Джеймс Глик - Genius - The Life and Science of Richard Feynman

I’m especial y grateful to Mitchel Feigenbaum and Silvan S. Schweber for patient guidance and sharp insights on matters of physics. I particularly thank Schweber for letting me read the manuscript-in-progress of his forthcoming history of quantum electrodynamics, QED: 1946–1950: An American Success Story. I thank Predrag Cvitanovi? for permission to quote his fable of Quefithe. Robert Chadwel Wil iams, a biographer of Klaus Fuchs, sent a helpful mass of archival material relating to the Manhattan Project. I benefited from discussions with Joseph N. Straus and Hugh Wolff about genius, music, and music theory.

Cheryl Colbert lent me her intel igent and resourceful

assistance. Emilio Mil an shared a useful file of clippings and other documents that he had col ected.

This book owes an enormous obligation to the skil s of my editor, Daniel Frank, and my agent, Michael Carlisle.

As always, the indescribable debt is to Cynthia Crossen, who for so long endured, among other things, that strange, persistent presence of an extra soul in our household.

J. G.

Brooklyn, New York

8 July 1992

NOTES

ABBREVIATIONS

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

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

CIT: California Institute of Technology Archives.

CPL: The Character of Physical Law .

F-H: Interview with Lil ian 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 1965 a ; cf. Feynman 1965 b and 1965 c ). 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 1948 d ) and his recol ections 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 al odds the most bril iant 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 fol owing 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.; Gel -Mann 1989a, 50.

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

12 A HALF-SERIOUS DEBATE: Coleman, interview.

12 BOOK I , 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.

1 5 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 recol ections 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 Lucil e 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.

1 9 STANDARD EMERGENCY PROCEDURE: Frances Lewine, interview, Washington, D.C., and Far Rockaway.

1 9 DANGLING HIS METAL WASTEBASKET : Lucil e 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.