Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman: Adventures of a Curious Character

by Richard P. Feynman

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.’

needed was someone to talk to, to push his ideas against. Well, he comes in to this little squirt in an office and starts to argue, explaining his idea. I say, ‘No, no, you’re crazy. It’ll go like this.’ And he says, ‘Just a moment,’ and explains how he’s not crazy, I’m crazy. And we keep on going like this.

If you take 1 divided by 243 you get .004115226337 … It’s quite cute:

Von Neumann gave me an interesting idea: that you don’t have to be responsible for the world that you’re in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of Von Neumann’s advice. It’s made me a very happy man ever since.

‘How much do you value life?’ ‘Sixty-four.’ ‘Why did you say “sixty-four”?’ ‘How are you supposed to measure the value of life?’ ‘No! I mean, why did you say “sixty-four,” and not “seventy-three,” for instance?’ ‘If I had said “seventy-three,” you would have asked me the same question!’

They have every opportunity to do something, and they’re not getting any ideas. I believe that in a situation like this a kind of guilt or depression worms inside of you, and you begin to worry about not getting any ideas.

I had been afraid to read it, thinking it was too difficult.

in education, you increase differences. If someone’s good at something, you try to develop his ability, which results in differences, or inequalities. So if education increases inequality, is this ethical?

‘I’m going out to eat.’ ‘We can take you out to dinner.’ ‘No, I want to be alone.’ ‘Well, whatever you want, we can help you.’ I couldn’t resist. I said, ‘Well, I’m going out to get myself in trouble.’ ‘I think we can help you in that, too.’ ‘No, I think I’ll take care of that myself.’

what has been referred to as my curiosity for investigation has landed me in a difficulty where I found so much junk that I’m overwhelmed.

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you’ve not fooled yourself, it’s easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.