The priest must have “translated” something very impressive!
Letters
October 11, 1961
Hotel Amigo, Brussels
Hello, my sweetheart,
Murray and I kept each other awake arguing until we could stand it no longer. We woke up over Greenland, which was even better than last time because we went right over part of it. In London we met other physicists and came to Brussels together. One of them was worried—in his guidebook the Hotel Amigo was not even mentioned. Another had a newer guide—five stars, and rumored to be the best hotel in Europe!
It is very nice indeed. All the furniture is dark red polished wood, in perfect condition; the bathroom is grand, etc. It is really too bad you didn’t come to this conference instead of the other one.
At the meeting next day things started slowly. I was to talk in the afternoon. That is what I did, but I didn’t really have enough time. We had to stop at 4 pm because of a reception scheduled for that night. I think my talk was OK though—what I left out was in the written version anyway.
So that evening we went to the palace to meet the king and queen. Taxis waited for us at the hotel—long black ones—and off we went at 5 pm, arriving through the palace gates with a guard on each side, and driving under an arch where men in red coats and white stockings with a black band and gold tassel under each knee opened the doors. More guards at the entrance, in the hallway, along the stairs, and up into a sort of ballroom. These guards, in dark grey Russian-type hats with chin straps, dark coats, white pants, and shiny black leather boots, stand very straight—each holding a sword straight up.
In the “ballroom” we had to wait perhaps 20 minutes. It has inlaid parquet floors, and L in each square (for Leopold—the present king is Baudoin, or something). The gilded walls are 18th century and on the ceiling are pictures of naked women riding chariots among the clouds. Lots of mirrors and gilded chairs with red cushions around the outside edge of the room—just like so many of those palaces we have seen, but this time it’s no museum: it’s alive, with everything clear and shining, and in perfect condition. Several palace officials were milling around among us. One had a list and told me where to stand but I didn’t do it right and was out of place later.
The doors at the end of the hall open. Guards are there with the king and queen; we all enter slowly and are introduced one by one to the king and queen. The king has a young semi-dopey face and a strong handshake; the queen is very pretty. (I think her name is Fabriola—a Spanish countess she was.) We exit into another room on the left where there are lots of chairs arranged like in a theatre, with two in front, also facing forward, for K & Q. A table at the front with six seats is for illustrious scientists—Niels Bohr. J. Perrin (a Frenchman),J. R. Oppenheimer etc.—see drawing.
It turns out the king wants to know what we are doing, so the old boys give a set of six dull lectures—all very solemn—no jokes. I had great difficulty sitting in my seat because I had a very stiff and uncomfortable back from sleeping on the plane.
That done, the K & Q pass through the room where we met them and into a room on right (marked R). (All these rooms are very big, gilded, Victorian, fancy, etc.) In R are many kinds of uniforms: guards at door in red coats, waiters in white coats (to serve drinks and hors d’oeuvres), military khaki and medals, and black coats—undertaker’s type (palace officials).
On the way out of L into R, I am last because I walk slowly from stiff back. I find myself talking to a palace official—nice man. He teaches math part time at Louvain University, but his main job is secretary to the queen. He had also tutored the K when K was young and has been in palace work 23 years. Now, at least, I have somebody to talk to.
Some others are talking to K or to Q; everybody is standing up. After a while the professor who is head of the conference (Prof. Bragg) grabs me and says K wants to talk to me. Bragg says, “K, this is Feynman.” I pull boner #1 by wanting to shake hands again—apparently wrong: no hand reaches up. After an embarrassed pause K saves day by shaking my hand. K makes polite remarks on how smart we must all be and how hard it must be to think. I answer, making jokes (having been instructed to do so by Bragg, but what does he know?)—apparently error #2. Anyway, strain is relieved when Bragg brings over some other professor—Heisenberg, I think. K forgets F and F slinks off to resume conversation with sec’y of Q.
After considerable time—several orange juices and many very good hors d’oeuvres later—a military uniform with medals comes over to me and says, “Speak to the queen!” Nothing I should like to do better (pretty girl, but don’t worry, she’s married). F arrives at scene: Q is sitting at table surrounded by three other occupied chairs—no room for F. There are several low coughs, slight confusion, etc., and lo!—one of the chairs has been reluctantly vacated. Other two chairs contain one lady and one Priest in Full Regalia (who is also a physicist) named LeMaître.
We have quite a conversation (I listen, but hear no coughs, and am not evacuated from seat) for perhaps 15 minutes. Sample:
Q: “It must be very hard work thinking about those difficult problems…”
F: “No, we all do it for the fun of it.”
Q: “It must be hard to learn to change all your ideas”—(a thing she got from the six lectures).
F: “No, all those guys who gave you those lectures are old fogeys—all that change was in 1926, when I was only eight. So when I learned physics I only had to learn the new ideas. The big problem now is, do we have to change them again?”
Q: “You must feel good, working for peace like that.”
F: “No, that never enters my head, whether it is for peace or otherwise. We don’t know.”
Q: “Things certainly change fast—many things have changed in the last hundred years.”
F: “Not in this palace.” (I thought it, but controlled myself.) “Yes,” and then launched into lecture on what was known in 1861 and what we found out since—adding at end, laughingly, “Can’t help giving a lecture, I guess—I’m a professor, you see. Ha, ha.”
Q in desperation, turns to lady on her other side and begins conversation with same.
After a few moments K comes over and whispers something to Q, who stands up—they quietly go out. F returns to sec’y of Q who personally escorts him out of palace past guards, etc.
I’m so terribly sorry you missed it. I don’t know when we’ll find another king for you to meet.*
I was paged in the hotel this morning just before leaving with the others. I returned to the others and announced, “Gentlemen, that call was from the queen’s secretary. I must leave you now.” All are awestruck, for it did not go unnoticed that F talked longer and harder to Q than seemed proper. I didn’t tell them, however, that it was about a meeting we arranged—he was inviting me to his home to meet his wife and two (of four) of his daughters, and to see his house. I had invited him to visit us in Pasadena when he came to America and this was his response.
His wife and daughters are very nice and his house is positively beautiful. You would have enjoyed that even more than visiting the palace. He planned and built his house in a Belgian style, somewhat after an old farmhouse style, but done just right. He has many old cabinets and tables inside, right beside newer stuff, very well combined. It is much easier to find antiques in Belgium than in Los Angeles as there are so many old farms, etc. The house is slightly bigger than ours and the grounds are much bigger but not yet landscaped, except for a vegetable garden. He has a bench that he made for himself in the garden, hidden under trees, to go and sit on and look at the surrounding countryside. He has a dog—from Washington—that somebody gave to the king and the K gave to him. The dog has a personality somewhat like Kiwi† because I think he is equally loved.
I told the secretary I had a queen in a little castle in Pasadena that I would like him to see, and he said he hoped he would be able to come to America and see us. He would come if the Q. ever visits America again.
I am enclosing a picture of his
house, and his card, so I don’t lose it.
I know you must feel terrible being left out this time—but I’ll make it up someday somehow. But don’t forget I love you very much and am proud of my family that is and my family that is to be.* The secretary and his wife send their best wishes to you and our future.
I wish you were here, or, next best thing, that I were there. Kiss SNORK† and tell Mom all about my adventures and I will be home sooner than you think.
Your husband loves you.
Your husband.
Grand Hotel
Warsaw
Dearest Gweneth,
To begin with, I love you.
Also I miss you and the baby ‡ and Kiwi, and really wish I were home.
I am now in the restaurant of the Grand Hotel. I was warned by friends that the service is slow, so I went back for pens and paper to work on my talk for tomorrow—but what could be better than to write to my darling instead?
What is Poland like? My strongest impression—and the one which gives me such a surprise—is that it is almost exactly as I pictured it (except for one detail)—not only in how it looks, but also in the people, how they feel, what they say and think about the government, etc. Apparently we are well informed in the US and magazines such as Time and Atlas are not so bad. The detail is that I had forgotten how completely destroyed Warsaw was during the war and therefore that, with few exceptions (which are easily identified by the bullet holes all over them), all the buildings are built since the war. In fact it is a rather considerable accomplishment—there are very many new buildings: Warsaw is a big city, all rebuilt.
The genius of builders here is to be able to build old buildings. There are buildings with facings falling off (walls covered with concrete with patches of worn brick showing thru), rusted window bars with streaks of rust running down the building, etc. Further, the architecture is old—decorations sort of 1927 but heavier—nothing interesting to look at (except one building).
The hotel room is very small, with cheap furniture, a very high ceiling (15 feet), old water spots on the walls, plaster showing through where bed rubs wall, etc. It reminds me of an old “Grand Hotel” in New York—faded cotton bedspread covering bumpy bed, etc. But the bathroom fixtures (faucets etc.) are bright and shiny, which confused me: they seem relatively new in this old hotel. I finally found out: the hotel is only three years old—I had forgotten about their ability to build old things. (No attention at all yet from waiter, so I break down and ask a passing one for service. A confused look—he calls another over. Net result: I am told there is no service at my table and am asked to move to another. I make angry noises. The response: I am put at another table, given a menu, and have 15 seconds to make up my mind. I order Sznycel Po Wiedensku—Wiener Schnitzel.)
On the question of whether the room is bugged: I look for covers of old sockets (like the one in the ceiling of the shower). There are five of them, all near the ceiling—15 feet. I need a ladder and decide not to investigate them. But there is a similar large square plate in the lower corner of my room near the telephone. I pull it back a little (one screw is loose). I have rarely seen so many wires—like the back of a radio. What is it? Who knows! I didn’t see any microphones; the ends of the wires were taped, like connections or outlets no longer in use. Maybe the microphone is in the tape. Well, I haven’t a screwdriver so I don’t take the plate off to investigate further. In short, if my room isn’t bugged they are wasting a lot of wires.
The Polish people are nice, poor, have at least medium style in (soup arrives!) clothes, etc. There are nice places to dance, with good bands, etc., etc. So Warsaw is not very heavy and dull, as one hears Moscow is. On the other hand, you meet at every turn that kind of dull stupid backwardness characteristic of government—you know, like the fact that change for $20 isn’t available when you went to get your card renewed at the US Immigration Office downtown. Example: I lost my pencil, and wanted to buy a new one at the kiosk here. “A pen costs $1.10.”
“No, I want a pencil—wooden, with graphite.”
“No, only $1.10 pens.”
“OK, how many Zlotys is that?”
“You can’t buy it in Zlotys, only for $1.10.” (Why? Who knows!)
I have to go upstairs for American money. I give $ 1.25.
Clerk at kiosk cannot give change—must go to cashier of hotel. The bill for my pen is written in quadruplicate: the clerk keeps one, the cashier one, and I get two copies. What shall I do with them? On the back it says I should keep them to avoid paying US customs duties. It is a Papermate pen made in the USA. (The soup dish is removed.)
The real question of government versus private enterprise is argued on too philosophical and abstract a basis. Theoretically, planning may be good. But nobody has ever figured out the cause of government stupidity—and until they do (and find the cure), all ideal plans will fall into quicksand.
I didn’t guess right the nature of the palace in which the meetings are held. I imagined an old, forbidding, large room from 16th century or so. Again, I forgot that Poland was so thoroughly destroyed. The palace is brand new: we meet in a round room with white walls, with gilded decorations on the balcony; the ceiling is painted with a blue sky and clouds. (The main course comes. I eat it; it is very good. I order dessert: pastries with pineapple, 125 g. Incidentally, the menu is very precise: the “125 g” is the weight—125 grams. There are things like “filet of herring, 144 g,” etc. I haven’t seen anybody checking for cheating with a scale; I didn’t check if the schnitzel was the claimed 100 grams.)
I am not getting anything out of the meeting. I am learning nothing. Because there are no experiments this field is not an active one, so few of the best men are doing work in it. The result is that there are hosts of dopes here (126) and it is not good for my blood pressure: such inane things are said and seriously discussed that I get into arguments outside the formal sessions (say, at lunch) whenever anyone asks me a question or starts to tell me about his “work.” The “work” is always: (1) completely un-understandable, (2) vague and indefinite, (3) something correct that is obvious and self-evident, but worked out by a long and difficult analysis, and presented as an important discovery, or (4) a claim based on the stupidity of the author that some obvious and correct fact, accepted and checked for years, is, in fact, false (these are the worst: no argument will convince the idiot), (5) an attempt to do something probably impossible, but certainly of no utility, which, it is finally revealed at the end, fails (dessert arrives and is eaten), or (6) just plain wrong. There is a great deal of “activity in the field” these days, but this “activity” is mainly in showing that the previous “activity” of somebody else resulted in an error or in nothing useful or in something promising. It is like a lot of worms trying to get out of a bottle by crawling all over each other. It is not that the subject is hard; it is that the good men are occupied elsewhere. Remind me not to come to any more gravity conferences!
I went one evening to the home of one of the Polish professors (young, with a young wife). People are allowed seven square yards per person in apartments, but he and his wife are lucky: they have twenty-one* —for living room, kitchen, bathroom. He was a little nervous with his guests (myself, Professor and Mrs. Wheeler, and another) and seemed apologetic that his apartment was so small. (I ask for the check. All this time the waiter has had two or three active tables, including mine.) But his wife was very relaxed and kissed her siamese cat “Booboosh” just like you do with Kiwi. She did a wonderful job of entertaining—the table for eating had to be taken from the kitchen, a trick requiring the bathroom door to be first removed from its hinges. (There are only four active tables in the whole restaurant now, and four waiters.) Her food was very good and we all enjoyed it.
Oh, I mentioned that one building in Warsaw is interesting to look at. It is the largest building in Poland: the “Palace of Culture and Science,” given as a gift by the Soviet Union. It was designed by Soviet architects. Darling, it is unbelievable! I c
annot even begin to describe it. It is the craziest monstrosity on land! (The check comes—brought by a different waiter. I await the change.)
This must be the end of my letter. I hope I don’t wait too long for the change. I skipped coffee because I thought it would take too long. Even so, see what a long letter I can write while eating Sunday dinner at the Grand Hotel.
I say again I love you, and wish you were here—or better I were there. Home is good.
(The change has come—it is slightly wrong (by 0.55 Zloty = 15?) but I let it go.)
Good bye for now.
Richard.
Saturday, June 29(?) 3pm
Royal Olympic Hotel. Poolside.
Dear Gweneth, and Michelle*(and Carl?),
This is my third day in Athens.
I’m writing by the side of the hotel pool with the paper in my lap because the tables are too high and the chairs too low.
The trip was all on time but uncomfortable anyway because the plane from New York to Athens was absolutely full—every seat. I was met by Prof. Illiapoulos, a student, and his nephew, who is just Carl’s age.
I was surprised to find the weather here is just like in Pasadena, but about 5 degrees cooler: the vegetation is very similar, the hills look bare and desert-like—same plants, same cactuses, same low humidity and same cool nights. But there the similarity ends. Athens is a sprawling, ugly, noisy, exhaust-filled mess of streets filled with nervous traffic jumping like rabbits when the lights go green and stopping with squealing brakes when they go red—and blowing horns when they go yellow. Very similar to Mexico City, except the people don’t look as poor—there are only occasional beggars in the streets. You, Gweneth, would love it because there are so many shops (all small), and Carl would love walking around in the arcades with their rabbit-warren twists and surprises, especially in the old part of town.
'What Do You Care What Other People Think?' Page 8
