"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - unam.

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spend the $35 to entertain myself each time I went to Buffalo, and see if I could make the trip worthwhile. I didn't have much experience with the rest of the world. Not knowing how to get started, I asked the taxi driver who picked me up at the airport to guide me through the ins and outs of entertaining myself in Buffalo. He was very helpful, and I still remember his name Marcuso, who drove car number 169. I would always ask for him when I came into the airport on Thursday nights. As I was going to give my first lecture I asked Marcuso, "Where's an interesting bar where lots of things are going on?" I thought that things went on in bars. "The Alibi Room," he said. "It's a lively place where you can meet lots of people. I'll take you there after your lecture." After the lecture Marcuso picked me up and drove me to the Alibi Room. On the way, I say, "Listen, I'm gonna have to ask for some kind of drink. What's the name of a good whiskey?" "Ask for Black and White, water on the side," he counseled. The Alibi Room was an elegant place with lots of people and lots of activity. The women were dressed in furs, everybody was friendly, and the phones were ringing all the time. I walked up to the bar and ordered my Black and White, water on the side. The bartender was very friendly, quickly found a beautiful woman to sit next to me, and introduced her. I bought her drinks. I liked the place and decided to come back the following week. Every Thursday night I'd come to Buffalo and be driven in car number 169 to my lecture and then to the Alibi Room. I'd walk into the bar and order my Black and White, water on the side. After a few weeks of this it got to the point where as soon as I would come in, before I reached the bar, there would be a Black and White, water on the side, waiting for me. "Your regular, sir," was the bartender's greeting. I'd take the whole shot glass down at once, to show I was a tough guy, like I had seen in the movies, and then I'd sit around for about twenty seconds before I drank the water. After a while I didn't even need the water. The bartender always saw to it that the empty chair next to mine was quickly filled by a beautiful woman, and everything would start off all right, but just before the bar closed, they all had to go off somewhere. I thought it was possibly because I was getting pretty drunk by that time. One time, as the Alibi Room was closing, the girl I was buying drinks for that night suggested we go to another place where she knew a lot of people. It was on the second floor of some other building which gave no hint that there was a bar upstairs. All the bars in Buffalo had to close at two o'clock, and all the people in the bars would get sucked into this big hall on the second floor, and keep right on going illegally, of course. I tried to figure out a way that I could stay in bars and watch what was going on without getting drunk. One night I noticed a guy who had been there a lot go up to the bar and order a glass of milk. Everybody knew what his problem was: he had an ulcer, the poor fella. That gave me an idea. The next time I come into the Alibi Room the bartender says, "The usual, sir?" "No. Coke. Just plain Coke," I say, with a disappointed look on my face. The other guys gather around and sympathize: "Yeah, I was on the wagon three weeks ago," one says. "It's really tough, Dick, it's really tough," says another. They all honored me. I was "on the wagon" now, and had the guts to enter that
ar, with all its "temptations," and just order Coke because, of course, I had to see my friends. And I maintained that for a month! I was a real tough bastard. One time I was in the men's room of the bar and there was a guy at the urinal. He was kind of drunk, and said to me in a meansounding voice, "I don't like your face. I think I'll push it in." I was scared green. I replied in an equally mean voice, "Get out of my way, or I'll pee right through ya!" He said something else, and I figured it was getting pretty close to a fight now. I had never been in a fight. I didn't know what to do, exactly, and I was afraid of getting hurt. I did think of one thing: I moved away from the wall, because I figured if I got hit, I'd get hit from the back, too. Then I felt a sort of funny crunching in my eye it didn't hurt much and the next thing I know, I'm slamming the son of a gun right back, automatically. It was remarkable for me to discover that I didn't have to think; the "machinery" knew what to do. "OK. That's one for one," I said. "Ya wanna keep on goin?" The other guy backed off and left. We would have killed each other if the other guy was as dumb as I was. I went to wash up, my hands are shaking, blood is leaking out of my gums I've got a weak place in my gums and my eye hurt. After I calmed down I went back into the bar and swaggered up to the bartender: "Black and White, water on the side," I said. I figured it would calm my nerves. I didn't realize it, but the guy I socked in the men's room was over in another part of the bar, talking with three other guys. Soon these three guys big, tough guys came over to where I was sitting and leaned over me. They looked down threateningly, and said, "What's the idea of pickin' a fight with our friend?" Well I'm so dumb I don't realize I'm being intimidated; all I know is right and wrong. I simply whip around and snap at them, "Why don't ya find out who started what first, before ya start makin' trouble?" The big guys were so taken aback by the fact that their intimidation didn't work that they backed away and left. After a while one of the guys came back and said to me, "<strong>You're</strong> right, Curly's always doin' that. He's always gettin' into fights and askin' us to straighten it out." "<strong>You're</strong> damn tootin' I'm right!" I said, and the guy sat down next to me. Curly and the other two fellas came over and sat down on the other side of me, two seats away. Curly said something about my eye not looking too good, and I said his didn't look to be in the best of shape either. I continue talking tough, because I figure that's the way a real man is supposed to act in a bar. The situation's getting tighter and tighter, and people in the bar are worrying about what's going to happen. The bartender says, "No fighting in here, boys! Calm down!" Curly hisses, "That's OK; we'll get 'im when he goes out." Then a genius comes by. Every field has its firstrate experts. This fella comes over to me and says, "Hey, Dan! I didn't know you were in town! It's good to see you!" Then he says to Curly, "Say, Paul! I'd like you to meet a good friend of mine, Dan, here. I think you two guys would like each other. Why don't you shake?"
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"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
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Preface The stories in this book we
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He Fixes Radios by Thinking! Part 1
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could act like a microphone, and yo
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whole afternoon to find a burnedo
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For logarithms it was a big L exten
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very sharp knife into the table at
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and be more relaxed, and vice versa
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One time I danced with a certain gi
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same waitress all the time. I notic
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"Cut it out, Feynman; this is seri
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could find. Before I tell you what
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observations were made while I was
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I decided there must be an "interpr
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company. His father was the one who
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we could do. Our process was pretty
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out of me, because I didn't like fo
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In the Princeton cyclotron lab they
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When it was time to get up and go o
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and animal, are made of little bric
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some other experiment. I said, "Hel
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We figured if we could get rid of t
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do?" I said I didn't know, and he s
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always something I could find in th
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Atlantic City, where they had vario
Page 51 and 52: though it was a microscope of forty
Page 53 and 54: lowing" it occurred. I followed eig
Page 55 and 56: I asked the Bell Labs if they would
Page 57 and 58: the fuse won't burn! I decided that
Page 59 and 60: that he wanted to try to develop. H
Page 61 and 62: Mexico," the man says, "Oh, so all
Page 63 and 64: meantime, what instructions go down
Page 65 and 66: said, "No codes." So I wrote back t
Page 67 and 68: I looked at it and said, "That look
Page 69 and 70: people that I wanted were there, an
Page 71 and 72: different where you go first t
Page 73 and 74: concentrate on this one. So they st
Page 75 and 76: it was very difficult. Now, us
Page 77 and 78: was radioactive. It was plutonium.
Page 79 and 80: One guy tries to make something to
Page 81 and 82: Everybody was amazed. It was comple
Page 83 and 84: it appeared, depends on the same li
Page 85 and 86: Hoffman is just the kind of guy to
Page 87 and 88: mathematical constant?" "Oh, no!" d
Page 89 and 90: of little cubbyholes that contained
Page 91 and 92: himself! So I turn around, and sure
Page 93 and 94: "No. Do you?" "Well, I'm keeping an
Page 95 and 96: partly in the strength of our futur
Page 97 and 98: have any room either. I say to the
Page 99 and 100: answered the questions. Everything
Page 101: around faster than the wobbling. I
Page 105 and 106: level. . . "Excuse me, sir," I say,
Page 107 and 108: I liked to imitate being drunk, so
Page 109 and 110: you been?" At this moment the guy t
Page 111 and 112: "What?" "That's right," he said con
Page 113 and 114: After that, I tried to do those thi
Page 115 and 116: He was completely washed out, and l
Page 117 and 118: Monday, at the latest. I got all up
Page 119 and 120: The people from the airlines were s
Page 121 and 122: The boss said, "Where're you from?"
Page 123 and 124: eaches, where most people felt thei
Page 125 and 126: super: He answered everything nifty
Page 127 and 128: y first learning to pronounce the l
Page 129 and 130: Certainly, Mr. Big! I used to cross
Page 131 and 132: We were eating breakfast in the din
Page 133 and 134: "That must have been it," I said. I
Page 135 and 136: some kind of big pain, and it start
Page 137 and 138: the two piles of hay, with the extr
Page 139 and 140: I must refuse. The reason I have to
Page 141 and 142: hotel. I pushed open the doors and
Page 143 and 144: "Well, yes. . ." "Hoompf." And that
Page 145 and 146: something like, "May I observe your
Page 147 and 148: in fact, a prediction on top of wha
Page 149 and 150: "The one from SoandSo's book."
Page 151 and 152: government, or else I can't talk in
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et Jerry that he wouldn't be able t
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at the paper. Don't take your eyes
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She told me this story: She and her
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were these fluorescent colors on bl
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they came back and bought it. So th
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with the artists from time to time
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understand," and everybody else wou
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way to understand ethical problems
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families all the time, so that if a
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that they called "new math," and si
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awful! All it was was a game to get
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then there was something else. And
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one. Then the question came up, "Wi
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I got that shock about three or fou
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had been brought up by my father ag
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She turned to me and said, "Oh! You
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astronomy. *When I was a young prof
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After the colloquium at UCLA Profes
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So the fella who'd been talking to
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andleader said, "Geez! Who was that
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who had come out at the beginning o
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"This is the place," the receptioni
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my way down again. At first it took
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external to the internal psychologi
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people with commonsense ideas are i
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think to laymen. For example, I was
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to have such a policy in teaching
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