Genius

by James Gleick

  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. Hellmann, had made the same discovery two years earlier. Slater 1963, 12–13; H. Hellmann, 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 Melville’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 recollections. Wheeler shared the draft of his talk for a 1989 memorial session (Wheeler 1989). H. H. Barschall, Leonard Eisenbud, Simeon Hutner, Paul Olum, Leo Lavatelli, and Edward Maisel provided recollections of Feynman and the Princeton of the late thirties and early forties. John Tukey and Martin Gardner illuminated the history of Hexagons. Robert R. Wilson discussed the isotron project and Feynman’s initiation into the Manhattan Project, as well 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.

  93 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.”

  94 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. Barschall, 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: Barschall, 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.

  97 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 Lucille Feynman, 11 October 1939, PERS.

  98 HE TRIED SCULLING: Ibid.

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

  98 HE EARNED FIFTEEN DOLLARS A WEEK: Feynman to Lucille 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 Lucille Feynman, 11 October 1939; Feynman notes on nuclear physics, H. H. Barschall 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.

  100 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 Sitwell 1987, 131.

  105 WHILE A UNIVERSE GROWS IN MY HEAD: “Tattered Serenade,” in Sitwell 1943, 19.

  106 IT’S CLEAR TO EVERYBODY AT FIRST SIGHT: F-L.

  106 WHEELER WAS ASKED FOR HIS OWN VERDICT: SYJ, 51; Wheeler 1989, 2–3.

  106 THE PALMER PHYSICAL LABORATORY: Princeton University Catalogue: General Issue, 1941–42. PUL.

  107 PRINCETON’S GAVE FEYNMAN A SHOCK: SYJ, 49–50.

  107 THE HEAD OF THE CYCLOTRON BANISHED FEYNMAN: Wheeler 1989, 3.

  107 IT DOES NOT TURN AT ALL: A sound explanation—with a description of a safer experiment than Feynman’s—is in Mach 1960, 388–90. But physicists have never stopped arguing for either of the other answers, and there is an ongoing literature.

  109 THERE IS NO SIGNBOARD: Eddington 1940, 68.

  109 UNFORTUNATELY HE HAD MEANWHILE LEARNED: F-W, 233; NL, 435.

  110 A BROADCASTING ANTENNA, RADIATING ENERGY: Cf. Feynman’s later discussion of radiation resistance, Lectures, I-32–1.

  110 HE ASKED WHEELER: F-W, 233–34; NL, 436.

  111 TIME DELAY HAD NOT BEEN A FEATURE: Wheeler and Feynman 1949, 426.

  111 THE WAVES WERE NOW RETARDED: Lectures, I-28–2.

  111 VIEWED IN CLOSE-UP: Morris 1984, 137.

  112 SHAKE A CHARGE HERE: F-W, 237.

  112 OH, WHADDYAMEAN, HOW COULD THAT BE?: Feynman 1965b.

  112 THE WORK REQUIRED INTENSE CALCULATION: He wrote his parents in November: “… last week things were going fast & neat as all heck, but now I’m hitting some mathematical difficulties which I will either surmount, walk around, or go a different way—all of which consumes all my time—but I like to do very much & and am very happy indeed. I have never thought so much so steadily about one problem … I’m just beginning to see how far it is to the end & how we might get there (altho aforementioned mathematical difficulties loom ahead)— SOME FUN!” Feynman to Lucille Feynman, November 1940, PERS.

  112 FOR THOSE WHO WERE SQUEAMISH: Feynman 1941a, fig. 3 caption.

  112 THEN THE EFFECT OF THE SOURCE: Feynman 1948b, 941.

  113 HE DESCRIBED IT TO HIS GRADUATE STUDENT FRIENDS: F-W, 237–38.

  113 FOR EXAMPLE, COULD ONE DESIGN A MECHANISM: Wheeler and Feynman 1949, 426–27; Hesse 1961, 279.

  113 AS LONG AS THE THEORY RELIED ON PROBABILITIES: Feynman 1941a, 20.

  113 HE CONTINUED TO CHERISH A NOTION: Wheeler, oral-history interview, 17 November 1985, 12, AIP.

  113 EARLY IN 1941 HE TOLD FEYNMAN: Cf. Recommendation of Richard Phillips Feynman for Appointment as Porter Ogden Jacobus Fellow for 1941–1942, PUL.

  113 AS THE DAY APPROACHED: F-W, 242–44; SYJ, 64–66.

  115 PAULI DID OBJECT: Wheeler 1989, 26. Much later Feynman said of Pauli’s objection: “It’s too bad that I cannot remember what, because the theory is not right and the gentleman may well have hit the nail right on the bazeeto.” F-W, 244. Pauli also presumably saw that the theory could not be quantized.

  115 DON’T YOU AGREE, PROFESSOR EINSTEIN:
F-W, 244.

  115 HIS OWN EQUIVOCAL BALANCE SHEET: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, 3 March 1940, PERS.

  115 LECTURE HIS FRIENDS: Simeon Hutner, telephone interview.

  116 HOURS WHEN I HAVEN’T MARKED DOWN: Feynman to Lucille Feynman, November 1940, PERS.

  116 BEFORE REVEALING IT TO ARLINE: Paul Olurn, telephone interview.

  116 SHE SENT HIM A BOX OF PENCILS: WDY, 43–44.

  116 IF YOU DON’T LIKE THE THINGS I DO: Arline Greenbaum to Feynman, n.d., PERS.

  117 THIS STYLE OF TREATMENT: Teller 1988, 97.

  117 AN OLD FRATERNITY FRIEND PICKED HER UP: Robbins, interview.

  117 HE CERTAINLY BELIEVES IN PHYSICAL SOCIETY: Ibid.

  117 STILL, HE WORRIED: F-W, 252–53; Feynman 1941a is the manuscript on which he based the talk. Feynman and Wheeler 1941 is the published abstract.

  117 THE ACCELERATION OF A POINT CHARGE: Feynman 1941a.

  118 WHEELER NEEDED LITTLE ENCOURAGEMENT: Feynman (F-W, 243) thought the visit to Einstein “probably” came before his lecture; Wheeler remembers it coming after, and the acknowledgments in Feynman 1941a and Wheeler and Feynman 1945 suggest that Wheeler must be right.

  118 EINSTEIN RECEIVED THIS PAIR: Wheeler 1989, 27.

  118 FEYNMAN WAS STRUCK: F-W, 254.

  118 AN OBSTINATE HERETIC: Quoted in Pais 1982, 462.

  118 THE STRANGE LITTLE PAPER: Physikalische Zeitschrift 10(1909):323; Wheeler 1989, 27; Pais 1982, 484.

  119 WE MUST DISTINGUISH BETWEEN TWO TYPES: Feynman 1941a, 13; Schweber 1986a, 459.

  119 “PROF WHEELER,” HE WROTE: Feynman 1941a, 13.

  120 THE SUN WOULD NOT RADIATE: Zeitschrift für Physik 10(1922):317, quoted in Wheeler and Feynman 1945, 159–60.

  120 LEWIS, TOO, WORRIED: Stuewer 1975, 485 and 499.

  120 I AM GOING TO MAKE: Lewis, “The Nature of Light,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 12(1926):22, quoted in Wheeler and Feynman 1945, 159 n.

  121 THESE WERE DEAD ENDS: F-W, 260.

  121 IT PROVED POSSIBLE TO COMPUTE PARTICLE INTERACTIONS: The first application of the least-action principle in this context came in work of which Wheeler and Feynman were not yet aware: a paper by A. D. Fokker in Zeitschrift für Physik 58(1929):386.

  121 IN THE ABSORBER THEORY: NL, 438–39.

  121 THE MORE FEYNMAN WORKED: Ibid., 440.

  121 WE HAVE, INSTEAD: Ibid.

  122 AN IMAGE, SO TO SPEAK: Minkowski, “Space and Time,” in Weaver 1987, 2:156; Galison 1979.

  122 FEYNMAN, I KNOW WHY: NL, 441.

  122 IT WAS THE FIRST ANTIPARTICLE: Dirac, however, was reluctant to accept the idea of a new antiparticle; he first assumed that this positively charged particle must be the proton, despite the enormous discrepancy in mass.

  123 EINSTEIN HAD WORRIED ABOUT THIS: Park 1988, 234.

  123 A PHILOSOPHER, ADOLPH CRÜNBAUM: “The Anisotropy of Time,” in Gold 1967, 149; Adolph Grünbaum, telephone interview.

  123 MR. X: Feynman was enraged at the postconference suggestion that the proceedings be published; he surprised the other participants by declaring that there was no such subject as “the nature of time.” Grünbaum said later: “Who was he worried about? If he was worried about people in the know then this device failed. I don’t see how a man of his towering eminence could feel his reputation would be jeopardized.” Grünbaum, interview.

  123 GRÜNBAUM: I WANT TO SAY: Gold 1967, 178–79.

  124 WHATEVER HIDDEN BRAIN MACHINERY: Ibid., 183.

  124 ONE’S SENSE OF THE NOW: Morris 1984, 146.

  124 ONE CAN SAY EASILY ENOUGH: Park 1988, 234.

  125 IT’S A POOR MEMORY: Gold 1967, 235.

  125 THIS PROCESS LEADS: Ibid., 4.

  126 THREE ARROWS OF TIME: Ibid., 13–14.

  126 IT’S A VERY INTERESTING THING: Ibid., 186.

  126 HE HAD COME TO BELIEVE: F-W, 301.

  127 HE READ UP ON TYPHOID: Ibid., 303; WDY, 34–35.

  127 FEYNMAN HAD FELT FROM THE BEGINNING: F-W, 246.

  127 SOMETIMES WHEELER TOLD FEYNMAN: Ibid., 268. 127 “OH?” PAULI SAID: Ibid., 245–46; cf. SYJ, 66.

  127 WHEELER CANCELED THE LECTURE: F-W, 255 (“Q: The culmination of this grand paper was what? A: The culmination was, his grand paper has never come out").

  128 DIRAC HAD PUBLISHED A PAPER: Dirac 1933.

  128 THE NEXT DAY JEHLE AND FEYNMAN: NL, 443.

  129 YOU AMERICANS!: F-W, 272; Schweber 1986a.

  130 HERE IS A GREAT MAN: Robert R. Wilson, interview, Ithaca, N.Y.

  130 NOTEBOOK OF THINGS: Feynman 1940; F-W, 287–88.

  130 FEYNMAN WAS ASKED WHICH COLOR: F-W, 289–90.

  130 FEYNMAN HAD BEEN FRUSTRATED: Ibid., 220–21.

  131 AS I’M TALKING: WDY, 59.

  132 IN FEYNMAN’S MIND A SEQUENCE: F-W, 273–74.

  133 ALEXANDER FLEMING HAD NOTICED: Macfarlane 1984; Root-Bernstein 1989, 166–68.

  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: Fellowship 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.

  138 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.

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

  138 FEYNMAN FOUND HIMSELF DRAWN: Mitchell 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.

  140 ONE MORNING HE HAD GONE INTO HIS KITCHEN: Rhodes 1987, 340.

  140 STUDENTS WERE ASKED TO CHOOSE: Lavatelli, interview.

  140 IF THERE WAS ANY BALONEY: Wilson, interview.

  140 TO HIS DISMAY: Ibid.; F-W, 297.

  140 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, 47
4–75.

  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 still 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: Lavatelli, quoted in Davis 1968, 135.

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

  147 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: Lucille Feynman to Feynman, “Why I object to your marriage to Arline at this time,” n.d,, PERS.

  150 HE TOLD HIS FATHER: Feynman to Melville Feynman, 15 June 1942, PERS.