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

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: Fel owship 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.

1 3 8 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.

1 3 8 A PRIMITIVE SORT OF ANALOG COMPUTER: F-W, 294–95; SYJ, 85–87.

138 FEYNMAN FOUND HIMSELF DRAWN: Mitchel 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.

1 4 0 ONE MORNING HE HAD GONE INTO HIS KITCHEN: Rhodes 1987, 340.

140 STUDENTS WERE ASKED TO CHOOSE: Lavatel i, interview.

140 IF THERE WAS ANY BALONEY: Wilson, interview.

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

1 4 0 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 stil 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: Lavatel i, quoted in Davis 1968, 135.

144 FEYNMAN HAD PRODUCED DETAILED CALCULATIONS: Feynman 1942 f; 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.

1 4 7 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: Lucil e Feynman to Feynman, “Why I object to your marriage to Arline at this time,” n.d,, PERS.

150 HE TOLD HIS FATHER: Feynman to Melvil e Feynman, 15

June 1942, PERS.

150 BUT JUST A FEW DAYS LATER : Feynman to Lucil e 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 eventual y 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. Lil ian 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.

Stil , one or two things may remain to be said. Many individual memoirs are available. The best overal 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 tel ings, 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 recol ections of the laboratory’s nascent computer science. Other sources on computation include Alt 1972, Asprey 1990, Bashe