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1:11

July 16th, 1945, a

1:14

team of US scientists based

1:21

in Los Alamos, New Mexico, conducted

1:23

what their leader, J. Robert Oppenheimer

1:26

had named the Trinity test. They

1:28

were detonating a new kind of bomb

1:30

way out in the desert, a couple

1:33

hundred miles from the secret lab at

1:35

Los Alamos where they had created it.

1:38

The US president, Harry Truman, seemed

1:40

to fully grasp the magnitude of

1:43

this moment. It is

1:45

an atomic bomb. It

1:47

is a harnessing of the basic power of

1:49

the universe. Oppenheimer

1:51

had put together a dream team

1:53

of experienced physicists, many of them

1:56

recent refugees from Nazi Germany, also

1:59

playing a- minor but important

2:01

role, was a 24-year-old

2:03

physicist from Queens, New York, named

2:05

Richard Feynman. Years later,

2:07

here is how Feynman described watching

2:10

the Trinity test. Okay,

2:12

time comes, and

2:14

this tremendous flash, so

2:16

bright, and I see this purple

2:18

splotch on the floor of the truck, and

2:20

I says, that ain't it. That's

2:23

an after image. So I turned back up and

2:25

I see this white light changing into yellow and

2:27

into orange. The clouds form, and then

2:30

they disappear again. And then finally, a big

2:33

ball of orange that starts

2:35

at the rise and billows a little

2:37

bit and get a little bit black around the edges, and

2:39

then you see it's a big ball of smoke with flashes

2:41

on the inside of the fire going out, the heat. All

2:44

this took about one minute. Finally,

2:46

after about a minute and a half, suddenly

2:49

there's a tremendous noise, bang, and

2:53

then rumbles like thunder. And that's what convinced

2:55

me. Nobody had said a word during this

2:57

whole minute. We're all just watching quietly. So

2:59

this sound released everybody, because the solidity of

3:02

the sound at that distance meant that it

3:04

really worked. The man who

3:06

was standing next to me said, what's that? I

3:08

said, that was the bomb. Yes,

3:15

that was the bomb. Just

3:18

a few weeks later, the U.S. dropped one of these new atomic bombs on

3:21

Japan, President Truman. A short time

3:23

ago, an American airplane

3:26

dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and

3:32

destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That

3:35

bomb has more power than 20,000 tons of

3:39

TNT. With

3:42

this bomb, we have now added a new

3:44

and revolutionary increase in destruction. Hiroshima

3:50

was destroyed. Tens of thousands of

3:52

Japanese were killed. Three

3:55

days later, the U.S. dropped a second

3:57

bomb on the port city of Nagasaki.

4:00

Again, the carnage was extreme.

4:03

Six days later, Japan surrendered, putting an

4:06

end to World War II. The

4:09

U.S. victory was, of course,

4:11

welcome. But Richard Feynman

4:13

was among those who wondered about the

4:15

cost of the victory. My

4:17

first reaction after I was finished with this

4:19

thing was, it's useless to make anything. Feynman

4:22

thought that with the existence

4:25

of nuclear weapons, it was

4:27

only a matter of time before we humans

4:29

would wipe ourselves off the Earth. I

4:32

remember being in New York with my mother in

4:34

a restaurant, right after, immediately after. I

4:37

would see people building a bridge, and

4:39

I would say they don't understand. I

4:41

really believed that

4:43

it was senseless to make anything, because it would all

4:45

be destroyed very soon anyway. He

4:49

would take in a view, and he would automatically

4:51

visualize destruction from a

4:54

bomb. That's Michelle Feynman,

4:56

his daughter. His entire

4:59

being was permeated by his effort at

5:01

the war, and I don't think that

5:03

it was a happy time at all.

5:06

His father had died, his wife had

5:08

died. He would look

5:10

at people building things and think, why

5:13

bother? For five years

5:15

after the war, Feynman taught physics

5:17

at Cornell University. He

5:20

was depressed and restless. He had a

5:22

hard time engaging in his work, a

5:24

problem he'd never had before. Winters

5:26

in upstate New York were long and

5:29

cold. He needed to get away. A

5:32

friend of his said, what are you doing this summer?

5:34

And he said, oh, I was going to go to

5:36

South America. And he said, fantastic, come to Brazil. He

5:38

had to learn Portuguese quickly. That

5:41

trip lasted six weeks, but Feynman

5:44

returned shortly after for his sabbatical

5:46

year to teach at the

5:48

Brazilian Center for Research and Physics in Rio.

5:51

At least part of his salary was paid by

5:53

the U.S. State Department. Feynman

5:55

had grown up near the beach in Far

5:57

Rockaway, Queens in New York City. The

6:00

beaches in Rio were a little bit

6:02

different from the beaches in Queens. More

6:05

samba music, more sun, more fun.

6:09

Feynman wrote a letter to his

6:11

physicist friend Enrico Fermi. I

6:13

get lots of ideas at the beach, he

6:16

said. So when his

6:18

sabbatical was over, Feynman

6:20

happily left Cornell for good and

6:22

took a position at the California

6:24

Institute of Technology. California was

6:27

kind of a fresh start for him. He had

6:30

open sky and sunny

6:32

weather and maybe because of his

6:35

time in Los Alamos and

6:37

really enjoying the rugged countryside,

6:39

that probably set him on

6:42

a path that he knew he liked

6:44

the West. Caltech

6:47

is in Pasadena, a picturesque and

6:49

relatively old city just northeast of

6:51

downtown Los Angeles. It's

6:53

still got flourishes of old world

6:56

wealth and flourishes of

6:58

California hippie too, with the

7:00

Caltech nerd vibe snuggled comfortably

7:03

between them. It seemed

7:05

like a good idea for us to

7:07

spend some time in Pasadena to get

7:09

a better feel for Richard Feynman. We

7:12

will be driving by the house where I grew

7:14

up and then we're going

7:16

to the cemetery and we will see where

7:18

my parents are. Pasadena

7:20

is known as the city of

7:22

roses. It hosts the Rose Bowl

7:24

parade. So we will hear about

7:26

some Feynman roses. Caltech

7:28

was a hero right up to the end.

7:31

And some thorns. He was an

7:33

old fashioned sexist. The curious,

7:35

brilliant, vanishing Mr. Feynman, part

7:38

two of our series begins

7:40

now. This

7:51

is Freakonomics Radio, a podcast

7:53

that explores the hidden side

7:55

of everything with your

7:58

host, Stephen Gertner. Part

8:08

2, The Brilliant Mr. Feynman,

8:11

Chapter 4, Feynman the

8:13

scientist. Richard

8:16

Feynman joined the Caltech faculty in

8:18

1950, and he stayed there until he

8:20

died 38 years later. For

8:22

most of that time, he wasn't well known

8:24

to the wider public, but he

8:26

was a bit of a celebrity in

8:29

Pasadena. Especially among his fellow academics, he

8:31

stood out for his wit,

8:33

which had some sharp edges, for

8:36

his bongo playing, and also

8:38

for the van he drove. It's

8:42

a Dodge Tradesman van,

8:45

and it's the extended version. It

8:48

gets horrifying gas mileage. It's

8:50

super loud. It puts out clouds

8:52

and clouds of hellish hydrocarbons when

8:54

it runs, and it's incredibly

8:56

long and uncomfortable to drive. That

8:59

is Seamus Blackley, who is best known

9:01

for having helped create the Xbox for

9:04

Microsoft. He never met

9:06

Richard Feynman, but he has been a

9:08

fan since he was a teenager, which

9:10

is why today he is the keeper

9:12

of Feynman's old van. We

9:14

visited him at the garage in Pasadena where he

9:16

keeps it. So think of like a

9:18

70s plumber who painted

9:21

his truck this horrible two-tone beige.

9:25

And that's what Dick Feynman decided

9:27

to buy when he got his Nobel Prize. On

9:30

the sides of the van are some

9:32

painted patterns that have been mistaken

9:35

for hieroglyphics and Native

9:37

American symbols. If you don't

9:39

know what they are, it looks like the homeless guy has

9:41

drawn on the side of this van. Most

9:44

people don't give it a second look, but if you're driving

9:46

somewhere and a physicist sees it, they freak out and run

9:48

at you, and like you almost kill them and stuff. So

9:51

the van was a... So

9:55

context is my parents like to

9:57

camp and not go to a

9:59

campground. go to kind of

10:01

the road less traveled.

10:04

If you go to like a fork in the

10:06

road and you see one side is kind of

10:08

pristine and the other side looks treacherous, oh, we'll

10:10

go to the treacherous side. And

10:12

at some point when I think I was in

10:14

first grade or so, we got this cool van

10:16

and they got it all set up for camping.

10:19

My mom was very careful and

10:21

thoughtful about how things should work

10:23

out. There was a table that could be removed.

10:25

The seats would go flat so somebody could sleep

10:27

there and then my brother could sleep in the

10:30

back and then I had a hammock that was

10:32

in the front and curtains

10:34

and so we were good to go.

10:37

And then funny enough, they

10:40

had this van decorated in

10:42

a custom paint job and they

10:44

decided to put Feynman diagrams on

10:47

it. And what is a Feynman diagram? So

10:50

symbols that my father

10:52

came up with to express, I

10:55

don't know, light. I'm not sure. I'm a doctor,

10:57

a physicist about that. I'm

11:01

John Preskill. I am

11:03

the Richard P. Feynman Professor of

11:05

Theoretical Physics at the California Institute

11:07

of Technology. So

11:09

picture this diagram. There are these two lines, both

11:12

with arrows on them. And

11:14

then there's a line connecting the two. So

11:17

it looks like one rung of a ladder and

11:20

the line going across is the

11:22

wiggly line. That's the photon that's being emitted by

11:24

one particle and absorbed by the other. Now

11:27

we could add more photons. So now add another rung

11:29

to the ladder. Now we've got the

11:32

one line with an arrow on it, solid

11:34

line, let's say going up. Now

11:36

another line with the arrow going down.

11:38

That's the electron and the positron. Now

11:41

there are two rungs. There's a wiggly line and then

11:43

another wiggly line and that's another

11:45

Feynman diagram. The electron and

11:48

the positron can collide with one another

11:50

and that can give rise to particles

11:53

of light, photons, but then those

11:55

photons convert to other particles like

11:58

quarks and anti-quarks. interact

12:00

with other particles like

12:02

gluons and so on and

12:05

to keep track of all those things that can

12:07

happen and how to quantitatively

12:09

evaluate how all those different

12:11

processes contribute to the total

12:13

rate. That's a pretty complicated

12:16

problem. Feynman diagrams can help

12:18

you organize that type of

12:20

computation. These visual

12:23

simplifications made quantum electrodynamics easier

12:25

to work with even four

12:27

trained physicists. Here is the

12:29

science writer Charles C. Mann.

12:33

These are incredibly difficult and unwieldy for

12:35

99.999% of the human race and that

12:40

0.001% that could work with them was Julian Schwinger. Julian

12:43

Schwinger and Richard Feynman had a lot in common.

12:45

They were both born in 1918, both grew up

12:47

in Jewish

12:50

families in New York, Schwinger in

12:52

Manhattan, Feynman in Queens, and

12:54

they both became pioneers in quantum

12:56

electrodynamics. Feynman's mother liked

12:59

to point out to her son

13:01

just how smart this Schwinger boy

13:03

was. Schwinger was an extraordinarily

13:05

brilliant guy, but brilliant in a different

13:07

way. People always talked about them as

13:10

being competitive. It was

13:12

clear when we spoke to Schwinger that

13:14

he had that kind of barbed

13:17

respect that you have for a

13:19

worthy adversary. He clearly wasn't

13:22

all that fond of Feynman. Feynman also spoke

13:24

about it and he said that he thought

13:26

that people like us made a bit too

13:28

much of their rivalry and he said it

13:30

was more like two people running a race,

13:33

but it's fundamentally a

13:35

friendly competition because they're both

13:37

pushing each other. In

13:39

1965 when Feynman was

13:41

awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, he

13:44

shared it with Schwinger as well

13:46

as the Japanese physicist, Sidney

13:48

Thierry Tominaga. I'd asked

13:50

him to explain what he'd done to win

13:52

the Nobel Prize and he started

13:55

talking about quantum electrodynamics and

13:58

of course I really couldn't understand this. I'm

14:01

Christopher Sykes. I was a documentary

14:03

filmmaker for many years for the

14:05

BBC and Channel 4. I

14:07

found myself at some point saying, was

14:10

it worth the Nobel Prize? Which

14:14

did produce, I have to say, a

14:16

really classic response. I

14:18

don't understand what it's all about or what's

14:20

worth what. And if the people in the

14:22

Swedish Academy decide that X, Y or Z

14:24

wins the Nobel Prize, then so be it.

14:28

I won't have anything to do with the Nobel Prize. I

14:30

don't like honours. I appreciate

14:33

it for the work that I did and for

14:36

people who appreciate it. And I notice a lot of

14:38

the physicists use my work. I

14:40

don't need anything else. I've already got the

14:42

prize. The prize is the pleasure

14:44

of finding this thing out. I

14:46

don't believe in honours. And that's

14:48

why we called the finished film the pleasure of finding

14:51

things out. The story goes

14:53

like the first call was

14:55

3 a.m. or something, and I'm

14:58

sure that was very exciting. And

15:00

then I think reality, you know, he put the

15:02

phone down and then it started ringing

15:04

with press and so forth.

15:06

And then I think the reality of, oh,

15:10

I don't really want all this.

15:12

Does that come with, you

15:15

know, then he said to a

15:17

reporter, hey, time out. Can

15:19

we off the record? Can I

15:21

ask, is it possible for me

15:23

to what's the word, reject

15:26

this? And the reporter said,

15:28

no, no, that's not

15:30

something that's going to happen. I

15:32

mean, look, he was disdainful of all

15:34

of these honorific types of things. I'm

15:38

Stephen Wolfram and I do

15:40

science and technology. I

15:44

mean, I would probably go further than him

15:46

and say any field for which there is

15:48

a prize that's defined is a field that

15:50

already has had its best days behind it.

15:52

It's a field that barely has a name

15:54

that's going to have the most fertile moment.

15:57

I happen to get one of these MacArthur awards.

16:00

and the very first batch of those things.

16:02

Paiming took me aside and said, look,

16:05

just don't make this mean that

16:07

you think people have big expectations

16:09

for you. He was almost

16:11

like prizes are a damaging thing to

16:13

people, particularly early in their careers. One

16:17

of the things that my father taught

16:19

me beside physics was a

16:21

disrespect for respectable,

16:24

for certain kinds of things. For example, when I

16:26

was a little boy in a rotograph view, that's

16:28

printed pictures and newspapers first came out in the

16:31

New York Times, and he opened a picture, and

16:33

there was a picture of the Pope with everybody

16:35

bowing in front of him. And he'd

16:37

say, now look at these humans. Here's one human standing

16:39

here, and all these others are bowing. Now what is

16:41

the difference? This one is the Pope, and those are

16:44

the, or maybe he hated the Pope anyway. And

16:47

he'd say, the difference is epaulettes,

16:49

of course, not in the case of the Pope,

16:51

maybe it was a general. It was always the

16:53

uniform, the position. This man has the

16:55

same human problems he eats, he didn't like anybody

16:58

else. He goes to the bathroom. He's a

17:00

human being. Why are they all

17:02

bowing to him? Only because of his

17:04

name and his position, because of his

17:06

uniform, not because of something he especially

17:08

did. He,

17:10

by the way, was in the uniform business, so he

17:12

knew what the difference was with a man with a

17:14

uniform on, and the uniform on. It's the same man

17:16

for him. To

17:20

be clear, Richard Feynman did

17:22

not refuse or reject his

17:24

Nobel Prize. He attended

17:26

the ceremony in Stockholm, and

17:29

by the looks of the many photographs

17:31

in the archives at Caltech, he

17:34

very much enjoyed himself. We visited

17:36

those archives with his daughter, Michelle.

17:39

She came across something else that was

17:41

interesting. So I love

17:43

this. Everything that he was

17:45

sort of like, I don't like honors, and

17:48

I, you know, can I return this prize?

17:50

All of that. This is

17:53

so, like, it's such a

17:55

lovely, lovely thank you. This

17:58

paper she found is her father. Nobel

18:00

Prize acceptance speech. Some

18:02

background. Feynman had been outwardly cranky

18:05

about the award, even complaining

18:07

about the fact that he'd have to rent a

18:09

tuxedo. But apparently he had

18:12

a change of heart. Your

18:14

Majesty, your Royal Highnesses,

18:16

ladies and gentlemen, the work I've

18:18

done has already been adequately rewarded

18:21

and recognized. Imagination reaches

18:23

out repeatedly, trying to achieve some

18:25

higher level of understanding until suddenly

18:28

I found myself momentarily alone before

18:30

one new corner of nature's pattern

18:32

of beauty and true majesty revealed.

18:35

That was my reward. Then,

18:37

having fashion tools to make access

18:40

easier to the new level, I

18:42

see these tools used by other

18:44

men straining their imaginations against further

18:46

mysteries beyond. There are my

18:48

votes of recognition. Then

18:50

comes the prize and a deluge

18:53

of messages from friends, from relatives,

18:55

from students, from former teachers, from

18:57

scientific colleagues, from total strangers, formal

19:00

commendations, silly jokes, parties, presents, a

19:02

multitude of messages in a multitude

19:04

of forms. But in

19:07

each I saw the same two common elements.

19:10

I saw in each joy and I

19:12

saw affection, you see, whatever modesty I may

19:14

have had has been completely swept away in

19:16

recent days. The prize was

19:18

a signal to permit them to express and me

19:20

to learn about their feelings. Each

19:23

joy, though transient still, repeated

19:26

in so many places amounts to a

19:28

considerable sum of human happiness. And

19:31

each note of affection released thus one

19:33

upon another has permitted me to realize

19:35

the depth of love for my friends

19:37

and acquaintances, which I had never felt

19:39

so poignantly before. For

19:41

this, I thank Alfred Nobel and the many

19:44

who worked so hard to carry out his

19:46

wishes in this particular way. And

19:48

so, you Swedish people with

19:51

your honors and your trumpets and your

19:53

king, forgive me. For

19:55

I understand that last such things provide

19:57

entrance to the heart. by

20:00

wise and peaceful people, they can

20:02

generate good feeling, even love among

20:04

men, even in lands far beyond

20:06

your own. For that

20:08

lesson, I thank you. After

20:15

the break, what was Feynman like as

20:17

a professor? Not in the

20:19

catalog, no grades. What

20:21

was it? It was Feynman standing in front

20:23

of the blackboard saying, ask me anything. I'm

20:26

Stephen Dubner, and this is Freakonomics Radio. We'll

20:28

be right back. Freakonomics

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23:08

5. Feynman the Professor.

23:12

The word most commonly attached to Richard Feynman

23:14

would seem to be genius. That

23:17

is the title of the definitive Feynman

23:19

biography, published in 1992 by James Glick.

23:24

Feynman himself did not like the

23:26

label. He maintained there was nothing

23:28

exceptional about his intelligence. So

23:31

how did he become a giant

23:33

of theoretical physics? Here's

23:35

how Feynman put it in a

23:37

BBC documentary called Fun to Imagine.

23:40

You, as be of an ordinary person, by

23:43

studying hard, would get to be able to

23:45

imagine these things like I imagine. Of course,

23:48

I was an ordinary person who studied hard.

23:51

There's no talent, a special miracle

23:55

ability to understand quantum mechanics or

23:57

a miracle ability to

23:59

imagine. electromagnetic field

24:02

that comes without practice

24:04

and reading and learning and study. He'd

24:06

take an ordinary person who's willing to

24:08

devote a great deal of time and

24:10

study and work and thinking and mathematics,

24:12

then he's become a scientist. The

24:16

physicist John Preskill. Feynman

24:18

officially taught an undergraduate

24:20

class at Caltech only

24:23

for two years and

24:25

those were captured by some now

24:27

famous books called The

24:30

Feynman Lectures on Physics. They're

24:32

three big red books. Feynman

24:36

worked very hard on that. He thought

24:38

very deeply about how to

24:41

organize the material and

24:43

they're rather extraordinary. I think I

24:45

didn't really appreciate them until I

24:48

was a more senior physicist. When

24:50

he gave a talk or a lecture he

24:52

was kind of mesmerizing and

24:54

really grabbed your attention. I

24:57

have the privilege of calling your attention

24:59

today to what is probably one of

25:02

the most far-reaching generalizations of the human

25:04

mind. And while

25:06

he spoke things would

25:08

seem extraordinarily clear and obvious and

25:10

many people had the experience that

25:12

then afterward when you tried to

25:15

reconstruct the arguments you'd

25:17

find it very difficult. Somehow

25:19

he made it seem easy but

25:21

there were nuances that he

25:24

made seem natural when he spoke of

25:26

them but then when you tried to

25:28

follow the path again we're actually very

25:30

subtle. And what

25:32

is this law of gravitation? It

25:35

is that every object in the universe attracts

25:38

every other with a force proportional to

25:40

the mass of each and

25:42

varying inversely as a square of the distance between

25:45

them. If you like mathematics you can write that

25:47

same thing as an equation.

26:00

really put everything into it. The filmmaker

26:02

Christopher Sykes. I turned

26:04

up at Caltech for this lecture and

26:06

I have to say it was extraordinary

26:08

because Feynman, I came in

26:11

and there were about, I don't know, 16

26:13

or 20 students all

26:15

wearing shorts and trainers with their feet up

26:17

on the tables and stuff and none of

26:19

them were taking any notes. Feynman

26:22

was lecturing and I couldn't

26:24

of course understand anything, it was

26:26

in a really high level quantum

26:28

physics. But to the end he looked

26:30

up at the clock and he said, look we've only got

26:32

eight minutes left and this

26:35

particular problem we're talking about, he said,

26:37

there's two ways of tackling it. One's

26:39

very elegant and clear

26:42

and easy and the other one is just

26:44

incredibly messy. He said, but we've only got

26:46

a little time left so I'll just deal

26:48

with the incredibly messy one. I

26:51

thought, well this was great. Although

26:54

that was the only official undergraduate

26:56

class that Feynman taught at Caltech,

26:58

there was an informal class of

27:01

which he taught for many years.

27:04

It was not in the catalog, it

27:06

was not documented anywhere, the freshman called

27:08

it Physics X, it was intended especially

27:11

for freshmen and by word

27:13

of mouth it would

27:15

become known that Feynman

27:18

was going to be in a certain

27:20

classroom at a certain time and

27:23

that you could come and interact

27:25

with him. Not in the

27:27

catalog, no grades, what

27:30

was it? It was Feynman standing in front of

27:32

the blackboard saying, ask me anything. And

27:35

there were rules, the rules

27:37

were, don't ask me

27:39

about coursework, don't ask me how

27:41

to do this problem in such and such a

27:43

course, don't ask me about somebody's paper, I

27:46

haven't read it, I don't care about it, don't

27:48

ask me about somebody's theorem, I don't know that

27:50

either, I can't tell you. Ask

27:53

me about trying to understand something.

27:56

Doesn't matter what it is, everything

27:58

is interesting. My colleague,

28:00

Kip Thorne, remembers that

28:04

when he was a freshman, that must have been around 1958,

28:07

he heard the rumor, he

28:10

went to the rumored room at the rumored

28:12

time, and finally was there, and he says,

28:14

okay, what do you want to talk about

28:16

today? And somebody

28:19

says, oh, let's talk about

28:21

waves on Mars. Where that came

28:23

from, I have no idea. So he starts

28:25

to talk about waves on Mars. Well,

28:27

let's say there's not really water on Mars, but

28:29

let's suppose there is, maybe there were oceans before,

28:32

but the gravity is different than Earth. So

28:34

that means water waves will propagate at a

28:36

different speed, and he worked that out. But

28:39

another thing, the atmosphere is thinner, so there's

28:41

less wind, and that's not going to work

28:44

up such high waves blowing across the surface

28:46

of the water. How high will the waves be?

28:48

And he worked that out. And

28:50

Kip came away from this enormously inspired, you

28:52

know, that you can just look at nature,

28:55

and you ask questions, and you can

28:57

calculate answers. Seamus Blackley. I

29:00

don't think Feynman was trying to teach students

29:04

who were not going to

29:06

understand what he was saying. He wasn't trying

29:08

to reach out in an inclusive way and

29:11

elevate everyone, okay? Caltech

29:14

is very hard on their undergraduates, right? There's

29:16

like a Lord of the Flies f***ing thing

29:18

going on. In the 60s, it was even

29:20

worse. It's a cultural thing that Caltech

29:22

struggles with to this day. And

29:25

those lectures are built for those people who are

29:27

going to go somewhere. And those are the people

29:29

that Feynman was interested in. I

29:32

don't mean to make him out to be such a prick,

29:34

but I think that he was really interested in the really

29:36

bright students who asked really bright questions, and I'm thinking about

29:39

stuff. Now that said,

29:42

he obviously spent a huge amount of time in

29:44

his career communicating

29:46

ideas in a very clear

29:48

way to general

29:50

audiences. But I think those

29:53

are two separate things. I

30:02

think a kind of pseudoscience, that social

30:04

science is an example of a science which is not

30:06

a science. They follow the forms.

30:10

You gather data, you do so and so

30:12

and so forth, but they don't get any

30:14

laws. They haven't found anything. Maybe

30:17

someday they will, but it's not very well developed.

30:19

But what happens is at an

30:21

even more mundane level, we get experts

30:24

on everything. It sounds like they're

30:26

sort of scientific. There's

30:28

all kinds of myths and pseudoscience all over

30:30

the place. Stephen

30:32

Wilkman. His distaste for

30:34

social science came from the fact that

30:36

it just is not a bedrock kind

30:39

of field. I'm sure if he

30:41

was talking about that or about economics or something like

30:43

that, he would say, what is

30:45

this? Is it something where you have axioms

30:47

for how people work and then you're trying

30:49

to figure out the consequences? That's kind of

30:51

more like the way he was doing physics.

30:54

There are these underlying laws of physics and then

30:56

we're working out their consequences. Well,

30:58

at Caltech, he was a hero right up to the

31:00

end, admired by

31:03

his colleagues and

31:06

by the students. I don't know who worshipped

31:08

him more and that

31:11

he was an extraordinary person

31:14

and thinker was appreciated. Now, he

31:17

was a bit of a narcissist. He

31:19

was a show off. He

31:22

did it in a way which maybe irritated some

31:24

people, which was also charming. It's

31:27

not like he tried to hide it. He

31:29

thought pretty highly of himself. I mean, he

31:31

did want to have quirks and

31:33

to have stories about him.

31:36

He really wanted to create this persona. Lisa

31:41

Randall and I am a physicist

31:43

professor at Harvard. I do theoretical

31:45

particle physics and cosmology. This

31:48

sounds kind of obnoxious, but if you're smart enough

31:50

to do particle physics, you're probably smart enough to

31:52

do other jobs where you make a lot more

31:54

money, you get a lot more prestige in other

31:56

ways. So your currency is... how

32:00

important you're considered and what you've accomplished

32:02

and what people think of you. So

32:05

for some people that's more important than others.

32:08

He's a born performer. He clearly

32:10

liked the adulation. You know,

32:12

I think he was a decent guy. And

32:15

what was really interesting is to read

32:17

these pages and pages sometimes of letters

32:19

that people wrote. That's

32:22

Michelle Feynman again. The

32:25

letter is, hello, my

32:27

name is Gary Vership. At

32:29

the present time, I'm a junior at UC

32:31

Berkeley and I'm majoring in physics. I would

32:33

be interested in hearing your views on the

32:35

present fields of research and physics as of

32:38

now I'm interested in either plasma, space, or

32:40

low temperature physics. I would appreciate it

32:42

very much if you could send me some

32:44

information on your current research efforts. My

32:46

address in Berkeley is... All

32:49

right, so then he says, I'm sorry, but

32:51

neither you nor I have the time it would

32:53

take for me to expound my views on

32:55

the research being done in physics. And

32:58

I am interested in all fields. I

33:01

mean, it's honest. I

33:04

don't think he's being mean. It's

33:06

just, I'm going to tell you like it

33:08

is. You

33:11

ask me, I'm going to tell you

33:13

I don't have time to solve all your problems.

33:15

And just FYI, I'm interested in everything. He

33:20

didn't have a lot of judgment with people, you know. So

33:23

he went to a topless bar and he

33:25

liked watching the girls and he liked drawing

33:27

them. And, you know, he would have conversations.

33:29

And at some point people

33:32

were trying to shut the place down because,

33:34

I don't know, they'd had enough of it

33:36

or something. And so he showed up in

33:38

court and said, no, no, this is a

33:40

fine place. I go here all the

33:42

time. Everything's above board. And it

33:44

could have been also true that the neighbors

33:46

were right about all of their concerns because

33:49

ultimately the place did shut down. My

33:51

point is that he had his own moral

33:54

compass, which he

33:56

was very strongly committed

33:59

to. We had a lot of

34:01

artist friends that I think were incredibly

34:04

attractive to him because they were

34:06

just three thinkers. I

34:14

grew up right here. Richard Feynman would come

34:16

in and sit right here and my dad

34:19

would sit over there. Feynman was

34:21

an ordinary dude. You meet him, you thought he

34:23

was like some dude off the street in New

34:25

York. My

34:28

name is Alan Zorthian

34:30

and I am an architect. My

34:33

dad was J'Ryer Zorthian. He

34:36

was an artist. That was his

34:38

main profession. He was very good at

34:40

it. My father met

34:44

Richard P. Feynman in

34:46

the mid-50s when Feynman was playing

34:49

bongos at a party

34:51

and my dad needed to

34:54

make a big splash so he was dancing

34:56

around. And they became good

34:58

friends. The friendship

35:00

continued until Richard's death in 1988 and they were

35:02

very close. The

35:09

Zorthian Ranch is in the hills above

35:11

Pasadena. The land is steep and

35:14

scrubby. It looks a lot like where they

35:16

used to shoot MASH, the old TV show

35:18

with Alan Alda, which is actually not far

35:20

away. The ranch

35:22

itself is a sprawl of

35:25

farm animals and shaggy dogs,

35:27

sculptures and mosaics and

35:29

buildings quite a bit past their prime. In

35:32

its heyday, when J'Ryer Zorthian was

35:34

holding court, the ranch

35:36

was known for its bohemian vibes

35:38

and wild birdies. Richard Feynman

35:41

spent a lot of time up here.

35:43

He and Zorthian had a special relationship.

35:46

They would argue that they liked to express

35:48

their opinions. One of the

35:50

things they're talking about was that you scientists

35:52

don't appreciate beauty. It's

35:55

a friendly type argument. It went until very

35:57

late in the evening and then he went

35:59

home. and he started thinking about it and

36:02

he called my dad up and said, well look, I

36:04

think the problem is I don't understand what you do

36:06

and you don't understand what I do. So why don't

36:08

we educate each other and then

36:10

they started doing this thing and they were serious.

36:12

They did it. They decided, I

36:14

don't remember, every other Sunday I think it was,

36:17

Feynman would come up, my dad did the

36:19

first one, he was going to teach Feynman

36:21

how to draw. Because Feynman was interested in

36:23

art and so he came up, he

36:25

said my dad was a good teacher. My dad was good, he was positive

36:28

and stuff. So he started to

36:30

learn to draw and he eventually became very good.

36:32

And then he tried to teach my dad something

36:34

about physics and my dad didn't learn a damn

36:37

thing. Feynman liked the idea that my

36:39

dad could give women to pose nude too. So

36:41

my dad would send him models and

36:43

stuff like that. When

36:47

you read Feynman's own books, you see

36:49

that he was completely enamored with women.

36:52

He tells story after story of chasing

36:54

women in ways that ranged from

36:56

comic to cruel. In

36:58

the beginning, he had been madly in love

37:01

with Arlene, his first wife. But

37:03

she died from tuberculosis in her 20s

37:05

and it's unclear if he ever fully

37:07

recovered from that. He wrote her a

37:10

love letter two years after she died.

37:13

I'll bet you were surprised that I don't

37:15

even have a girlfriend except you sweetheart. But

37:18

only you are left to me. My

37:20

darling wife, I do adore you. I

37:23

love my wife. My wife is dead. P.S.

37:27

Please excuse my not mailing this, but

37:29

I don't know your new address. He

37:33

did get remarried to Mary Louise Bell,

37:35

whom he met while teaching at Cornell.

37:39

They were, by all accounts, a horrible match.

37:41

The marriage lasted just four years. In

37:44

their divorce, Bell claimed that she

37:46

was subjected to a variety of

37:48

cruelties, including violence. For

37:52

years Feynman had cultivated

37:54

a reputation as a

37:56

womanizer of the worst sort. James

37:58

Glick in his book, genius, reports

38:01

that Feynman routinely slept with

38:03

undergraduates and the wives of

38:05

graduate students. Here's Charles

38:07

Mann. He was an old-fashioned sexist.

38:10

Every woman that we ever talked to about

38:12

this would say this, but they would also

38:14

say things ...

38:17

I know a female physicist

38:19

who, the way she put it

38:21

was this. Feynman would do

38:23

these sexist things like, saying, would you

38:25

give me a cup of coffee? You know, these

38:27

classic sexist tropes. But she said, I

38:30

never met a person who helped

38:32

me understand the physics better. She

38:35

said, ultimately, I'm a physicist, and that's

38:37

what counts. Yes, this was annoying, incredibly

38:40

annoying. I wanted to slap him. But

38:42

when he talked to me about physics,

38:44

I loved it. Lisa Randall.

38:47

When I was entering the field, I went out

38:49

of my way to learn the physics of people and

38:51

to learn as little about their personality as possible.

38:54

I have to say, many times when I found

38:56

out about the people, I was disappointed. I just

38:58

felt like I didn't want to know it. I

39:00

just wanted to focus on the physics itself. Look,

39:02

you can try to justify him, but the fact

39:04

is he was proud enough that it becomes the

39:06

centerpiece of his book. I do

39:08

think we give people a free pass for things they

39:11

do to women in ways that we don't give them

39:13

a free pass and things that happen to other people.

39:15

I mean, look, I've been to Caltech recently. I really

39:17

like being there. It's really fun. When

39:19

I took the PSATE, I did very well. I

39:22

was sent a pamphlet that said, literally, what's a

39:24

nice girl like you doing in a place like

39:26

Caltech? I thought, wow, that is one place

39:28

I do not want to go. You

39:32

know, it's very interesting in this day and

39:34

age because growing up in the age of

39:36

the women's movement, a lot of other movements,

39:38

a lot of it was about not

39:40

focusing on your identity, being just considered

39:43

like anyone else. Today's

39:45

identity politics is very much the

39:47

opposite. So it's very confusing. to

40:00

read his own obituary. I'm

40:03

Stephen Dubner. This is Freakonomics Radio. We'll

40:05

be right back. Freakonomics

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43:07

6. Feynman the parent. Michelle

43:11

Feynman still lives in Pasadena not far

43:13

from the house where she grew up.

43:15

I was a shy seven

43:18

or eight year old I didn't relish

43:20

the idea of telling a friend no I

43:22

don't really want to spend the night at

43:24

your house and so

43:27

somehow my dad and I had this conversation

43:29

and he said well I got an idea

43:32

we'll have a code if you

43:34

say so-and-so wants to know

43:36

if I can spend the night I'll

43:39

say no I'm sorry not tonight

43:42

and then I'll be the bad guy and if

43:44

you say is it all

43:46

right or if I ask

43:49

with myself as the first you know I'm

43:51

wondering if I can is it okay if

43:53

I spend the night something like that then

43:55

I'll give you an honest answer and maybe

43:57

it's yes maybe it's no but at least

43:59

we know where we are. And honestly,

44:02

he nailed it every single time. We're

44:04

speaking with Michelle in the garden of

44:06

the hotel in Pasadena, where the Freakonomics

44:09

crew is staying. We

44:11

chose this hotel, the Huntington, because

44:13

it is where Michelle's parents were

44:15

married. On September

44:17

24th of 1960, Richard Feynman

44:19

took Gwyneth Howarth to be his third wife.

44:23

She was from West Yorkshire, England. How did

44:25

they meet? They met

44:27

on a beach in Switzerland,

44:31

because she had aspirations to travel the

44:33

world. And she

44:35

thought a fun way, she liked children,

44:37

and a fun way would be to

44:39

be an au pair and to live

44:42

in people's houses and take care of

44:44

their children and see the world. So

44:46

she went to France and

44:48

then to Switzerland and met my

44:50

dad. I think he was

44:52

there for a conference, and apparently

44:55

he said kind of a

44:57

joke. He was like, oh,

44:59

you could come to California and take care of me.

45:02

And then the next

45:04

day he saw her again

45:06

and said, you know, that

45:08

wasn't, I'm sorry, that was out of

45:10

line. And she said, no, no, I'll

45:13

come to California. I'd love to. I'd love to come

45:15

to America. And that sounds great. They

45:18

rented a house, completely a platonic

45:21

relationship. He was in the front of the

45:23

house. He was in the back, I guess.

45:26

At some point he realized that

45:28

he was falling in love with her. And

45:30

he thought, no, no, too

45:33

soon, too fast, too impulsive. So

45:36

he went to a calendar and he paged

45:38

forward about six months. And he

45:41

marked the date on the calendar and said,

45:43

if I still feel the same way on

45:45

this date, I will ask her

45:47

to marry me. The

45:49

Pasadena freeway is right near here. And

45:52

the story is they hopped on the

45:54

freeway right after the wedding and they

45:57

ran out of gas. I mean, it's

45:59

a good litmus challenge. for a relationship, you

46:01

know, how is this going to work? And

46:03

to my mom's credit, she just laughed.

46:06

And, okay, I guess this is how it's going

46:08

to go. And they were, you know, they

46:10

were in it. The

46:12

Feynman's had two children, Michelle, whom they adopted

46:15

in 1968, and

46:17

Carl, who was born to the couple six

46:19

years earlier. Today, Carl is

46:22

a computer scientist living near Boston.

46:25

When I was 17, I didn't get along with my

46:27

parents great, which was

46:29

basically the period when I was deciding where to

46:31

go for college. I

46:33

wanted to go to one of the schools where

46:35

they taught AI. And

46:38

that was MIT Carnegie Mellon or Stanford.

46:41

MIT was my first choice, and

46:43

MIT was the furthest one away. It

46:46

was on the other side of the country. So

46:49

I wanted to get away from my parents and, you know, be

46:52

an independent, faraway guy. So I moved there.

46:55

I almost immediately regretted it being

46:57

so far away because my

46:59

relations with my parents were then improved.

47:03

But by then I was committed, and by the time

47:05

I graduated, I had decided that I loved Boston. So

47:08

I stayed out here. He

47:12

was a nice man who would tell you how the world worked. We'd

47:15

go for walks after dinner. We'd

47:17

go out on the streets or in the nearby golf

47:20

course. And we'd talk about everything under

47:22

the sun. He'd

47:24

tell me wonderful stories about his time

47:26

at the Manhattan Project. You

47:28

know, when I was a teenager, he

47:31

would repair his car a lot. He

47:33

would always dive right in. He didn't know anything by

47:35

car repair. So we'd

47:39

dive right in, and then he'd sit back and

47:41

look at it with his hand on his chin and theorize. And

47:44

then dive back in again and, you know,

47:46

usually make things worse. He

47:48

did take me to one football game. And

47:50

after what he said, so what do you think? And I said,

47:52

I really didn't like that. I

47:54

don't think I want to go to any more football games. And

47:57

he was like, oh, thank God. I

48:01

was very into science, I read science fiction,

48:03

I threw lots of pictures of spaceships. I

48:06

was that kind of kid and you know he

48:08

thought that was great and took me

48:10

to Hughes Aircraft to their

48:12

rocket factory and stuff like that. It was great as a

48:14

little kid. I was in

48:16

that world I wanted to be you know one of

48:18

those cool people with the short-sleeved white shirts and the

48:20

black ties. Yeah we had a

48:23

rocket scientist living across the street. Well

48:27

he enjoyed being a father

48:29

and so we have Gwyneth to

48:31

thank for that because she gave him

48:34

a stable family life. That

48:36

is Ralph Leighton. He is a longtime family

48:39

friend who was Feynman's writing partner

48:42

and drumming partner. Carl and

48:44

Michelle were delights to

48:46

him and he learned that

48:49

each of them liked different

48:51

things about him. So Carl

48:53

responded to certain things and Michelle responded

48:55

to other things. I

48:57

could just see the happiness and

49:00

fun when I came over for

49:02

my Wednesday evening proper meal.

49:05

I was a stay-at-home dad and a lot of

49:09

Feynman's philosophy came out with

49:12

our kids. You know just

49:14

one little saying which I kept

49:17

thinking of is don't take advantage

49:19

of your position. So

49:21

you never say because I said so. It's

49:25

better to have that philosophy of ignorance

49:27

like oh yeah that's an interesting

49:29

question. I don't know the answer to that. Let's go

49:32

find out. So

49:35

he was on the curriculum commission and

49:37

so they all looked at textbooks and

49:39

decided that you know this one should

49:41

be approved and this one should not.

49:44

My mom talked about how passionate he was

49:46

about it. She said he would be in

49:48

the basement and it was like an explosion

49:50

from down below because he would just be

49:52

incensed by the inane math problems

49:55

like you know Johnny sees a star

49:57

of 3,000 degrees. He

49:59

sees a star of 3,000 degrees. another star of 6,000 degrees.

50:02

What's the total number of... When

50:05

would you ever need to know

50:07

any of that in nature? You just wouldn't. But

50:10

he had a collection of good math textbooks, so

50:12

I would go down to his study and just, you know, read these

50:15

math textbooks for high schoolers when

50:17

I was a little kid. So I learned a lot of math that way.

50:20

When I was doing math in high school, my

50:22

dad would look over my shoulder and say, oh yeah,

50:25

I go, hang on, I got a good way you

50:27

could do that. I can think of five ways, and

50:29

let me just show you one. And

50:31

so I would take it to school

50:33

and go check this out. And the

50:35

teacher did not share my

50:38

enthusiasm and said, well,

50:41

no. I mean, yes, you got the right answer, but

50:43

no, that's not what we're doing here. And

50:45

so at a certain point, my dad had

50:48

enough and went to go see the teacher.

50:50

And I don't think

50:52

the teacher knew who he was. My dad

50:54

was really, really trying to play it cool

50:57

and just be sort of, you know, I'm

50:59

Michelle's dad. And at

51:01

some point, the guy said something like, you

51:03

should try reading a math book. And

51:07

I can just imagine my dad sort of

51:09

holding it all in. And then at that point,

51:11

it just couldn't. He just pulled

51:13

himself up and said, sir, I

51:16

have written math books.

51:19

And then I think the

51:21

counselor told the teacher who my dad

51:23

was. And the next day, I was

51:25

not in that

51:28

class anymore. He didn't mind being

51:30

a confused old man, would be

51:32

in a restaurant, and he'd look at the menu and get

51:34

out his glasses and be confused in front of the waiter

51:37

and take a long time. And now

51:39

the confused old man will look through the menu. You know,

51:41

he didn't mind being that. And

51:43

you know, at other times, well, he did some

51:46

pretty impressive stuff. And

51:48

he wasn't afraid to say, yeah, I did some pretty impressive stuff.

51:51

When my brother went to

51:53

MIT, he met a like

51:55

minded person, Danny Hillis. Danny

51:57

and Cheryl Handler were starting

52:00

a company called Thinking Machines. I

52:03

worked with him later at Thinking Machines

52:05

Corporation, and he was clearly very

52:07

into computation by that point. Very

52:09

interested, all over it. There

52:13

are some things that a computer does much better

52:15

than a human, and you'd better remember that if you

52:17

kind of compare machines to humans. He

52:19

felt like physics was kind of tapped out, that

52:21

he was past the point of making

52:24

contributions because both he changed and the

52:26

field had changed. And

52:28

so he was more interested in computing. The

52:31

machine we were building was called the connection machine. It's

52:33

a very strange computer. And

52:36

he figured out a way to get it to do cosines

52:39

and logarithms and other transcendental functions.

52:42

It was very poor at multiplication, but

52:44

it was very good at addition and shuffling bits around.

52:47

And he figured out a way to do transcendental

52:49

functions without multiplication,

52:52

just by using the patterns of the bits to do

52:55

something extremely clever whose details I no longer remember. In

53:00

1978, Feynman was diagnosed with

53:03

abdominal cancer. For

53:05

the next decade, he had multiple

53:07

treatments, including surgeries. It

53:09

was suggested that his cancer may

53:11

have been caused by exposure to nuclear

53:13

radiation at Los Alamos. Feynman

53:16

refused to consider that

53:18

possibility. Ralph

53:20

Layton. I got a

53:22

call from the LA Times wondering

53:25

if he was near death. And I

53:27

said, well, he's for the moment

53:30

doing pretty well, but have you

53:32

written up his obituary already? And

53:35

they said, yes. And I said, oh, wow,

53:37

would you mind sending it? Could I show

53:39

it to the chief? And

53:42

the guy said, OK, but I'm not changing

53:44

a word of it. And

53:47

so Feynman got the obituary from the

53:49

LA Times. He was able to read

53:51

his own obituary. You can find it

53:53

online. And in

53:55

the first paragraph or second paragraph,

53:57

he mentioned he had this reputation.

54:00

for skirt chasing or some kind

54:03

of description of that and Feynman shook his

54:05

head and was pretty

54:09

sad that that would be something mentioned

54:11

so soon because I think he kind

54:13

of played it up just to look

54:15

like you know scientists aren't all nerds

54:17

and you know can't get anywhere

54:20

or whatever. I think there

54:22

was a lot of sort of image making and

54:24

then he realized it kind of went too far

54:26

but he couldn't change it because the

54:29

LA Times guy said my condition is I'm

54:31

not changing a word. A

54:33

few months later in February of 1988 Feynman

54:35

died with his family close by. Here

54:37

were his last

54:41

words. I'd hate to die

54:43

twice it's so boring. You

54:48

know there was something on a blackboard right

54:50

after he died they preserved the blackboard for

54:53

a while took pictures and it said what

54:55

I cannot create I do not understand. He

54:58

liked to construct things from the

55:01

ground up. That's basically

55:03

it. By

55:06

this time Gwyneth Feynman was

55:08

also sick with cancer. So

55:12

this is Mountain View Cemetery where

55:14

my parents bought

55:18

a plot. They were sick fairly

55:22

early in my life. They took the

55:25

whole responsibility of all

55:27

of that very seriously and they

55:29

did their will and they bought

55:32

a plot where they liked the

55:35

surroundings and thought this was a beautiful

55:37

area. Yep

55:45

in loving memory and then

55:47

it says Feynman, Richard

55:49

P and Gwyneth M and

55:51

he has the dates 1918 to

55:54

1988 and she's 1934 to 1989. You

56:03

know, sooner or later, everyone's going

56:05

to lose their parents. I'm

56:07

lucky because there's all

56:09

this material that I

56:11

can just, what did his voice sound like?

56:14

Let me listen to it. You know, I have those recordings.

56:16

When I read his books, I can hear

56:19

his voice again. Well,

56:23

there's a lot of stories about it, but it's getting late, so we'll let

56:25

it go at that. Next

56:35

time on Part Three, The

56:38

Vanishing Mr. Feynman. I

56:40

said, have you ever tried sulcipe and mushrooms? And

56:43

he said, no. And I asked, would

56:45

you like to? Feynman

56:47

quit drinking when he was young, and

56:49

as much as he was interested in

56:51

different states of consciousness, he didn't want

56:53

to do drugs out of fear it

56:55

would damage his favorite toy, his brain.

56:59

But when he knew the end was near, he

57:01

took a trip or two. We'll

57:03

hear about that, and what

57:05

would Feynman think about how science

57:07

works today? One of

57:10

the sad things that's happened is

57:12

that the search for

57:14

truth has become politicized. That's

57:17

next time on the show. Until then, take

57:19

care of yourself, and if you can, someone

57:21

else too. Freakonomics

57:24

Radio is produced by Stitcher and Renbud Radio.

57:27

You can find our entire archive

57:29

on any podcast app or at

57:31

freakonomics.com, where we also publish transcripts

57:33

and show notes. We

57:36

make some other shows too, The Economics

57:38

of Everyday Things, No Stupid

57:40

Questions, and People I Mostly Admire. You

57:42

can get all of them on your

57:44

favorite podcast app. Just look

57:46

for the Freakonomics Radio Network. This

57:49

episode was produced by Zach Lipinski.

57:52

Special thanks to Richard Tai and Elisa

57:54

Piccio from the Caltech Archives,

57:57

to Christopher Sykes and the BBC for the audio

57:59

from their Feynman documentaries, to

58:01

the Library and University Archives at

58:04

the University of California Santa Barbara

58:06

for their recording of Feynman's Los

58:08

Alamos from Below lecture, to the

58:10

Esalen Institute for audio from Feynman's

58:13

Tiny Machines talk, and

58:15

to James Glick, author of the

58:17

Feynman biography Genius. Also,

58:19

big thanks to Nicholas Osorio and

58:21

MusicMind for all the recording help

58:24

in Pasadena. Our staff

58:26

includes Alina Kullman, Eleanor Osborne, Elsa

58:28

Hernandez, Gabriel Roth, Greg Rippin,

58:31

Jasmine Klinger, Jeremy Johnston, Julie Kanfer,

58:33

Murek Baudic, Morgan Levy, Neal

58:35

Carruth, Rebecca Lee Douglas, Ryan Kelly,

58:37

and Sarah Lilly. Our

58:39

theme song is Mr. Fortune by the Hitchhikers.

58:42

All the other music you've heard today was

58:44

composed by Luis Guerra. As always,

58:47

thank you for listening. Oh,

58:50

that was fun. I haven't talked about Dick Feynman

58:53

for a long time. A

58:59

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