Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman

by James Gleick

For Feynman the most surprising—and oppressive—offer came from the Institute for Advanced Study, Einstein’s institute in Princeton, in the spring. Oppenheimer had now been named as the institute’s director, and he wanted Feynman. H. D. Smyth, Feynman’s old chairman at Princeton, wanted him, too, and the two institutions had sounded him out about a special joint appointment. His anxiety about failing to live up to such expectations was reaching a peak. He experimented with various tactics to break his mental block. For a while he got up every morning at 8:30 and tried to work. Looking in the mirror one morning as he shaved, he told himself the Princeton offer was absurd—he could not possibly accept, and furthermore he could not accept the responsibility for their impression of him. He had never claimed to be an Einstein, he told himself. It was their mistake. For a moment he felt lighter. Some of his guilt seemed to lift away.