Genius (77 page)

The leading physicists who play the largest roles in this book agreed to provide their own recollections in interviews that sometimes extended over many sessions: Hans Bethe, Freeman Dyson, Murray Gell-Mann, Julian Schwinger, Victor Weisskopf, John Archibald Wheeler, and Robert R. Wilson.

Feynman’s own voice is everywhere in his published work, of course, and toward the end of his life, wherever he went, tape recorders and video cameras seemed to be running. But several interviews of Feynman by historians and others were especially valuable. The deepest and most comprehensive—a central resource for anyone studying Feynman—is an oral history of many hundreds of pages conducted by Charles Weiner for the American Institute of Physics in 1966 and 1973; I used Feynman’s copy of the transcript, with his handwritten corrections and comments. I also consulted the AIP’s oral-history interviews with Bethe, Dyson, William A. Fowler, Werner Heisenberg, Philip Morrison, and others. The physicist and historian Silvan S. Schweber kindly shared the tape of his revealing 1980 interview on the development of quantum electrodynamics and on Feynman’s style of visualization. Lillian Hoddeson conducted a useful interview of Feynman for her technical history of Los Alamos. Robert Crease gave me the transcript of an interview for his and Charles Mann’s
The Second Creation
. Christopher Sykes gave me access to the uncut interview he conducted for what became the 1981 BBC-TV production,
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
. Sali Ann Kriegsman gave me her transcript of Feynman’s recollections of Far Rockaway.

Ralph Leighton, who drew from Feynman the reminiscences that became
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!
and
What
Do You
Care What Other People Think?
, generously provided the original tapes of these interviews over nearly a decade. These are the stories that Feynman retold and refined over his lifetime—mostly accurate, but strongly filtered. I have tried not to lean on them too heavily, for reasons that I hope emerge in the text.

Feynman’s family members also spoke with me at length: Gweneth, Joan, Carl, and Michelle Feynman and Frances Lewine. Helen J. Tuck, his secretary of many years, shared her invaluable memories and perceptive comments.

Among the many other colleagues, students, friends, and observers of Feynman who helped me by submitting to interviews or providing written recollections—and in some cases copies of letters and diary pages—were Jan Anbjørn, Robert Bacher, Michel Baranger, Barry Barish, Henry H. Barschall, Mary Louise Bell, Rose Bethe, Jerry Bishop, James Bjorken, Peter A. Carruthers, Robert F. Christy, Michael Cohen, Sidney Coleman, Monarch L. Cutler, Predrag Cvitanović, Cecile DeWitt-Morette, Russell J. Donnelly, Sidney Drell, Leonard Eisenbud, Timothy Ferris, Richard D. Field, Michael E. Fisher, Evelyn Frank, Steven Frautschi, Edward Fredkin, Sheldon Clashow, Marvin Goldberger, David Goodstein, Frances R. (Rose McSherry) Graham, William R. Graham, Jules Greenbaum, Bruce Gregory, W. Conyers Herring, Simeon Hutner, Albert Hibbs, Douglas R. Hofstadter, Gerald Holton, John L. Joseph, Daniel Kevles, Sándor J. Kovács, Donald J. Kutyna, Janijoy La Belle, Leo Lavatelli, Ralph Leighton, Charles Lifer, Leite Lopes, Edward Maisel, Anne Tilghman Wilson Marks, Robert E. Marshak, Leonard Mautner, Robert M. May, William H. McLellan, Carver Mead, Nicholas Metropolis, Maurice A. Meyer, Philip Morrison, Masako Ohnuki, Paul Olum, Abraham Pais, David Park, John Polkinghorne, Burton Richter, John S. Rigden, Michael Riordan, Daniel Robbins, Matthew Sands, David Sanger, J. Robert Schrieffer, Theodore Schultz, Al Seckel, Barry Simon, Cyril Stanley Smith, Norris Parker Smith, Novera H. Spector, Millard Susman, Kip S. Thome, Yung-Su Tsai, John Tukey, Tom van Sant, Dorothy Walker, Robert L. Walker, Steven Weinberg, Charles Weiner, Theodore A. Welton, Arthur S. Wightman, Jane Wilson, Stephen Wolfram, and George Zweig.

Two indispensable histories of twentieth-century physics are Kevles,
The Physicists
, and Pais,
Inward Bound
.

I’m especially grateful to Mitchell 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 Chadwell Williams, 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 intelligent and resourceful assistance. Emilio Millan shared a useful file of clippings and other documents that he had collected.

This book owes an enormous obligation to the skills 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, 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 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 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 N
OTHING IS CERTAIN
: Feynman to Arline Feynman, 9 May 1945, PERS.

3 I
T GNAWED AT HIM
: Feynman 1975, 132.

3 W
OMEN SIDLED AWAY
: AIP, 423.

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

4 N
O TRANSCRIPT
: John Archibald Wheeler made and later circulated several dozen pages of handwritten notes, however (Wheeler 1948).

5 P
RINCIPLES
: “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 W
HAT ABOUT THE EXCLUSION PRINCIPLE?
: F-W, 471.

7 I
S 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
F
EYNMAN 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 W
E 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 W
E GOT THE INDELIBLE IMPRESSION
: David Park, personal communication.

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

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

10 T
HERE ARE TWO KINDS OF GENIUSES
: Ibid., XXV.

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

11 H
E’S NO
F
EYNMAN, BUT
: Morrison 1988, 42.

12
A HALF-SERIOUS DEBATE
: Coleman, interview.

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

13 P
HILOSOPHERS ARE ALWAYS ON THE OUTSIDE
: CPL, 173.

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

13 D
O NOT KEEP SAYING TO YOURSELF
: CPL, 129

13 N
ATURE 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 H
E DID THE TRAINING IN STAGES
: Ralph Leighton, interview, Pasadena.

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

16 A
N 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 H
E ASSEMBLED A CRYSTAL SET
: F-W, 35.

18 W
HEN ATMOSPHERIC CONDITIONS WERE RIGHT
:
SYJ
, 5.

18 E
INSTEIN WAS SHOWING
: Einstein 1909.

18 I
T SEEMS THAT THE AETHER
: Weyl 1922, 172.

19 “T
HE
S
HADOW
” and “U
NCLE
D
ON
”: 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 H
IS SISTER
, J
OAN
: Joan Feynman, interview, Pasadena.

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

21 W
HEN
I
WAS A CHILD
: Kazin 1951, 8–10.

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

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

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

22 I
S THE SAND OTHER THAN THE ROCKS?
: Ibid.

22 W
HEN
F
EYNMAN RETURNED
: Gweneth Feynman, interview, Altadena; Feynman-Kriegsman.

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

23 T
HAT WAS THE WAY THE WORLD WAS
: Ibid.

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

25 D
ON’T GET MARRIED
: Ibid.

25 D
ON’T COUNT YOUR CHICKENS
: Ibid.