"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - unam.
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - unam. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" - unam.
Finally one day at the end of the class, Professor Robinson went "wugga mugga mugga wugga wugga. . ." and everybody got excited! They were all talking to each other and discussing, so I figured he'd said something interesting, thank God! I wondered what it was? I asked somebody, and they said, "We have to write a theme, and hand it in in four weeks." "A theme on what?" "On what he's been talking about all year." I was stuck. The only thing that I had heard during that entire term that I could remember was a moment when there came this upwelling, "muggawuggastreamofconsciousnessmugga wugga," and phoom! it sank back into chaos. This "stream of consciousness" reminded me of a problem my father had given to me many years before. He said, "Suppose some Martians were to come down to earth, and Martians never slept, but instead were perpetually active. Suppose they didn't have this crazy phenomenon that we have, called sleep. So they ask you the question: 'How does it feel to go to sleep? What happens when you go to sleep? Do your thoughts suddenly stop, or do they move less aanndd lleeessss rraaaaapppppiidddddllllllllyyyyyyyyyyyyyy? How does the mind actually turn off?" I got interested. Now I had to answer this question: How does the stream of consciousness end, when you go to sleep? So every afternoon for the next four weeks I would work on my theme. I would pull down the shades in my room, turn off the lights, and go to sleep. And I'd watch what happened, when I went to sleep. Then at night, I'd go to sleep again, so I had two times each day when I could make observations it was very good! At first I noticed a lot of subsidiary things that had little to do with falling asleep. I noticed, for instance, that I did a lot of thinking by speaking to myself internally. I could also imagine things visually. Then, when I was getting tired, I noticed that I could think of two things at once. I discovered this when I was talking internally to myself about something, and while I was doing this, I was idly imagining two ropes connected to the end of my bed, going through some pulleys, and winding around a turning cylinder, slowly lifting the bed. I wasn't aware that I was imagining these ropes until I began to worry that one rope would catch on the other rope, and they wouldn't wind up smoothly. But I said, internally, "Oh, the tension will take care of that," and this interrupted the first thought I was having, and made me aware that I was thinking of two things at once. I also noticed that as you go to sleep the ideas continue, but they become less and less logically interconnected. You don't notice that they're not logically connected until you ask yourself, "What made me think of that?" and you try to work your way back, and often you can't remember what the hell did make you think of that! So you get every illusion of logical connection, but the actual fact is that the thoughts become more and more cockeyed until they're completely disjointed, and beyond that, you fall asleep. After four weeks of sleeping all the time, I wrote my theme, and explained the observations I had made. At the end of the theme I pointed out that all of these
observations were made while I was watching myself fall asleep, and I don't really know what it's like to fall asleep when I'm not watching myself. I concluded the theme with a little verse I made up, which pointed out this problem of introspection: I wonder why. I wonder why. I wonder why I wonder. I wonder why I wonder why I wonder why I wonder! We hand in our themes, and the next time our class meets, the professor reads one of them: "Mum bum wugga mum bum. . ." I can't tell what the guy wrote. He reads another theme: "Mugga wugga mum bum wugga wugga. . ." I don't know what that guy wrote either, but at the end of it, he goes: Uh wugga wuh. Uh wugga wuh. Uh wugga wugga wugga. I wugga wuh uh wugga wuh Uh wugga wugga wugga. "Aha!" I say. "That's my theme!" I honestly didn't recognize it until the end. After I had written the theme I continued to be curious, and I kept practicing this watching myself as I went to sleep. One night, while I was having a dream, I realized I was observing myself in the dream. I had gotten all the way down, into the sleep itself! In the first part of the dream I'm on top of a train and we're approaching a tunnel. I get scared, pull myself down, and we go into the tunnel whoosh! I say to myself, "So you can get the feeling of fear, and you can hear the sound change when you go into the tunnel." I also noticed that I could see colors. Some people had said that you dream in black and white, but no, I was dreaming in color. By this time I was inside one of the train cars, and I can feel the train lurching about. I say to myself, "So you can get kinesthetic feelings in a dream." I walk with some difficulty down to the end of the car, and I see a big window, like a store window. Behind it there are not mannequins, but three live girls in bathing suits, and they look pretty good! I continue walking into the next car, hanging onto the straps overhead as I go, when I say to myself, "Hey! It would be interesting to get excited sexually so I think I'll go back into the other car." I discovered that I could turn around, and walk back through the train I could control the direction of my dream. I get back to the car with the special window, and I see three old guys playing violins but they turned back into girls! So I could modify the direction of my dream, but not perfectly. Well, I began to get excited, intellectually as well as sexually, saying things like, "Wow! It's working!" and I woke up. I made some other observations while dreaming. Apart from always asking myself, "Am I really dreaming in color?" I wondered, "How accurately do you see something?" The next time I had a dream, there was a girl lying in tall grass, and she had red
- Page 1 and 2: "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
- Page 3 and 4: Preface The stories in this book we
- Page 5 and 6: He Fixes Radios by Thinking! Part 1
- Page 7 and 8: could act like a microphone, and yo
- Page 9 and 10: whole afternoon to find a burnedo
- Page 11 and 12: For logarithms it was a big L exten
- Page 13 and 14: very sharp knife into the table at
- Page 15 and 16: and be more relaxed, and vice versa
- Page 17 and 18: One time I danced with a certain gi
- Page 19 and 20: same waitress all the time. I notic
- Page 21 and 22: "Cut it out, Feynman; this is seri
- Page 23: could find. Before I tell you what
- Page 27 and 28: I decided there must be an "interpr
- Page 29 and 30: company. His father was the one who
- Page 31 and 32: we could do. Our process was pretty
- Page 33 and 34: out of me, because I didn't like fo
- Page 35 and 36: In the Princeton cyclotron lab they
- Page 37 and 38: When it was time to get up and go o
- Page 39 and 40: and animal, are made of little bric
- Page 41 and 42: some other experiment. I said, "Hel
- Page 43 and 44: We figured if we could get rid of t
- Page 45 and 46: do?" I said I didn't know, and he s
- Page 47 and 48: always something I could find in th
- Page 49 and 50: 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
observations were made while I was watching myself fall asleep, and I don't really know<br />
what it's like to fall asleep when I'm not watching myself. I concluded the theme with a<br />
little verse I made up, which pointed out this problem of introspection:<br />
I wonder why. I wonder why.<br />
I wonder why I wonder.<br />
I wonder why I wonder why<br />
I wonder why I wonder!<br />
We hand in our themes, and the next time our class meets, the professor reads one<br />
of them: "Mum bum wugga mum bum. . ." I can't tell what the guy wrote.<br />
He reads another theme: "Mugga wugga mum bum wugga wugga. . ." I don't<br />
know what that guy wrote either, but at the end of it, he goes:<br />
Uh wugga wuh. Uh wugga wuh.<br />
Uh wugga wugga wugga.<br />
I wugga wuh uh wugga wuh<br />
Uh wugga wugga wugga.<br />
"Aha!" I say. "That's my theme!" I honestly didn't recognize it until the end.<br />
After I had written the theme I continued to be curious, and I kept practicing this<br />
watching myself as I went to sleep. One night, while I was having a dream, I realized I<br />
was observing myself in the dream. I had gotten all the way down, into the sleep itself!<br />
In the first part of the dream I'm on top of a train and we're approaching a tunnel. I<br />
get scared, pull myself down, and we go into the tunnel whoosh! I say to myself, "So<br />
you can get the feeling of fear, and you can hear the sound change when you go into the<br />
tunnel."<br />
I also noticed that I could see colors. Some people had said that you dream in<br />
black and white, but no, I was dreaming in color.<br />
By this time I was inside one of the train cars, and I can feel the train lurching<br />
about. I say to myself, "So you can get kinesthetic feelings in a dream." I walk with some<br />
difficulty down to the end of the car, and I see a big window, like a store window. Behind<br />
it there are not mannequins, but three live girls in bathing suits, and they look pretty<br />
good!<br />
I continue walking into the next car, hanging onto the straps overhead as I go,<br />
when I say to myself, "Hey! It would be interesting to get excited sexually so I think<br />
I'll go back into the other car." I discovered that I could turn around, and walk back<br />
through the train I could control the direction of my dream. I get back to the car with<br />
the special window, and I see three old guys playing violins but they turned back into<br />
girls! So I could modify the direction of my dream, but not perfectly.<br />
Well, I began to get excited, intellectually as well as sexually, saying things like,<br />
"Wow! It's working!" and I woke up.<br />
I made some other observations while dreaming. Apart from always asking<br />
myself, "Am I really dreaming in color?" I wondered, "How accurately do you see<br />
something?"<br />
The next time I had a dream, there was a girl lying in tall grass, and she had red
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