

234 AS THE MEETING ADJOURNED: Schwinger 1983, 332. Shortly afterward he was married; or, as he put it, “I abandoned my bachelor quarters and embarked on an accompanied, nostalgic trip around the country that would occupy the whole summer.”

234 DEBACLE: Polkinghome 1989, 12.

235 IT WAS HARDLY A COMMON NAME: Morrison, interview.

235 WHAT THEY DID THERE: Michel Baranger, interview. New York.

235 I EXPECT HER TO BE: Alice Dyson, quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

235 I, SIR PHILLIP ROBERTS: Sir Philip Roberts’s Erolunar Collision, in Dyson 1992, 3-4.

236 HE READ POPULAR BOOKS: Dyson 1979, 12.

236 THAT SAME YEAR, FRUSTRATED: Schweber, forthcoming.

236 SHE CONTINUED BY TELLING HIM: Dyson 1979, 15.

236 AT CAMBRIDGE HE HEARD: Brower 1978, 16.

236 DYSON’S WAR: Dyson 1979, 19-21.

237 AMONG THE BOOKS: Ibid., 4.

237 MY WISH FOR SOMETHING TO SERVE: D. H. Lawrence, Study of Thomas Hardy, quoted in Dyson 1988, 125.

237 THE NEWS OF HIROSHIMA: Brower 1978, 20.

237 YEARS LATER, WHEN DYSON: Ibid., 24.

238 BY HIS SOPHOMORE YEAR: Dyson 1987.

238 PROFESSOR LITTLEWOOD: Dyson 1944; Dyson, interview.

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

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

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

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

239 HE HAS DEVELOPED A PRIVATE VERSION: Ibid.

239 HE TELEPHONED FEYNMAN: NL, 449.

239 IT WAS A BLUNT LOS ALAMOS-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 BUT THEY DID NOT COINCIDE: Bethe, interview.

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

240 DYSON COULD SEE: Dyson, interview.

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

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

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

241 FEYNMAN 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 WE ARE THEREFORE OBLIGED TO BE MODEST: Bohr 1922, 338.

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

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

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

244 FEYNMAN SAID TO DYSON: Dyson 1979, 62.

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

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

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

245 WHEN I START DESCRIBING: Lectures, II-20-3.

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

246 WHEN HE FINALLY DID: Feynman 1948a.

247 HE 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 THERE IS A PLEASURE: Feynman 1948a, 367.

249 HE LATER FELT THAT HE WAS BETTER KNOWN: Kac 1985, 115-16.

250 THE ELECTRON DOES ANYTHING: Quoted by Dyson in “Comment on the Topic ‘Beyond the Black Hole,’” in Woolf 1980, 376.

250 FEYNMAN 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 HE PROMISED BETHE AN ANSWER: NL, 449; F-W, 459.

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

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

252 THE SCHWINCER-WEISSKOPF-BETHE CAMP: Feynman to Corbens, 20 March 1948, CIT.

252 HIS 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, DADDY: F-W, 463-64.

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

253 MONTHS PASSED BEFORE FEYNMAN 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 SUPPOSE A BLACK THREAD: Feynman 1948f 2-3.

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

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

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

255 USUAL THEORY SAYS NO: Ibid., 4.

255 IT MAY PROVE USEFUL IN PHYSICS: Ibid.

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

256 AS THE POCONO MEETING OPENED: Wheeler 1948.

256 EACH SMALL VOLUME OF SPACE: Ibid.

257 SCHWINGER HATED THIS: Schwinger, interview.

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

257 FERMI, GLANCING ABOUT: Segrè 1970, 174.

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

258 HE THOUGHT IT INTELLECTUALLY REPULSIVE: Schwinger, interview.

258 BOHR HAS RAISED THE QUESTION: Wheeler 1948.

258 BOHR 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 ON 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 WHEN SCHWINGER SAW FEYNMAN’S NAME: Schwinger 1983, 342.

260 TOMONAGA, A NATIVE OF TOKYO: Tomonaga 1966, 127-29.

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

260 HE MADE A HOME: Schweber, forthcoming.

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

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

261 SCHWINGER OCCASIONALLY HEARD: Schwinger 1983, 341.

261 I GATHER I STAND ACCUSED: Ibid.

261 ARE WE TALKING ABOUT PARTICLES: Schwinger, interview.

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

263 FEYNMAN THOUGHT DYSON: WDY, 65.

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

263 HE HAD DECIDED THAT MODERN AMERICA: Dyson to parents, 14 June 1948.

263 AN ATOMIC BLAST ON EAST 20TH STREET: Morrison 1946; SYJ, 118.

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

264 AS WE DROVE THROUGH CLEVELAND: Dyson 1979, 60-61.

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

264 DYSON HAD NEVER SEEN RAIN: Dyson 1979, 59.

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

264 THIS HOTEL IS UNDER NEW MANAGEMENT: WDY, 65.

265 IN THAT LITTLE ROOM: Dyson 1979, 59.

265 THE 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 THAT STORMY NIGHT IN OUR LITTLE ROOM: Dyson 1979, 63.

266 ON WEDNESDAY OPPENHEIMER RETURNS: Dyson to parents, 10 October 1948, quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

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

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

267 THERE IS THE FATHER INCOMPREHENSIBLE: Dyson 1989, 35-36.

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

267 SO THE RESULT OF ALL THIS: Ibid.

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

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

268 IT WAS “SCHWINGER’S THEORY": Oppenheimer 1948.

269 DEAR FREEMAN: I HOPE YOU DID NOT GO BRAGGING: Feynman to Dyson, 29 October 1948, CIT.

270 WELL, DOC, YOU’RE IN: Dyson to parents, quoted in Schweber, forthcoming.

270 FEYNMAN HAD NOT LEARNED: NL, 452.

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

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

271 THERE WERE VISIONS AT LARGE: Schwinger 1983, 343.

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

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

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

272 HE HAD STARTED HEARING ABOUT DYSON GRAPHS: Cf. F-W, 501.

272 WENTZEL HIMSELF: Crease and Mann 1986, 143.

273 FEYNMAN STRESSED HOW FREE: Feynman 1949b, 773.

275 FOR A WHILE IT WAS ALL SCHWINGER: F-W, 499.

275 IN 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 FEYNMAN: K. A. Brueckner, “The Production of Mesons by Photons,” Physical Review 79(1950):641.

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

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

276 YES, ONE CAN ANALYZE EXPERIENCE: Ibid., 343.

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

277 THEY ALSO WORRIED ABOUT SCHWINCER’S ABILITY: Sheldon Glashow, interview, Cambridge, Mass.

277 MURRAY GELL-MANN LATER SPENT A SEMESTER: Murray Gell-Mann, interviews, Pasadena and Chicago.

278 THERE 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 WHEN A BRAZILIAN PHYSICIST: Lopes 1988; J. Leite Lopes, personal communication.

278 LATE 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.

278 HE HAD ENDURED ONE TOO MANY DAYS: F-W, 546; Bacher, interview.

278 ALL THE INS AND OUTS: Feynman to Bacher, 6 April 1950, PERS.

278 I DO NOT LIKE TO SUGGEST: Ibid.

279 ONCE (AND IT WAS NOT YESTERDAY): Cvitanoviç 1983, 6.

CALTECH

Three local histories are Judith Goodstein’s Millikan’s School, Ann Scheid’s Pasadena: Crown of the Valley, and Kevin Starr’s Inventing the Dream; they were useful background, as was Robert Kargon’s essay ‘Temple to Science.” I’ve also relied on the recollections of many present and former Caltech professors, students, and administrators. Some information on Feynman’s time in Brazil comes from the recollections of José Leite Lopes (1988 and personal communication), Cecile Dewitt-Morette, and others; from Feynman’s 1951 correspondence with Fermi; from Brownell 1952; from Feynman’s talk “The Problem of Teaching Physics in Latin America” (1963a), and from publications of the Centra Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas. Documentation of the government’s secret scrutiny of Feynman and of his consultation with the State Department on the advisability of travel to the Soviet Union came through my Freedom of Information Act requests to the FBI, CIA, Department of the Army, and Department of Energy in 1988 and 1989. Some of the State Department correspondence is also in CIT. On superfluidity, Robert Schrieffer, Hans Bethe, Michael Fisher, and Russell Donnelly were especially helpful. Donnelly sent written reminiscences by several colleagues. Andronikashvili 1990 is a remarkable memoir from the Russian perspective. For the particle physics of the 1950s and 1960s: the Rochester conference proceedings; John Polkinghorne’s witty memoir (1989) and Jeremy Bernstein’s “informal history” (1989); Robert Marshak’s account (1970); Brown, Dresden, and Hoddeson’s symposium proceedings Pions to Quarks: Particle Physics in the 1950s; and interviews with the various scientists cited. Again, some material on personal relationships is based on letters and interviews that I cannot cite specifically for reasons of privacy. Feynman’s thinking on gravitation can be seen in a fifteen-page letter to Victor Weisskopf written in January and February 1961 (WHE) and in his Faraday lecture (1961b), as well as his one published paper (1965b) and various lecture notes in CIT. The development of quarks and partons has been well chronicled from different points of view by Andrew Pickering (1984) and Michael Riordan (1987); Feynman kept his notes from this period in unusually good order (CIT); Riordan and Burton Richter provided useful on-site guidance at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center; James Bjorken, George Zweig, Sidney Drell, Yung-Su Tsai, and, of course, Murray Gell-Mann were among those with especially helpful reminiscences. For the record of Feynman’s illnesses I relied on notes and correspondence in his files and interviews with Drs. C. M. Haskell, William C. Bradley, and In Chang Kim. For the investigation into the Challenger accident: the hearing transcripts and documentation as published in the commission report; Feynman’s personal notes and commission memorandums (CIT and PERS); Ralph Leighton’s unedited transcript of Feynman’s oral account (later published in WDY); interviews with commissioners, NASA officials and engineers, and others (only William P. Rogers refused to make himself available, despite my repeated requests for an interview). Carl Feynman shared the manuscript of the paper Feynman was working on until he entered the hospital for the last time.

281 THE CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY: J. Goodstein 1991, 180.

281 PASADENA IS TEN MILES FROM LOS ANGELES: Morrow Mayo, quoted in Scheid 1986, 156.

281 EVERY LUNCHEON, EVERY DINNER: Letter to the Editor, Los Angeles Times, 6 March 31, quoted in J. Goodstein 1991, 100.

282 COULD IT BE THAT NITROGEN HAS TWO LEVELS: F-W, 559.

282 DEAR FERMI: Feynman to Enrico Fermi, 19 December 1951; Fermi to Feynman, 18 January 1952 and 28 April 1952, AIR Some of Feynman’s meson work that year emerges in Lopes and Feynman 1952.

282 DON’T BELIEVE ANY CALCULATION: Feynman to Fermi, 19 December 1951.

283 IN RECENT YEARS SEVERAL NEW PARTICLES: Fermi and Yang 1949, 1739. 283 HE COULD SPEND DAYS AT THE BEACH: Lopes, personal communication.

283 I WISH I COULD ALSO REFRESH: Fermi to Feynman, 18 January 1952, AIR

283 FEYNMAN TAUGHT BASIC ELECTROMAGNETISM: Feynman 1963a.

284 LIGHT IMPINGING ON A MATERIAL: Ibid., 26.

284 BUT WHEN HE ASKED WHAT WOULD HAPPEN: SYJ, 192.

284 THEY COULD DEFINE “TRIBOLUMINESCENCE": Even in his sixties he continued to consider ways of intensifying this phenomenon in the substances he described as “WL (Wint-o-green Lifesavers) and S (sucrose).” Feynman to J. Thomas Dick-enson, 13 May 1985, CIT.

284 HAVE YOU GOT SCIENCE?: SYJ, 197.

284 WHAT ARE THE FOUR TYPES OF TELESCOPE?: Feynman 1963a, 24.

284 HE WOULD SIT IDLY AT A CAFÉ TABLE: Joan Feynman, interview.

284 GIVES A FEELING OF STABILITY: Feynman 1963a, 24.

285 PHILIP MORRISON, WHO SHARED AN OFFICE: Morrison, interview.

286 HE JOINED A LOCAL SCHOOL: SYJ, 185.

286 IN THE 1952 CARNEVAL: Lopes, personal communication.

287 HE HEARD FROM HARDLY ANYONE: F-W, 564; Feynman to Oppenheimer, 27 May 1952, OPR

287 HE HAUNTED THE MIRAMAR HOTEL’S OUTDOOR PATIO BAR: Bertram J. Collcutt to Feynman, 2 December 1985, CIT.

287 HE TOOK OUT PAN AMERICAN STEWARDESSES: SYJ, 183-84.

287 THE OLD CERTAINTIES OF THE PAST: Mead 1949, 4.

289 TELL ME WHAT IT IS LIKE: Michels 1948, 16.

290 It SEEMS TO ME THAT YOU GO TO LOTS OF TROUBLE: Feynman, note, n.d., PERS.

290 HOW IS IT POSSIBLE: SYJ, 168.

290 YOU ARE WORSE THAN A WHORE: Ibid., 169-70.

292 EVEN BEFORE THEY MARRIED, THEY QUARRELED: Mary Louise Bell to Feynman, 30 May 1950 and 24 March 1952, PERS.

292 THE PATTERN IS THAT THE GIRL: Bell to Feynman, 26 February 1952, PERS.

292 THEY HONEYMOONED IN MEXICO: SYJ, 286.

292 SHE DID NOT KNOW WHAT TO THINK: Mary Louise Bell, telephone interview.

292 SHE LIKED TO TELL PEOPLE: Bell, interview.

292 WHERE THERE’S SMOKE THERE’S FIRE: Gell-Mann, interview.

293 HAS WILFULLY, WRONGFULLY: Complaint for Divorce, 6 June 1956, Superior Court, Los Angeles County. “Final Adjustment of Property Settlement,” handwritten agreement, 16 October 1956, PERS.

293 THE DRUMS MADE TERRIFIC NOISE: “Beat Goes Sour: Calculus and African Drums

Bring Divorce,” Los Angeles Times, 18 July 1956.

293 BEGGING FOR HIS OLD JOB BACK: Feynman to Bethe, 26 November 1954, BET.

293 SOON AFTERWARD, SOMEONE RUSHED UP: SYJ, 211-12.

293 MEANWHILE, ALTHOUGH BETHE HAD BEEN THRILLED: Bethe to Feynman, 3 December 1954, BET.

294 THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO DECIDED: Goldberger, interview; SYJ, 213.

295 A HOST OF APPLIED SCIENCES: Cf. Forman 1987 and Kevles 1990.

295 WHEN SCIENCE IS ALLOWED TO EXIST: DuBridge, quoted in Forman 1987.

295 THESE WERE NOT SO MUCH CRUMBS: As the leading experimentalist Luis Alvarez told the physicist and historian Abraham Pais: “Right after the war we had a blank check from the military because we had been so successful. Had it been otherwise we would have been villains. As it was we never had to worry about money.” Pais 1986, 19.

295 IN 1954 THE SECRETARY OF THE ARMY: Minutes of Executive Session, Army Scientific Advisory Panel, 17 November 1954, CIT; F-W, 599-601.

295 HOT DOC: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, n.d., PERS.

295 THE PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT CAME: “Einstein Award to Professor, 35,” New York Times, 14 March 1954; F-W, 673.

296 THE AEC BEGAN FOUR WEEKS OF HEARINGS: Atomic Energy Commission 1954.

296 YOU SHOULD NEVER TURN A MAN’S GENEROSITY: A decade later, he was uncomfortable with his decision. “I knew what had happened to Oppenheimer, and that Strauss had something to do with it, and I didn’t like it…. O.K.? And I thought—I’m going to fix him. I mean, I was not nice. I don’t want to take it from him. The hell with it. And I thought: maybe I won’t take the prize. All right? And I worried about it, because in a certain sense I felt that was unfair. The guy is offering the money—you know, he’s trying to do something nice— and it isn’t that he just did it because of this, because he’s done it before. There were previous Einstein Awards, as far as I know, or something…. I was kind of confused. “F-W, 673-74.

296 FEYNMAN’S OWN FILE AT THE FBI: 497 pages, partly expurgated, FOI.

296 PROFESSOR FEYNMAN IS ONE OF THE LEADING: Bethe to M. Evelyn Michaud, 7 April 1950, and Michaud to Bethe, 27 March 1950, BET.

297 ONE OF ITS PRINCIPAL ARCHITECTS: Sakharov 1990, 190-91.

298 I THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE INTERESTED: Feynman to Atomic Energy Commission, 14 January 1955, CIT. Also: “Is there danger that I would be kept there and not return?” Feynman to State Department, 14 January 1955, FOI.

298 PROPAGANDA GAINS: Walter J. Stoessel, Jr., “Invitation to United States Physicist to Attend Scientific Conference,” confidential memorandum, Department of State, 21 January 1955, FOI; Stoessel, Jr., to Feynman, 15 March 1955, CIT.

298 CIRCUMSTANCES HAVE ARISEN: Feynman to A. N. Nesmeyarrov, 14 March 1955, CIT.

298 THIS IS A CLEAR CASE: “Scientist at Caltech Warned,” Los Angeles Times, 8 April 1955.

299 WHEN FEYNMAN TALKED ABOUT FLUID FLOW: Lectures, II-40-1.

299 THEORISTS OF “DRY WATER": Lectures, II-40-3 and III-4-12.

300 TWO CITIES UNDER SIEGE: Feynman 1957a, 205.

300 NORWEGIAN I AND NORWEGIAN II: Donnelly 1991b.

300 THE MOST BASIC CLUE: Feynman 1955b, 18.

301 THE SPEAKERS HAD NO IDEA: Russell Donnelly, telephone interview.

301 HE HAD TRIED TO PICTURE: Feynman 1953c, 1302.

302 THE CHALLENGE WAS TO DRIVE: “The hardest part of the helium problem was done by physical reasoning alone, without being able to write anything…. it was very very interesting to be able to push through that doggoned thing without having stuff to write.” F-W, 739.

301 HE LAY AWAKE IN BED: F-W, 693-95.

302 THE RINGS OF ATOMS WERE LIKE RINGS OF CHILDREN: Feynman 1958a, 21.

302 TYPICAL FEYNMAN: Donnelly, interview.

303 POSSIBLY I UNDERSTAND: Note, “Possibly I understand …” n.d., CIT.

303 THE YEAR BEFORE, SCHRIEFFER HAD LISTENED: Robert Schrieffer, telephone interview; Feynman 1957a.

303 WE HAVE NO EXCUSE: Feynman 1957a, 212.

304 BY THE FIRST OF THESE MEETINGS: Pais 1986, 461; Polkinghorne 1989, 20.

304 WITHIN A FEW YEARS PARTICLE TABULATIONS: Polkinghorne 1989, 21.

304 GENTLEMEN, WE HAVE BEEN INVADED: C. F. Powell, at a 1953 conference, quoted in Polkinghorne 1989, 48.

305 ONE EXPERIMENTALIST, MARCEL SCHEIN: Crease and Mann 1986, 178.

305 You have a different theory: F-W, 603-5.

306 If a Caltech experimenter: Barry Barish, interview, Pasadena.

307 HE THOUGHT PAIS WAS WRONG: Cell-Mann 1982, 399.

307 AT FOURTEEN HE HAD BEEN DECLARED: Columbiana 1944 (Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School), 28; Bernstein 1987, 20.

308 THE ONLY PERSON WHO WILL KNOW: Ralph Leighton, interview, Pasadena.

308 IT WAS THE CLOSEST TO SUCCESS: Cell-Mann, interview.

308 IT WAS HIS BROTHER: Gell-Mann 1989b, 3.

309 WHEN WEISSKOPF ADVISED HIM: Gell-Mann, interview.

309 FEYNMAN FELT A FLICKER OF ENVY: F-W, 670; SYJ, 223.

309 GELL-MANN, IN CHICAGO, FELT EVEN MORE: “Jealousy was another reason … I resented the publicity being given to the scheme of Pais, which I was convinced was wrong!” Gell-Mann 1982, 399.

310 THE EDITORS OF THE PHYSICAL REVIEW: Gell-Mann 1953; Gell-Mann 1982, 400.

310 WHY SHOULD A BROAD-MINDED THEORIST: Quoted in Polkinghorne 1989, 49. Similarly, the historian ). L. Heilbron: “‘Strangeness,’ a word barely utterable in Romance languages and expressive of a surprise only briefly felt…. Does the new terminology express cynicism or disdain by particle theorists toward their own creations?” “An Historian’s Interest in Particle Physics,” in Brown et al. 1989, 53.

310 THE WINTER FERMI DIED: Gell-Mann, interview.

311 MOST OF HIS BODY WAS CREMATED: Thomas S. Harvey, telephone interview; William L. Laurence, “Key Clue Sought in Einstein Brain,” New York Times, 20 April 1955; Steven Levy, “My Search for Einstein’s Brain,” New Jersey Monthly, August 1978, 43.

311 VARIOUS NINETEENTH-CENTURY RESEARCHERS: Could 1981.

312 IS THERE A NEUROLOGICAL SUBSTRATE: Obler and Fein 1988, 6.

313 ENLIGHTENED, PENETRATING, AND CAPACIOUS MINDS: Duff 1767, 5.

313 RAMBLING AND VOLATILE POWER: Ibid., 9.

313 IMAGINATION IS THAT FACULTY: Ibid., 6-7.

314 IN POINT OF GENIUS: Gerard 1774, 13.

314 A QUESTION OF VERY DIFFICULT SOLUTION: Ibid., 18.

315 IT IS ONE OF THE HOPES: Quoted in Root-Bernstein 1989, 1.

315 A PHYSICIST STUDYING QUANTUM FIELD THEORY: Coleman, interview.

315 FROM GEOMETRY TO LOGARITHMS: Hood 1851, 10-11.

316 THE ASTROPHYSICIST WILLY FOWLER: Thorne, interview; Fowler, interview conducted by Charles Weiner, 30 May 1974, AIP: “I just thought Feynman’s talking through his hat, what can he possibly mean, what can general relativity have to do with these objects?”

316 THAT FEYNMAN HAD SIGNED: John S. Rigden, interview, New York.

317 WHY DO I CALL HIM A MAGICIAN?: Quoted in Dyson 1979, 8-9.

317 MAGICAL MUMBO-JUMBO: Dyson 1979, 8.

318 BETWEEN THE PHYSIOLOGY OF THE MAN: Lombroso 1891, xiii.

319 LET EUROPEAN ROMANTICS CELEBRATE: Currie 1974.

319 I SPEAK WITHOUT EXAGGERATION: Quoted in Grartan 1933, 156.

319 MR. EDISON IS NOT A WIZARD: Quoted in LaFollette 1990, 97.

320 EDISON WAS NOT A WIZARD: Grartan 1933, 151.

320 HONEST CRAFTSMEN: Dyson 1979, 9.

321 HE WAS SEARCHING FOR GENERAL PRINCIPLES: Ibid., 62-63.

321 SO WHAT IS THIS MIND OF OURS?: WDY, 220.

322 KNOWING WHAT FERMI COULD DO: Zuckerman 1977.

323 I THINK IF HE HAD NOT BEEN SO QUICK: Coleman, interview.

324 THE WHOLE QUESTION OF IMAGINATION: Lectures, II-20-10.

325 NOT JUST SOME HAPPY THOUGHTS: Ibid.

325 OUR IMAGINATION IS STRETCHED: CPL, 127-28.

325 WE KNOW SO VERY MUCH: Feynman to Welton, 10 February 1947, CIT

326 THERE ARE SO VERY FEW EQUATIONS: Ibid.

326 MAYBE THAT’S WHY YOUNG PEOPLE: Feynman 1965c.

326 WELTON, TOO, WAS PERSUADED: Welton, interview: “I said, ‘Dick, think in retrospect what would have happened if I had taught you the Q.E.D. that I knew— you would have known too much, and you wouldn’t have been able to innovate as much,’ and he said, ‘You’re right.’”

326 WOULD I HAD PHRASES: Attributed to Khakheperressenb, quoted in Lentricchia 1980, 318.

326 THERE ARE NO LARGE PEOPLE: Quoted by Scott Spencer, “The Old Man and the Novel,” New York Times Magazine, 22 September 1991, 47.

327 GIANTS HAVE NOT CEDED: Gould 1983, 224. 329 THOSE COUNTLESS FOOTNOTES: Merton 1961, 72.

329 I ALWAYS FIND QUESTIONS LIKE THAT: Feynman to James T. Cushing, 21 October 1985, CIT.

330 WEISSKOPF DECLARED AT ONE MEETING: Polkinghorne 1989, 61.

331 FEYNMAN HIMSELF CONFESSED: Millard Susman, personal communication, 29 May 1989.

331 EVERYTHING’S REALLY ALL RIGHT: Untitled videotape, n.d., recorded for the British Broadcasting Corporation; cf. Gardner 1969, 22-23.

331 CHEMISTS CAN MAKE THEM WITH EITHER HANDEDNESS: Feynman 1965e, 98-100.

332 GELL-MANN SPENT A LONG WEEKEND: Gell-Mann, interview.

332 BY THE TIME THE 1956 ROCHESTER CONFERENCE: Pais 1986, 524.

333 BE IT RECORDED HERE THAT ON THE TRAIN: Ibid., 525.

333 AN EXPERIMENTER ASKED FEYNMAN WHAT ODDS: “I mention this story because I was prejudiced against thinking that parity wasn’t conserved, but I knew it might not be. In other words, I couldn’t bet one hundred to one, but just fifty to one.” F-W, 721.

333 PURSUING THE OPEN-MIND APPROACH: Ballam et al. 1956, 27.

333 SOME STRANGE SPACE-TIME: Ibid., 28.

333 THE CHAIRMAN: Ibid.

334 I DO NOT BELIEVE THAT THE LORD: Quoted in Bernstein 1967, 59-60.

334 WE ARE NO LONGER TRYING TO HANDLE SCREWS: Sheldon Penman, quoted in Gardner 1969, 244.

334 AT THE 1957 ROCHESTER CONFERENCE: Polkinghorne 1989, 65.

334 BUSY EXPLAINING THAT THEY PERSONALLY: Ibid., 64-65.

335 HE REFUSED TO REFEREE PAPERS: “To me there’s an infinite amount of work involved…. I’m not built that way. I can’t think his way. I can’t follow and try to go through all these steps. If I want to worry about the problem, I read the paper to get the problem, and then maybe work it out some other way…. Now, to read and just check steps is— I can’t do.” F-W, 715.

335 MR. BEARD IS VERY COURAGEOUS: Feynman to Theodore Caris, 5 December 1961, CIT.

335 YOU’VE DONE IT AGAIN AND AGAIN,: F-W, 727-28; Joan Feynman.

336 AS LEE POINTED OUT: In Ascoli et al. 1957.

336 IN READING LEE AND YANG’S PREPRINT: F-W, 724.

336 HE LIKED THE IDEA ENOUGH: F-W, 725-26; SYJ, 228.

336 A TWO-COMPONENT EQUATION:

336 SUPPOSE THAT HISTORICALLY: Feynman 1957b, 43.

337 OF COURSE I CAN’T DO THAT: Ibid.

337 MARSHAK AND SUDARSHAN MET WITH GELL-MANN: An unhappy tangle of priority concerns followed. Marshak and Sudarshan were concerned to point out that Gell-Mann had learned of their work in progress in July; Gell-Mann was concerned to point out that he had been thinking about V-A “for all these years.” Marshak and Sudarshan had missed the opportunity to speak at the Rochester meeting in April—when Feynman described his two-component Dirac equation—and forever after found themselves rehearsing their reasons for remaining silent. To their deep dismay, most physicists cited the Feynman-Gell-Mann paper, not the Marshak-Sudarshan paper (Sudarshan 1983, 486; Sudarshan and Marshak 1984, 15-20). They liked to quote a generous remark of Feynman’s long afterward: “We have a conventional theory of weak interactions invented by Marshak and Sudarshan, published by Feynman and Gell-Mann, and completed by Cabibbo….” Feynman 1974b.

337 I FLEW OUT OF THE CHAIR: F-W, 729-30.

337 GELL-MANN, HOWEVER, DECIDED: Gell-Mann, interview.

338 BEFORE THE TENSION BETWEEN THEM: Gell-Mann, Bacher, interviews.

338 COLLEAGUES STRAINED TO OVERHEAR: Matthew Sands, interview, Santa Cruz, Calif.

338 GELL-MANN SOMETIMES DISDAINED IT: Gell-Mann 1983b; Gell-Mann, interview: “He wrote his version using a two-component formalism, of which he was very proud. I disliked the approach: I found it clumsy and unnecessary. I added a lot of material to the paper, some good and some bad, but I didn’t succeed in changing the emphasis on the two-component formalism. That was sort of unfortunate.”

338 ONE OF THE AUTHORS HAS ALWAYS: Feynman and Gell-Mann 1958a, 194.

338 HAS A CERTAIN AMOUNT OF THEORETICAL: Ibid., 193.

338 THERE WAS A MOMENT WHEN I KNEW: Edson 1967, 64.

339 WE ARE WELL AWARE OF THE FRAGILITY: Feynman and Gell-Mann 1958b.

339 IMPRESSING LISTENERS WITH THE BODY LANGUAGE: Polkinghorne 1989, 72.

339 YOU SPEAK ENGLISH: Gweneth Feynman, interview.

340 FEYNMAN ARRIVED AT A PICNIC: Susman, personal communication.

340 A NEW ERA IN HISTORY: “Red Moon over U.S.,” Time, 14 October 1957, 27.

340 ALL THE MASTERY THAT IT IMPLIES: “The Red Conquest,” Newsweek, 14 October 1957, 38.

340 WELL, LET’S GET THIS STRAIGHT: Quoted in “The Feat That Shook the Earth,” Life, 21 October 1957, 25.

340 OUR WAY OF LIFE IS DOOMED: Ibid., 23.

340 CURLY-HAIRED AND HANDSOME: “Bright Spectrurn,” Time, 18 November 1957, 24.

341 SCIENTIFIC AND TECHNICAL LEADERSHIP IS SLIPPING: “In Science,” Newsweek, 20 January 1958, 65.

341 THEY WILL ADVANCE SO FAST: “Knowledge Is Power,” Time, 18 November 1957, 21.

341 NO TIME FOR HYSTERIA: Reader’s Digest, December 1957, 117.

341 A STATE DEPARTMENT OFFICIAL LET CALTECH KNOW: Feynman: “… someone from the State Department asked that Murray’s name be on it also, in order to impress. This was very unfortunate altogether. I don’t mind Murray’s name on it, that’s not the point, but this kind of crap. They call up—so many Russians are going to talk about this thing, they have to have more Americans talking about something scientific … this stuff about propaganda mixing up with the science, you know.” F-W, 744.

341 IT REMINDED HIM OF THE FLOPHOUSES: WDY, 63-65.

341 SHE TOLD HIM SHE WAS MAKING HER WAY: Gweneth Feynman, interview.

342 I’VE DECIDED TO STAY HERE: Gweneth Howarth to Feynman, 13 October 1958, PERS.

343 HE CONSULTED A LAWYER: Sands, interview.

343 FEYNMAN CALCULATED FARES: Gweneth Howarth to Feynman, 1 November 1958, PERS.

343 YOU’LL WRITE & TELL ME: Gweneth Howarth to Feynman, 1 December 1958, PERS.

343 I’M IMPROVING, AM I NOT: Gweneth Howarth to Feynman, 2 January 1959, PERS.

344 YOU DO NEED SOMEONE: Gweneth Howarth to Feynman, 14 January 1959, PERS. 344 SHE IS AN INTELLIGENT GIRL: Feynman to American Consulate General, Zurich, 22 January 1959, PERS.

344 SHE HAD TO AVOID ENGELBERT: Gweneth Howarth to Feynman, 14 February 1959.

344 FROM WHAT MORAL HIGH GROUND: Gweneth Feynman, interview.

345 BUT FEYNMAN’S ATTORNEYS ADVISED HIM: Samuel C. Klein to Robert F. Diekman, 22 September 1959, and Robert F. Diekman to Feynman, 30 September 1959, PERS.

345 WELL, AT LAST: Feynman to Gweneth Howarth, 28 May 1959, PERS.

345 SHE SURREPTITIOUSLY INTRODUCED COLORED SHIRTS: Gweneth Feynman, interview.

346 AT FIRST HE KEPT HER PRESENCE SECRET: Gweneth Feynman, Gell-Mann, interviews.

346 SO THIS IS HOW WE’RE STARTING LIFE: Gweneth Feynman, interview.

346 MURRAY GELL-MANN, WHO HAD MARRIED: Gell-Mann 1989a, 50.

346 AN IMAGE LODGED IN GELL-MANN’S MEMORY: Ibid.

347 HELLO, MY SWEETHEART: Feynman to Gweneth Feynman, 11 October 1961, PERS.

347 AGE IS, OF COURSE, A FEVER CHILL: E.g. Kragh 1989, 347n.

348 TO CONVEY A SENSE OF HOW “DELICATELY": QED, 7.

348 WE HAVE BEEN COMPUTING TERMS: Feynman 1961a, 17.

348 NOTE THE CUNNING OF REASON AT WORK: Schweber, forthcoming.

348 WE VERY MUCH NEED A GUIDING PRINCIPLE: Weinberg 1977a, 33.

348 “DIPPY” AND “A SHELL GAME": QED, 128.

349 THE ELECTRON DISTORTS THE LATTICE: Feynman 1955a; Feynman et al. 1962.

349 HIS CALTECH SALARY: Salary records, Lee DuBridge papers, CIT.

349 HE STARTED TELLING PEOPLE: Susman, personal communication.

349 FEYNMAN TOLD HIMSELF THAT HE WOULD GO: F-W, 751.

349 FEYNMAN BEGAN IN THE SUMMER: Notebook, “Biochemical Techniques,” CIT; F-W, 751.

350 UNDERSTANDING WHEN A THING IS REALLY KNOWN: F-W, 753.

350 HE FOCUSED ON A PARTICULAR MUTATION: Benzer 1962; Crick 1962; Crick 1966.

350 FEYNMAN COMPARED FINDING: Susman, personal communication.

350 FRIENDS OF HIS IN THE LABORATORY: Robert Sinsheimer to Feynman, n.d., “Dear Feyntron … ,” CIT; “Mutual Suppression of rII Mutants of Bacteriophage T4D,” draft by Robert Sinsheimer, CIT. F-W, 752: “I knew they were very interesting and unusual, but I didn’t write it up.” He did contribute to a group paper in Genetics, however: Edgar, Feynman, et al. 1961.

351 THE SPECIALISTS HAD AN ADVANTAGE: Crick et al. 1961; Crick 1962.

351 THE STORY OF THE GENETIC CODE: Crick 1966, 55-56.

351 QUANTUM-MECHANICAL SMEARING OF SPACE-TIME: Gell-Mann 1989a, 53.

352 THE GRAVITATIONAL FORCE IS WEAK: Alexander J. Glass, letter to Physics Today, May 1988, 136.

352 I HAVE NOT SEEN ANY PLANS: Feynman to Weisskopf, 4 January to 11 February 1961, WHE.

352 MAYBE GRAVITY IS A WAY: Ibid.

352 A CONFERENCE ON GRAVITATION: Feynman 1963b.

353 SINCE 1916 WE HAVE HAD A SLOW: Quoted in Schucking 1990, 486.

353 THEY TEASED EACH OTHER: Feynman to Gweneth Feynman, n.d., in WDY, 90.

353 WHAT HAVE YOU EVER DONE: Schucking 1990, 483.

353 THE “WORK” IS ALWAYS: Feynman to Gweneth Feynman, n.d., in WDY, 91-92.

354 THE REAL FOUNDATION OF QUANTUM MECHANICS: Gell-Mann 1989a, 54.

354 THERE IS A DEVICE ON THE MARKET: Feynman 1960a, 22-24.

355 HE ENVISIONED MACHINES THAT WOULD MAKE: The idea of ever-tinier servo-controlled robotic hands had been anticipated by the science fiction writer Robert Heinlein, who called them Waldoes. Cf. Regis 1990, 142.

355 HOW TO BUILD AN AUTOMOBILE: Popular Science Monthly, November 1960, 114.

356 NOT UNTIL 1985 DID FEYNMAN HAVE TO PAY: Thomas H. Newman to Feynman, 30 January 1986, CIT.

356 BY JUNE, WHEN HE HAD NOT HEARD: William McLellan, telephone interview; “McLellan Micromotor,” note, CIT.

356 UH-OH: McLellan, interview.

356 HE HAD NEGLECTED TO MAKE ANY ARRANGEMENTS: Feynman to McLellan, 15 November 1960.

357 FUNDAMENTAL PHYSICS (IN THE SENSE OF: Feynman 1960a, 22.

357 WHAT WE ARE TALKING ABOUT IS REAL: Feynman to Ashok Arora, 4 January 1967, CIT.

357 PITH BALLS AND INCLINED PLANES: F-W, 760.

358 1. HISTORICAL DEVELOPMENT: Beyer and Williams 1957. Cf. Lindsay 1940, Bonner and Phillips 1957, and Mendenhall et al. 1950.

358 A GENERATION-OLD TEXT BY ITS OWN LUMINARY: Millikan et al.

358 SO, WHAT IS OUR OVER-ALL PICTURE: Lectures, I-1-2.

359 IF WATER—WHICH IS NOTHING: Lectures, I-1-9.

359 GUIDE TO THE PERPLEXED: F-W, 762.

359 A TEAM OF CALTECH PHYSICS PROFESSORS: Sands, interview; D. Goodstein 1989, 74.

360 PHYSICS BEFORE 1920: Lectures, I-2-3.

360 NOT THE PROBLEM OF FINDING NEW: Lectures, I-3-9.

360 IT IS THE ANALYSIS OF CIRCULATING: Ibid.

360 WHAT WE REALLY CANNOT DO: Lectures, I-3-10.

360 WELL, THE HOUR IS UP: F-W, 765.

360 HE TIMED HIS DIAGRAMS: Sands, interview.

361 IN THE GRADUAL INCREASE IN THE COMPLEXITY: Lectures, I-4-2.

362 THEY DEPEND UPON HOW: Lectures, I-17-2.

362 EVEN PHYSICISTS FELT THEY WERE LEARNING: Stabler 1967, 48; Lectures, I-20-7.

362 IT IS A WONDERFUL THING: Lectures, I-20-7.

363 THE RATCHET AND PAWL WORKS: Lectures, I-46-9.

363 AS THE MONTHS WENT ON: F-W, 766.

363 I’VE SPOKEN TO SOME: D. Goodstein 1989, 74.

363 IT IS ODD: CPL, 13.

364 GIVE A HUMAN APPROACH: Tord Pramberg to Feynman, 15 November 1966, and Feynman to Tord Pramberg, 4 January 1966, CIT.

364 WHEN YOU HAVE LEARNED: Feynman to Ashok Arora, 4 January 1967, CIT.

364 WITH THIS QUESTION PHILOSOPHY BEGAN: Heidegger 1959, 20.

365 ALL SATELLITES TRAVEL: CPL, 19.

365 THAT IS THE SAME: Ibid., 33.

365 EXACTLY THE SAME LAW: Ibid., 34.

365 MEANWHILE, WHY DOES AN OBJECT: Ibid., 19.

366 SCIENCE REPUDIATES PHILOSOPHY: Quoted in Ziman 1978, 1.

366 NONE OF THE ENTITIES THAT APPEAR: Park 1988, xx.

366 LIKE TOURISTS MOVING IN: CPL, 173.

366 QUESTIONS ABOUT A THEORY: Slater, “Electrodynamics of Ponderable Bodies,” Journal of the Franklin institute 225 (1938):277. Quoted by Schweber, forthcoming.

366 AN UNDERSTANDING OF THE LAW: CPL, 169.

367 AFTERWARD, MURRAY GELL-MANN “COUNTERED”: SYJ, 290.

367 THEY COUNTED A CERTAIN NUMBER: CPL, 169.

367 “YES,” SAYS THE ASTRONOMER: Ibid., 170.

368 TO DYSON’S ASTONISHMENT: Dyson to his parents, October 1948.

368 OH, NO, IT’S NOT SERIOUS: Dyson, interview; Dyson 1990.

368 HIS MOTIVATION WAS TO DISCOVER: Dyson 1990, 210.

368 DIFFERENT IDEAS FOR GUESSING: CPL, 168.

369 TO GET SOMETHING THAT WOULD PRODUCE: Ibid., 169.

369 WHAT CAN YOU EXPLAIN: Stephen Wolfram, telephone interview.

369 IF YOU GET HOLD OF TWO MAGNETS: Untitled videotape, n.d., recorded for the British Broadcasting Corporation.

371 I THINK THAT FOR SCIENTIFIC: Quine 1987, 109. 371 THE POST-SCHOLASTIC ERA: Ziman 1992.

371 THE SCIENTIST HAS A LOT OF EXPERIENCE: Feynman 1955c, 14.

372 GREAT VALUE OF A SATISFACTORY PHILOSOPHY: Notes, “The Uncertainty of Science,” PERS.

372 THE KIND OF A PERSONAL GOD: Dan L. Thrapp, “Science, Religion Conflict Traced,” Los Angeles Times, 30 June 1956. Cf. Feynman 1956a.

372 IT DOESN’T SEEM TO ME: Interview for “Viewpoint,” with Bill Stout, transcript, CIT. Feynman complained to the station: “It was said at one time that my views might antagonize people…. I consider your refusal to utilize the program recorded with me as a direct censorship of the expression of my views.” Feynman to Bill Whitley, 14 May 1959, CIT.

372 THE GROUND OF ALL THAT IS: Polkinghorne 1990.

373 POETS SAY SCIENCE TAKES AWAY: Lectures, I-3-6 n.

373 I HAVE ARGUED FLYING SAUCERS: Feynman 1963c, 62.

373 IF IT’S NOT A MIRACLE: Ibid., 64.

374 ORANGE BALLS OF LIGHT: Ibid., 61.

374 I HAD THE MOST REMARKABLE EXPERIENCE: Ibid., 66.

374 I WAS UPSTAIRS TYPEWRITING: Ibid.

375 A DESK-THUMPING, FOOT-STAMPING SHOUT: Fine 1991, 271.

375 THE GREAT LESSON OF TWENTIETH-CENTURY: Ibid., 274.

376 THE NOBEL COMMITTEE HAS AWARDED: “Nobel Prize for Einstein,” New York Times, 10 November 1922, 4.

376 AS THE NE PLUS ULTRA OF HONORS: Zuckerman 1977, 11.

377 EACH FALL, AS THE ANNOUNCEMENT NEARED: “I always thought—I mean, I thought that there was a possibility that I might get a Nobel prize, because 1 thought somebody might think the work in helium, or maybe the beta decay, or even the electrodynamics might be something for the Nobel prize…. Each year when the Nobel prize talking comes around, of course you half think, maybe it’s possible.” F-W, 800-801.

378 THE WESTERN UNION “TELEFAX": Erik Rundberg to Feynman, 21 October 1965, PERS.

378 THE FIRST CALL HAD COME: F-W, 801; “Dr. Richard Feynman Nobel Laureate!” California Tech, 22 October 1965, 1.

378 WILL YOU PLEASE TELL US: F-W, 804.

378 WHAT APPLICATIONS DOES THIS PAPER: “Dr. Richard Feynman Nobel Laureate!” 378 LISTEN, BUDDY, IF I COULD TELL YOU: F-W, 804.

378 JULIAN SCHWINGER CALLED: Schwinger, interview.

378 I THOUGHT YOU WOULD BE HAPPY: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, n.d., PERS.

379 [FEYNMAN:] CONGRATULATIONS: “Dr. Richard Feynman Nobel Laureate!” 379 THERE WERE CABLES FROM SHIPBOARD: F-W, 806.

379 HE PRACTICED JUMPING BACKWARD: Ibid., 808-9.

380 FEYNMAN REALIZED THAT HE HAD NEVER READ: Ibid., 812.

380 HE BELIEVED THAT HISTORIANS: Feynman 1965a.

380 WE HAVE A HABIT IN WRITING: Ibid.

380 AS I WAS STUPID: Ibid.

381 THE CHANCE IS HIGH: Feynman 1965c.

381 I DISCOVERED A GREAT DIFFICULTY: Ibid.

382 THE ODDS THAT YOUR THEORY: Feynman 1965a.

382 DR. CRICK THANKS YOU: Quoted in Zuckerman 1977, 224.

383 MR. FEYNMAN WILL PAY THE SUM: Giuseppe Cocconi to Victor F. Weisskopf, 2 February 1976, CIT

383 HE BEGAN BY SCRIBBLING A NOTE: Feynman to B. L. Kropp, 9 November 1960, CIT.

383 MY DESIRE TO RESIGN: Feynman to Detlev W. Bronk, 10 August 1961. CIT.

384 THANK YOU FOR YOUR WILLINGNESS: Detlev W. Bronk to Feynman, 26 October 1961, CIT.

384 SUPPOSE THAT WE TRULY: Philip Handler to Feynman, 25 June 1969, CIT.

384 I HAVE YOUR SOMEWHAT CRYPTIC NOTE: Philip Handler to Feynman, 31 July 1969, CIT.

384 HE TURNED DOWN HONORARY DEGREES: George W. Beadle to Feynman, 4 January 1967, and William J. McGill to Feynman, 16 February 1976, CIT.

384 INTRODUCE A DRAFT OF FRESH AIR: Martin Mann to Feynman, 13 September 1962, and reply, CIT.

384 HE REFUSED TO SIGN PETITIONS: E.g., Feynman to Margaret Gardiner, 15 May 1967, CIT.

385 THE COMMENT YOU SENT BACK WITH OUR QUESTIONNAIRE: R. Hobart Ellis, Jr., to Feynman, 25 August 1966, and reply, CIT.

385 FEYNMAN HID BEHIND HER DOOR: Helen Tuck, interview, Pasadena.

385 A DISCRETIONARY KITTY: Goldberger, interview.

386 IT MUST HAVE BEEN VERY DIFFICULT: Holton, interview.

386 HANS BETHE TURNED SIXTY: R. E. Marshak to Feynman, 11 May 1965, and reply, CIT.

386 DON’T LET ANYBODY CRITICIZE: Feynman to James D. Watson, 10 February 1967, CIT.

387 IT IS OF COURSE A YANG-MILLS THEORY: Gell-Mann 1983a, 3.

387 BY THE WAY, SOME PEOPLE: Ibid.

388 THE POINT WAS HARDLY LOST: As Gell-Mann said at a memorial service for Feynman in 1989: “Everybody knows that Richard didn’t think one should be able to tell the difference between one bird and another…. He tried to show in yet another way that he could stand out from the herd—like not being a birdwatcher.” Talk at Feynman memorial, San Francisco, 18 January 1989.

388 SITS CALMLY BEHIND HIS DESK: Riordan 1987, 192.

389 MURRAY’S MASK WAS A MAN: Coleman, interview.

390 ZWEIG, FAR MORE VULNERABLE: Zweig 1981.

390 THEIR PALPITANT PIPING, CHIRRUP: Quoted in Crease and Mann 1986, 185.

391 THE CONCRETE QUARK MODEL: Zweig, interview.

391 IT IS FUN TO SPECULATE ABOUT THE WAY QUARKS: Gell-Mann 1964.

391 I ALWAYS CONSIDERED THAT TO BE A CODED MESSAGE: Polkinghome 1989, 110.

391 FOR GELL-MANN THIS BECAME: “People have deliberately misunderstood this for twenty-seven years.” Gell-Mann, interview.

391 I’VE ALWAYS TAKEN AN ATTITUDE: F-W, II-26.

391 AT FIRST HIS SYLLABUS CONTAINED: Zweig, interview; F-W, II-15.

392 A SINGLE BUBBLE CHAMBER: Traweek 1988, 52-53.

392 LIKE TRYING TO FIGURE OUT A POCKET WATCH: Quoted in Riordan 1987, 151-52.

392 THE PHYSICISTS WHO WOULD GATHER: Riordan 1987, 149.

393 HE ISOLATED A REMARKABLE REGULARITY: Bjorken 1989, 57; Bjorken, telephone interview.

393 OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY: “Each of the hypothetical point-like constituents of the nucleon that were invoked by R. P. Feynman to explain the way the nucleon inelastically scatters electrons of very high energy.” A Supplement to the Oxford English Dictionary, 279.

394 QUANTUM ELECTRODYNAMICS HAD ITS PARTONS: Feynman 1969b, 241.

394 HE CHOSE NOT TO DECIDE: Feynman to Michael Riordan, 26 February 1986, CIT.

394 WHEN FEYNMAN DIAGRAMS ARRIVED: Bjorken 1989, 56.

394 FEYNMAN TOOK ON A PROJECT IN 1970: Feynman et al. 1971.

395 CONVERTED INTO A QUARKERIAN: F-W, II-47.

395 A QUARK PICTURE MAY ULTIMATELY PERVADE: Feynman et al. 1971, 2727.

395 HE DISLIKED THE FANFARE: “These things were quarks and antiquarks (and sometimes gluons), but he didn’t want to call them by their names. At first, he wasn’t sure that that’s what they were, but as time went on it became clearer, and it annoyed me that he still didn’t acknowledge that he was talking about quarks. Eventually, some authors began to speak of ‘quark partons,’ but as if they were somehow different from ordinary current quarks.
“The so-called parton model was an approximate description of quarks and gluons that could apply in the appropriate high-energy limits if the interaction of the particles became weak at short distances (as turned out to be the case in quantum chromodynamics). Dick painted a naïve picture, which was taken not just as an approximation to an unknown theory, but as a kind of revealed truth.
“Physicists all over the world learned the ‘parton’ story, memorized it, and immediately began to use it to interpret experiments. In other words Dick has oversimplified the picture so that it could be used by everybody.” Gell-Mann, personal communication.

395 WE HAVE BUILT A VERY TALL HOUSE OF CARDS: Feynman 1972c.

395 I’M A LITTLE BIT FRUSTRATED: F-W, II-86.

396 QUIETLY NOMINATED GELL-MANN AND ZWEIG: They never knew it. B. Wagel to Feynman, 26 January 1977, CIT. Gell-Mann, Zweig, interviews.

396 JEE-JEE-JEE-JU-JU. JEE-JEE-JEE-JU-JU: F-L.

396 IT TOOK YEARS FOR FEYNMAN’S CHILDREN: Michelle Feynman, Carl Feynman, Gweneth Feynman, interviews.

397 RICHARD, I’M COLD: Leighton, interview.

397 I COULD HAVE KILLED HIM: Feynman to Sheila Sorenson, 21 October 1974, CIT. 397 TRUMPET PLAYING—SOCIAL WORKER—ZYGOPHALATELIST: Feynman to Carl Feynman, 18 February 1980, PERS.

397 AFTER MUCH EFFORT AT UNDERSTANDING: Ibid.

398 WHAT MAKES IT MOVE: Feynman 1966a.

398 TO TELL A FIRST-GRADER: Ibid., 14.

398 YOU SAY, “WITHOUT USING": Ibid., 15.

398 SHOE LEATHER WEARS OUT: Ibid., 16.

398 FEYNMAN TAUGHT THIRTY-FOUR: D. Goodstein 1989, 73.

399 I COULDN’T REDUCE IT: Ibid. 75.

399 IT IS AN EXAMPLE OF THE USE OF WORDS: Feynman 1964a, 16.

400 I DOUBT THAT ANY CHILD: Ibid., 3.

401 MICHELLE LEARNED THAT HE HAD A THOUSAND: Michelle Feynman, interview.

401 OH YES, WE DO: Gweneth Feynman, interview.

401 TRAVELING IN THE SWISS ALPS: Gweneth Feynman, interview.

402 FEYNMAN’S TUMOR: C. M. Haskell, interview, Los Angeles.

402 FIVE-YEAR SURVIVAL RATES: Sheldon C. Binder, Bertram Katz, and Barry Sheridan, “Retroperitoneal Liposarcoma,” Annals of Surgery, March 1978, 260.

402 YOU ARE OLD, FATHER FEYNMAN: “Father Feynman,” n.d., CIT.

402 WITH A POSTDOCTORAL STUDENT: Feynman et al. 1977; Field and Feynman 1977; Field and Feynman 1978.

403 FEYNMAN DID NOT REALIZE THAT FIELD: Richard Field, telephone interview.

403 I DON’T GET ANY PHYSICS: Victor F. Weisskopf to Feynman, 23 March 1979, CIT.

403 QCD FIELD THEORY WITH SIX FLAVORS: “Qualitative Behavior,” typescript for Feynman 1981, CIT.

404 VASCULAR INCIDENT: In Chang Kim, interview, Pasadena.

404 FEYNMAN NEEDED SEVENTY-EIGHT PINTS: Haskell, interview. Gweneth Feynman, interview.

404 IT’S IMPOSSIBLE TO TALK: Cvitanović, interview.

404 MY WIFE: Douglas R. Hofstadter, telephone interview.

405 I HAVE NOT ACCOMPLISHED ANYTHING: Feynman to Robert B. Leighton, 10 June 1974, CIT.

405 WHAT THE HELL IS FEYNMAN INVITED FOR: Feynman to Sidney Coleman, 13 August 1976, CIT.

405 ANOTHER PIECE OF EVIDENCE: Coleman to Feynman, 26 July 1976, CIT.

405 AGGRESSIVE DOPINESS: Carl Feynman, interview.

406 HE LISTENED PATIENTLY AS BABA RAM DAS: SYJ, 303-5.

406 PEOPLE IN HIGHER ECHELONS: He titled the talk, “Los Alamos from Below.” Feynman 1975, 105.

406 STILL, HE WOULD EMERGE: SYJ, 306.

406 SPORADICALLY, HE WORKED: E.g., Jon N. Leonard to Feynman, 3 November 1987, and Peter H. Hambling to Feynman, 4 August 1987, CIT.

407 ARE WE PHYSICS GIANTS: Feynman to Philip Morrison, 23 May 1972, CIT. 407 MYSTICISM, EXPANDED CONSCIOUSNESS: SYJ, 309.

407 IT HAS TO DO WITH THE QUESTION: Videotape, courtesy of Ralph Leighton.

407 PEACE OF MIND AND ENJOYMENT: Quoted in Leighton 1991, 83-84.

408 IT SEEMED TO GWENETH: Gweneth Feynman, interview; William G. Bradley, interview.

408 BUT YOU CAN’T SEE: Feynman to William G. Bradley, 13 July 1984, CIT.

409 OKAY, START YOUR WATCH: Weiner, interview.

409 A RECORD OF THE DAY-TO-DAY WORK: F-W, II-4.

410 TODAY I WENT OVER TO THE HUNTINGTON: F-L.

410 AND THE NEXT MORNING, ALL RIGHT: Ibid.

411 “LISTEN,” I SAID TO THE DISPATCHER: SYJ, 236.

411 A NICE BROOKLYN RING: Edwin Barber to Feynman, 2 March 1984, CIT.

411 GELL-MANN’S RAGE COULD BE HEARD: E.g., Tuck, interview.

411 OF COURSE IT WASN’T TRUE: SYJ, 229. He also changed “Murray Gell-Mann and I wrote a paper on the theory” to “Murray Gell-Mann compared and combined our ideas and wrote a paper on the theory” (232). Gell-Mann still called it “that joke book.” He knew that Feynman had not deliberately tried to take undeserved credit, but he was hurt nonetheless. “He was not at all a thief of ideas—even very generous in some ways,” Gell-Mann said. “It’s just that he was not always capable of regarding other people as really existing.”

411 A NIFTY BLONDE: SYJ, 241 and 168.

412 OUT WITH HIS GIRL FRIEND: Lectures, I-3-7.

412 DEAR ROTHSTEIN: DON’T BUG ME: “Protest,” mimeograph sheet, CIT.

412 HE HAD SPENT MANY PLEASANT HOURS: Jenijoy La Belle, interview, Pasadena; “Feynman Commends La Belle,” letter to California Tech, 5 March 1976; La Belle 1989.

413 AND, LIKE FALLING IN LOVE: NL, 435.

413 SO WHAT HAPPENED TO THE OLD THEORY: NL, 456.

413 THERE IS IN THE WORLD OF PHYSICS: Feynman 1972e, 1.

414 GENERALLY MR. FEYNMAN IS NOT JOKING: Morrison 1985, 43.

414 NOT AN AUTOBIOGRAPHY: Feynman to Robert Crease, 18 September 1985, CIT. And Feynman to Klaus Stadler, 15 October 1985, CIT: “This shows a complete misunderstanding of the nature of my book…. It is not in any way a scientific book, nor a serious one. It is not even an autobiography. It is only a series of short disconnected anecdotes, meant for the general reader which, we hope, the reader will find amusing.”

414 WHAT I REALLY WAS: Feynman to Crease.

414 A HALF-HOUR AFTER THE LAUNCH: Richard Witkin, “Canaveral Hopes for Success Fade,” New York Times, 6 March 1958, 1.

414 THEY USED A ROOM-SIZE: Hibbs, interview.

416 AN OUTSIDE GROUP OF EXPERTS: “Reagan names panel on shuttle explosion,” Walter V. Robinson, Washington Post, 4 February 1986, 1.

417 ARMSTRONG SAID ON THE DAY: “President Names 12-Member Panel in Shuttle Inquiry,” Gerald Boyd, New York Times, 4 February 1986, 1.

417 WE ARE NOT GOING TO CONDUCT: Ibid. In the commission’s first closed session, on February 10, he emphasized: “This is not an adversarial procedure. This commission is not in any way adversarial …” Report, IV, 244.

417 YOU’RE RUINING MY LIFE: William R. Graham, telephone interview.

417 FEYNMAN WAS NOW SUFFERING: Haskell, interview.

417 FEYNMAN HIMSELF REFUSED TO CONSIDER: Haskell, interview.

417 HE IMMEDIATELY ARRANGED A BRIEFING: Hibbs, interview; Charles Lifer, interview; Winston Gin, interview; WDY, 119-21.

419 ROGERS OPENED THE FIRST: Report, IV, 1.

419 IN RESPONSE, MOORE DENIED: Ibid., 21.

419 A CONCERN BY THIOKOL: Ibid., 97.

419 NEWSPAPER REPORTS THE NEXT DAY: Esp. David Sanger, “NASA Seems Surprised By Aggressive Queries,” New York Times, 7 February 1986, A19.

419 THIS IS WHAT WE WOULD HAVE CALLED: Report, IV, 220.

419 EVERYTHING THAT I KNOW: Ibid., 221.

420 WHEN WE ASK QUESTIONS: Ibid., 222.

420 YOU SAID WE DON’T EXPECT IT: Ibid., 224.

420 CO-PILOT TO PILOT: Donald J. Kutyna, interview, Peterson Air Force Base, Colo.; WDY, 126.

420 I HAVE A PICTURE OF THAT SEAL: Report, IV, 224.

421 THE LACK OF A GOOD SECONDARY SEAL: “August 19, 1985 Headquarters Briefing,” Report, I, 139; WDY, 135.

421 LOSS OF VEHICLE, MISSION, AND CREW: “NASA Had Warning of a Disaster Risk Posed by Booster,” Philip Boffey, New York Times, 9 February 1986, 1.

422 YOU KNOW, THOSE THINGS LEAK: WDY, 139-40; Kutyna, interview. Feynman misremembered this as a telephone conversation.

422 I THINK IT GOES WITHOUT SAYING: Report, IV, 244.

422 LAWRENCE MULLOY, PROJECT MANAGER: Ibid., 291.

422 HOW ARE THESE MATERIALS, THIS PUTTY AND THE RUBBER: Ibid., 347.

423 IF THIS MATERIAL WEREN’T RESILIENT: Ibid., 345.

423 HE HAD MADE AN OFFICIAL REQUEST: WDY, 146.

423 FEYNMAN IS BECOMING A REAL PAIN: David Sanger, personal communication.

424 YOU DIDN’T, I ASSUME: Report, IV, 380-82.

424 MULLOY, UNDER FURTHER QUESTIONING: “NASA Acknowledges Cold Affects Boosters Seals,” Philip Boffey, New York Times, 12 February 1986, 1.

424 THE PUBLIC SAW WITH THEIR OWN EYES: Dyson 1992, 284.

425 TO EXAGGERATE: to exaggerate how economical: WDY, 214.

425 ONE OF THE MOST PRODUCTIVE: Report, I, 1.

426 IT WAS A GREAT BIG WORLD: WDY, 158.

426 KUTYNA TOLD HIM HE WAS THE ONLY: Kutyna, interview; WDY, 156.

426 IN BETWEEN, HE MADE REPEATED VISITS: F-L.

426 I AM DETERMINED TO DO THE JOB: Feynman to Gweneth Feynman, 12 February 1986, quoted in WDY, 157.

426 THE COMMISSION STRONGLY RECOMMENDS: WDY, 200-201.

427 HISTORY OF O-RING PROBLEMS HAD BEEN REPORTED: E.g. Report, I, Appendix H; Graham, interview.

427 OVERALL HE ESTIMATED: Feynman 1986, F-2. 427 A KIND OF RUSSIAN ROULETTE: Report, I, 148.

427 IT HAS TO BE UNDERSTOOD: Ibid., IV, 817.

428 A TEAM OF STATISTICIANS: Dalai et al. 1989; Bruce Hoadley, telephone interview.

428 FEYNMAN DISCOVERED THAT SOME ENGINEERS: WDY, 182-83.

428 FOR A SUCCESSFUL TECHNOLOGY: Feynman 1986, F-5.

EPILOGUE

429 RATHER THAN EMBARRASS THEM: Lectures, I-16-1.

430 DID THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE IMPOSE: Lectures, I-6-10.

430 THE UNCERTAINTY PRINCIPLE SIGNALED: Hawking 1987, 55.

430 IT IS USUALLY THOUGHT THAT THIS INDETERMINACY: Lectures, I-38-9.

430 IF WATER FALLS OVER A DAM: Ibid.

431 FIFTY YEARS OF PARTICLE PHYSICS: Cahn and Goldhaber 1989, ix.

432 A CONTRIVED INTELLECTUAL STRUCTURE: Schwartz 1992, 173.

432 PEOPLE SAY TO ME, “ARE YOU LOOKING: F-Sy.

432 WE MAY NOW BE NEAR THE END: Hawking 1987, 156.

432 I’VE HAD A LIFETIME OF THAT: Interview conducted by P. C. W. Davies, transcript, CIT.

433 YOUR CAREER SPANS THE PERIOD: Interview conducted by Robert Crease, 22 February 1985; transcript, courtesy of Crease. Robert Crease to Feynman, 18 July 1985, CIT.

434 I SEE YOU’VE MET DICK: Robert Crease to Feynman, 18 July 1985, CIT.

435 FORGET ALL THAT “LOCAL MINIMA” STUFF: Hillis 1989, 82.

435 AND HE BEGAN TO PRODUCE MAVERICK RESEARCH: Feynman 1982; Feynman 1984. 435 THE PHYSICAL REVIEW OF THE BLIND MEN: Lectures, II-20-11.

435 WE ARE ALL REDUCTIONISTS TODAY: Weinberg 1987a, 66; Weinberg, personal communication.

436 THE INFINITE VARIETY AND NOVELTY: Lectures, II-41-12.

436 HE MAY ALSO BELIEVE IN THE EXISTENCE: Einstein and Infeld 1938, 31.

436 ONE OF THE GREAT PHILOSOPHERS: Mermin 1985, 47; Feynman 1982, 471.

437 I HAVE DECIDED IT IS NOT A VERY GOOD IDEA: Feynman to Lee Dye, 23 September

1987, CIT.

437 IT IS REALLY LIKE THE SHAPE: Ulam 1976, xi.

437 I’M GOING TO DIE: Michelle Feynman, interview.

437 HE WAS WATCHED AND GUARDED: Joan Feynman, Gweneth Feynman, and Frances Lewine, interviews.

438 TAUGHT PEOPLE MOST OF THE GOOD STUFF: Hillis 1989, 83.

438 YOU SEE, ONE THING IS, I CAN LIVE: F-Sy.

438 I’D HATE TO DIE TWICE: Gweneth Feynman, interview.