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

senior thesis, MIT, 1939. The professors were Hawley C. Cartwright and Arthur F. Turner.

8 3 THE PUTNAM COMPETITION: Joseph Cal ian, 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.

8 3 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 skil s, 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 fel owship. 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 col eagues keep insisting that Feynman is not coming here next year because he took an examination and won a prize fel owship 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 Russel , “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: Del , 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.

8 5 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. Hel mann, had made the same discovery two years earlier. Slater 1963,

12–13;

H.

Hel mann, 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 Melvil e’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 recol ections. Wheeler shared the draft of his talk for a 1989 memorial session (Wheeler 1989). H. H. Barschal , Leonard Eisenbud, Simeon Hutner, Paul Olum, Leo Lavatel i, and Edward Maisel provided recol ections of Feynman and the Princeton of the late thirties and early forties. John Tukey and Martin Gardner il uminated the history of Hexagons. Robert R. Wilson discussed the isotron project and Feynman’s initiation into the Manhattan Project, as wel 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.

9 3 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.”

9 4 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. Barschal , 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: Barschal , 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.

9 7 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 Lucil e Feynman, 11 October 1939, PERS.

98 HE TRIED SCULLING: Ibid.

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

9 8 HE EARNED FIFTEEN DOLLARS A WEEK: Feynman to Lucil e 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 Lucil e Feynman, 11 October 1939; Feynman notes on nuclear physics, H. H. Barschal 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.

1 0 0 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 Sitwel 1987, 131.