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

could find.
Before I tell you what happened in philosophy, let me tell you about the English
class. We had to write a number of themes. For instance, Mill had written something on
liberty, and we had to criticize it. But instead of addressing myself to political liberty, as
Mill did, I wrote about liberty in social occasions ­­ the problem of having to fake and lie
in order to be polite, and does this perpetual game of faking in social situations lead to the
"destruction of the moral fiber of society." An interesting question, but not the one we
were supposed to discuss.
Another essay we had to criticize was by Huxley, "On a Piece of Chalk," in which
he describes how an ordinary piece of chalk he is holding is the remains from animal
bones, and the forces inside the earth lifted it up so that it became part of the White
Cliffs, and then it was quarried and is now used to convey ideas through writing on the
blackboard.
But again, instead of criticizing the essay assigned to us, I wrote a parody called,
"On a Piece of Dust," about how dust makes the colors of the sunset and precipitates the
rain, and so on. I was always a faker, always trying to escape.
But when we had to write a theme on Goethe's Faust, it was hopeless! The work
was too long to make a parody of it or to invent something else. I was storming back and
forth in the fraternity saying, "I can't do it. I'm just not gonna do it. I ain't gonna do it!"
One of my fraternity brothers said, "OK, Feynman, you're not gonna do it. But the
professor will think you didn't do it because you don't want to do the work. You oughta
write a theme on something ­­ same number of words ­­ and hand it in with a note saying
that you just couldn't understand the Faust, you haven't got the heart for it, and that it's
impossible for you to write a theme on it."
So I did that. I wrote a long theme, "On the Limitations of Reason." I had thought
about scientific techniques for solving problems, and how there are certain limitations:
moral values cannot be decided by scientific methods, yak, yak, yak, and so on.
Then another fraternity brother offered some more advice. "Feynman," he said, "it
ain't gonna work, handing in a theme that's got nothing to do with Faust. What you
oughta do is work that thing you wrote into the Faust."
"Ridiculous!" I said.
But the other fraternity guys think it's a good idea.
"All right, all right!" I say, protesting. "I'll try."
So I added half a page to what I had already written, and said that Mephistopheles
represents reason, and Faust represents the spirit, and Goethe is trying to show the
limitations of reason. I stirred it up, cranked it all in, and handed in my theme.
The professor had us each come in individually to discuss our theme. I went in
expecting the worst.
He said, "The introductory material is fine, but the Faust material is a bit too
brief. Otherwise, it's very good ­­ B+ ." I escaped again!
Now to the philosophy class. The course was taught by an old bearded professor
named Robinson, who always mumbled. I would go to the class, and he would mumble
along, and I couldn't understand a thing. The other people in the class seemed to
understand him better, but they didn't seem to pay any attention. I happened to have a
small drill, about one­sixteenth­inch, and to pass the time in that class, I would twist it
between my fingers and drill holes in the sole of my shoe, week after week.