Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! Adventures of a Curious Character

by Richard P. Feynman

There were certain things I didn’t like, such as tipping. I thought we should be paid more, and not have to have any tips. But when I proposed that to the boss, I got nothing but laughter. She told everybody, “Richard doesn’t want his tips, hee, hee, hee; he doesn’t want his tips, ha, ha, ha.” The world is full of this kind of dumb smart-alec who doesn’t understand anything.

“But isn’t there some way to use my talent more directly?” “No; this is the way the army is organized. Go through the regular way.”

I received that one with a note saying, “We do not have time to play games. Please instruct your wife to confine herself to ordinary letters.” Well, we

The trouble with playing a trick on a highly intelligent man like Mr. Teller is that the time it takes him to figure out from the moment that he sees there is something wrong till he understands exactly what happened is too damn small to give you any pleasure!

I was walking past a department store with dresses in the window, and I thought Arlene would like one of them. That was too much for me.)

You should insist that everybody keep their filing cabinet drawers locked while they’re working, because when they’re open, they’re very, very vulnerable.”

The next time I went to Oak Ridge, all the secretaries and people who knew who I was were telling me, “Don’t come through here! Don’t come through here!”

During his last visit, was Mr. Feynman at any time in your office, near your office, or walking through your office?” Some people answered yes; others said no. The ones who said yes got another note: “Please change the combination of your safe.”

“Gee! You were in there twenty-five minutes! The other guys were in there only five minutes!”

“Now, Lucille, you shouldn’t have said anything in front of him. Now what should we do?”

The questions of the students are often the source of new research.

So I find that teaching and the students keep life going, and I would never accept any position in which somebody has invented a happy situation for me where I don’t have to teach.

It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish.

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.

Was he trying to be polite, or what? I couldn’t understand what he was saying because his pronunciation was so bad, but maybe everybody else had the same accent so they could understand

the head of the science education department got up and said, “Mr. Feynman has told us some things that are very hard for us to hear, but it appears to be that he really loves science, and is sincere in his criticism. Therefore, I think we should listen to him. I came here knowing we have some sickness in our system of education; what I have learned is that we have a cancer!”

I knew the system was bad, but 100 percent—it was terrible!

“That shows you how dangerous it is to send somebody to Brazil who is so naive. Foolish fellow; he can only cause trouble. He didn’t understand the problems.”

The fish has to be very, very fresh—if it isn’t, it gets a certain taste that bothers me.)

I know from instinct and experience the properties of the thing.

“Would you like to glance at my lousy garden?” is essentially what you’re saying in the first case, but when you want to look at the other fella’s garden, you have to say something like, “May I observe your gorgeous garden?” So there’s two different words you have to use.

‘May I hang my eyes on your most exquisite gardens?’”

“Why?” I protested. “When I solve it, I do the same damn thing as when you solve it!”

Lee, of Lee and Yang,

We know the equation, and we know the phenomenon, but how does it work?

It gives somebody, individually, pleasure. You can make something that somebody likes so much that they’re depressed, or they’re happy, on account of that damn thing you made!

I’m a stenotypist, and I type everything that is said here. Now, when the other fellas talk, I type what they say, but I don’t understand what they’re saying. But every time you get up to ask a question or to say something, I understand exactly what you mean—what the question is, and what you’re saying—so I thought you can’t be a professor!”

the right way out is to strive for peace by making sure there are no great differences from place to place,

But this theory doesn’t take into account the real reason for the differences between countries—that is, the development of new techniques for growing food, the development of machinery to grow food and to do other things, and the fact that all this machinery requires the concentration of capital.

This question of trying to figure out whether a book is good or bad by looking at it carefully or by taking the reports of a lot of people who looked at it carelessly

start with the cost of the books, and buy what you can afford.

“I have nothing to prove it, but you know I live in Los Angeles and I go to these other towns; how the hell do you think I get there?”

It’s one of those games I play. They want a receipt? I’m not giving them a receipt. Then you’re not going to get the money. OK, then I’m not taking the money. They don’t trust me? The hell with it; they don’t have to pay me. Of course it’s absurd! I know that’s the way the government works; well, screw the government!

I feel that human beings should treat human beings like human beings.

prepared something rather technical, expecting to give it to the usual physics department group. But when I got there, this tremendous lecture hall is full of people! And I know there’s not that many people in Berkeley who know the level at which I prepared my talk. My problem is, I like to please the people who come to hear me, and I can’t do it if everybody and his brother wants to hear: I don’t know my audience then.

“I thought you’d like to know that you’ve won the Nobel Prize.”

“Yeah, but I’m sleeping! It would have been better if you had called me in the morning.”—and I hung up.

So I made up my list. It had about eight people—my neighbor from across the street, my artist friend Zorthian, and so on.

But then I said I received, all at once, a big pile of letters—I said it much better in the speech—reminding me of all these people that I knew:

The people of Japan believed they had only one way of moving up: to have their children educated more than they were; that it was very important for them to move out of their peasantry to become educated.

husbands always like to prove their wives wrong—and he found out, as husbands often do, that his wife was quite right.

the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization, or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you have that freedom.