“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”: Adventures of a Curious Character

by Richard Phillips Feynman

  I remembered the couple of times I had visited Caltech, at the invitation of Professor Bacher, who had previously been at Cornell. He was very smart when I visited. He knew me inside out, so he said, “Feynman, I have this extra car, which I’m gonna lend you. Now here’s how you go to Hollywood and the Sunset Strip. Enjoy yourself.”

  So I drove his car every night down to the Sunset Strip—to the nightclubs and the bars and the action. It was the kind of stuff I liked from Las Vegas—pretty girls, big operators, and so on. So Bacher knew how to get me interested in Caltech.

  You know the story about the donkey who is standing exactly in the middle of two piles of hay, and doesn’t go to either one, because it’s balanced? Well, that’s nothing. Cornell and Caltech started making me offers, and as soon as I would move, figuring that Caltech was really better, they would up their offer at Cornell; and when I thought I’d stay at Cornell, they’d up something at Caltech. So you can imagine this donkey between the two piles of hay, with the extra complication that as soon as he moves toward one, the other one gets higher. That makes it very difficult!

  The argument that finally convinced me was my sabbatical leave. I wanted to go to Brazil again, this time for ten months, and I had just earned my sabbatical leave from Cornell. I didn’t want to lose that, so now that I had invented a reason to come to a decision, I wrote Bacher and told him what I had decided.

  Caltech wrote back: “We’ll hire you immediately, and we’ll give you your first year as a sabbatical year.” That’s the way they were acting: no matter what I decided to do, they’d screw it up. So my first year at Caltech was really spent in Brazil. I came to Caltech to teach on my second year. That’s how it happened.

  Now that I have been at Caltech since 1951, I’ve been very happy here. It’s exactly the thing for a one-sided guy like me. There are all these people who are close to the top, who are very interested in what they are doing, and who I can talk to. So I’ve been very comfortable.

  But one day, when I hadn’t been at Caltech very long, we had a bad attack of smog. It was worse then than it is now—at least your eyes smarted much more. I was standing on a corner, and my eyes were watering, and I thought to myself, “This is crazy! This is absolutely INSANE! It was all right back at Cornell. I’m getting out of here.”

  So I called up Cornell, and asked them if they thought it was possible for me to come back. They said, “Sure! We’ll set it up and call you back tomorrow.”

  The next day, I had the greatest luck in making a decision. God must have set it up to help me decide. I was walking to my office, and a guy came running up to me and said, “Hey, Feynman! Did you hear what happened? Baade found that there are two different populations of stars! All the measurements we had been making of the distances to the galaxies had been based on Cephid variables of one type, but there’s another type, so the universe is twice, or three, or even four times as old as we thought!”

  I knew the problem. In those days, the earth appeared to be older than the universe. The earth was four and a half billion, and the universe was only a couple, or three billion years old. It was a great puzzle. And this discovery resolved all that: The universe was now demonstrably older than was previously thought. And I got this information right away—the guy came running up to me to tell me all this.

  I didn’t even make it across the campus to get to my office, when another guy came up—Matt Meselson, a biologist who had minored in physics. (I had been on his committee for his Ph.D.) He had built the first of what they call a density gradient centrifuge—it could measure the density of molecules. He said, “Look at the results of the experiment I’ve been doing!”

  He had proved that when a bacterium makes a new one, there’s a whole molecule, intact, which is passed from one bacterium to another—a molecule we now know as DNA. You see, we always think of everything dividing, dividing. So we think everything in the bacterium divides and gives half of it to the new bacterium. But that’s impossible: Somewhere, the smallest molecule that contains genetic information can’t divide in half; it has to make a copy of itself, and send one copy to the new bacterium, and keep one copy for the old one. And he had proved it in this way: He first grew the bacteria in heavy nitrogen, and later grew them all in ordinary nitrogen. As he went along, he weighed the molecules in his density gradient centrifuge.

  The first generation of new bacteria had all of their chromosome molecules at a weight exactly in between the weight of molecules made with heavy, and molecules made with ordinary, nitrogen—a result that could occur if everything divided, including the chromosome molecules.

  But in succeeding generations, when one might expect that the weight of the chromosome molecules would be one-fourth, one-eighth, and one-sixteenth of the difference between the heavy and ordinary molecules, the weights of the molecules fell into only two groups. One group was the same weight as the first new generation (halfway between the heavier and the lighter molecules), and the other group was lighter—the weight of molecules made in ordinary nitrogen. The percentage of heavier molecules was cut in half in each succeeding generation, but not their weights. That was tremendously exciting, and very important—it was a fundamental discovery. And I realized, as I finally got to my office, that this is where I’ve got to be. Where people from all different fields of science would tell me stuff, and it was all exciting. It was exactly what I wanted, really.

  So when Cornell called a little later, and said they were setting everything up, and it was nearly ready, I said, “I’m sorry, I’ve changed my mind again.” But I decided then never to decide again. Nothing—absolutely nothing—would ever change my mind again.

  When you’re young, you have all these things to worry about—should you go there, what about your mother. And you worry, and try to decide, but then something else comes up. It’s much easier to just plain decide. Never mind—nothing is going to change your mind. I did that once when I was a student at MIT. I got sick and tired of having to decide what kind of dessert I was going to have at the restaurant, so I decided it would always be chocolate ice cream, and never worried about it again—I had the solution to that problem. Anyway, I decided it would always be Caltech.

  One time someone tried to change my mind about Caltech. Fermi had just died a short time before, and the faculty at Chicago were looking for someone to take his place. Two people from Chicago came out and asked to visit me at my home—I didn’t know what it was about. They began telling me all the good reasons why I ought to go to Chicago: I could do this, I could do that, they had lots of great people there, I had the opportunity to do all kinds of wonderful things. I didn’t ask them how much they would pay, and they kept hinting that they would tell me if I asked. Finally, they asked me if I wanted to know the salary. “Oh, no!” I said. “I’ve already decided to stay at Caltech. My wife Mary Lou is in the other room, and if she hears how much the salary is, we’ll get into an argument. Besides, I’ve decided not to decide any more; I’m staying at Caltech for good.” So I didn’t let them tell me the salary they were offering.

  About a month later I was at a meeting, and Leona Marshall came over and said, “It’s funny you didn’t accept our offer at Chicago. We were so disappointed, and we couldn’t understand how you could turn down such a terrific offer.”

  “It was easy,” I said, “because I never let them tell me what the offer was.”

  A week later I got a letter from her. I opened it, and the first sentence said, “The salary they were offering was—,” a tremendous amount of money, three or four times what I was making. Staggering! Her letter continued, “I told you the salary before you could read any further. Maybe now you want to reconsider, because they’ve told me the position is still open, and we’d very much like to have you.”

  So I wrote them back a letter that said, “After reading the salary, I’ve decided that I must refuse. The reason I have to refuse a salary like that is I would be able to do what I’ve always wanted to do—get a wonderful mistress
, put her up in an apartment, buy her nice things... With the salary you have offered, I could actually do that, and I know what would happen to me. I’d worry about her, what she’s doing; I’d get into arguments when I come home, and so on. All this bother would make me uncomfortable and unhappy. I wouldn’t be able to do physics well, and it would be a big mess! What I’ve always wanted to do would be bad for me, so I’ve decided that I can’t accept your offer.”

  Part 5.

  The World of One Physicist

  Would You Solve the Dirac Equation?

  Near the end of the year I was in Brazil I received a letter from Professor Wheeler which said that there was going to be an international meeting of theoretical physicists in Japan, and might I like to go? Japan had some famous physicists before the war—Professor Yukawa, with a Nobel prize, Tomonaga, and Nishina—but this was the first sign of Japan coming back to life after the war, and we all thought we ought to go and help them along.

  Wheeler enclosed an army phrasebook and wrote that it would be nice if we would all learn a little Japanese. I found a Japanese woman in Brazil to help me with the pronunciation, I practiced lifting little pieces of paper with chopsticks, and I read a lot about Japan. At that time, Japan was very mysterious to me, and I thought it would be interesting to go to such a strange and wonderful country, so I worked very hard.

  When we got there, we were met at the airport and taken to a hotel in Tokyo designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was an imitation of a European hotel, right down to the little guy dressed in an outfit like the Philip Morris guy. We weren’t in Japan; we might as well have been in Europe or America! The guy who showed us to our rooms stalled around, pulling the shades up and down, waiting for a tip. Everything was just like America.

  Our hosts had everything organized. That first night we were served dinner up at the top of the hotel by a woman dressed Japanese, but the menus were in English. I had gone to a lot of trouble to learn a few phrases in Japanese, so near the end of the meal, I said to the waitress, “Kohi-o motte kite kudasai.” She bowed and walked away.

  My friend Marshak did a double take: “What? What?”

  “I talk Japanese,” I said.

  “Oh, you faker! You’re always kidding around, Feynman.”

  “What are you talkin’ about?” I said, in a serious tone.

  “OK,” he said. “What did you ask?”

  “I asked her to bring us coffee.”

  Marshak didn’t believe me. “I’ll make a bet with you,” he said. “If she brings us coffee.”

  The waitress appeared with our coffee, and Marshak lost his bet.

  It turned out I was the only guy who had learned some Japanese—even Wheeler, who had told everybody they ought to learn Japanese, hadn’t learned any—and I couldn’t stand it any more. I had read about the Japanese-style hotels, which were supposed to be very different from the hotel we were staying in.

  The next morning I called the Japanese guy who was organizing everything up to my room. “I would like to stay in a Japanese-style hotel.”

  “I am afraid that it is impossible, Professor Feynman.”

  I had read that the Japanese are very polite, but very obstinate: You have to keep working on them. So I decided to be as obstinate as they, and equally polite. It was a battle of minds: It took thirty minutes, back and forth.

  “Why do you want to go to a Japanese-style hotel?”

  “Because in this hotel, I don’t feel like I’m in Japan.”

  “Japanese-style hotels are no good. You have to sleep on the floor.”

  “That’s what I want; I want to see how it is.”

  “And there are no chairs—you sit on the floor at the table.”

  “It’s OK. That will be delightful. That’s what I’m looking for.”

  Finally he owns up to what the situation is: “If you’re in another hotel, the bus will have to make an extra stop on its way to the meeting.”

  “No, no!” I say. “In the morning, I’ll come to this hotel, and get on the bus here.”

  “Well, then, OK. That’s fine.” That’s all there was to it—except it took half an hour to get to the real problem.

  He’s walking over to the telephone to make a call to the other hotel when suddenly he stops; everything is blocked up again. It takes another fifteen minutes to discover that this time it’s the mail. If there are any messages from the meeting, they already have it arranged where to deliver them.

  “It’s OK,” I say. “When I come in the morning to get the bus, I’ll look for any messages for me here at this hotel.”

  “All right. That’s fine.” He gets on the telephone and at last we’re on our way to the Japanese-style hotel.

  As soon as I got there, I knew it was worth it: It was so lovely! There was a place at the front where you take your shoes off, then a girl dressed in the traditional outfit—the obi—with sandals comes shuffling out, and takes your stuff; you follow her down a hallway which has mats on the floor, past sliding doors made of paper, and she’s going cht-cht-cht-cht with little steps. It was all very wonderful!

  We went into my room and the guy who arranged everything got all the way down, prostrated, and touched his nose to the floor; she got down and touched her nose to the floor. I felt very awkward. Should I touch my nose to the floor, too?

  They said greetings to each other, he accepted the room for me, and went out. It was a really wonderful room. There were all the regular, standard things that you know of now, but it was all new to me. There was a little alcove with a painting in it, a vase with pussywillows nicely arranged, a table along the floor with a cushion nearby, and at the end of the room were two sliding doors which opened onto a garden.

  The lady who was supposed to take care of me was a middle-aged woman. She helped me undress and gave me a yukata, a simple blue and white robe, to wear at the hotel.

  I pushed open the doors and admired the lovely garden, and sat down at the table to do a little work.

  I wasn’t there more than fifteen or twenty minutes when something caught my eye. I looked up, out towards the garden, and I saw, sitting at the entrance to the door, draped in the corner, a very beautiful young Japanese woman, in a most lovely outfit.

  I had read a lot about the customs of Japan, and I had an idea of why she was sent to my room. I thought, “This might be very interesting!”

  She knew a little English. “Would you rike to see the garden?” she asked.

  I put on the shoes that went with the yukata I was wearing, and we went out into the garden. She took my arm and showed me everything.

  It turned out that because she knew a little English, the hotel manager thought I would like her to show me the garden—that’s all it was. I was a bit disappointed, of course, but this was a meeting of cultures, and I knew it was easy to get the wrong idea.

  Sometime later the woman who took care of my room came in and said something—in Japanese—about a bath. I knew that Japanese baths were interesting and was eager to try it, so I said, “Hai.”

  I had read that Japanese baths are very complicated. They use a lot of water that’s heated from the outside, and you aren’t supposed to get soap into the bathwater and spoil it for the next guy.

  I got up and walked into the lavatory section, where the sink was, and I could hear some guy in the next section with the door closed, taking a bath. Suddenly the door slides open: the man taking the bath looks to see who is intruding. “Professor!” he says to me in English. “That’s a very bad error to go into the lavatory when someone else has the bath!” It was Professor Yukawa!

  He told me that the woman had no doubt asked do I want a bath, and if so, she would get it ready for me and tell me when the bathroom was free. But of all the people in the world to make that serious social error with, I was lucky it was Professor Yukawa!

  That Japanese-style hotel was delightful, especially when people came to see me there. The other guys would come in to my room and we’d sit on the floor and start to tal
k. We wouldn’t be there more than five minutes when the woman who took care of my room would come in with a tray of candies and tea. It was as if you were a host in your own home, and the hotel staff was helping you to entertain your guests. Here, when you have guests at your hotel room, nobody cares; you have to call up for service, and so on.

  Eating meals at the hotel was also different. The girl who brings in the food stays with you while you eat, so you’re not alone. I couldn’t have too good a conversation with her, but it was all right. And the food is wonderful. For instance, the soup comes in a bowl that’s covered. You lift the cover and there’s a beautiful picture: little pieces of onion floating in the soup just so; it’s gorgeous. How the food looks on the plate is very important.

  I had decided that I was going to live Japanese as much as I could. That meant eating fish. I never liked fish when I was growing up, but I found out in Japan that it was a childish thing: I ate a lot of fish, and enjoyed it. (When I went back to the United States the first thing I did was go to a fish place. It was horrible—just like it was before. I couldn’t stand it. I later discovered the answer: The fish has to be very, very fresh—if it isn’t, it gets a certain taste that bothers me.)

  One time when I was eating at the Japanese-style hotel I was served a round, hard thing, about the size of an egg yolk, in a cup of some yellow liquid. So far I had eaten everything in Japan, but this thing frightened me: it was all convoluted, like a brain looks. When I asked the girl what it was, she replied “kuri.” That didn’t help much. I figured it was probably an octopus egg, or something. I ate it, with some trepidation, because I wanted to be as much in Japan as possible. (I also remembered the word “kuri” as if my life depended on it—I haven’t forgotten it in thirty years.)

  The next day I asked a Japanese guy at the conference what this convoluted thing was. I told him I had found it very difficult to eat. What the hell was “kuri”?