The Dignified Professor

 

by Richard F. Feynman with Ralph Leighton

 

Copyright © 1985 by Richard Feynman and Ralph Leighton.  Excerpted from ÒSurely YouÕre Joking, Mr. FeynmanÓ Adventures of a Curious Character, by Richard P. Feynman with Ralph Leighton.  Reprinted with permission of the publisher, W. W. Norton & Company, Inc.

 

 

I donÕt believe I can really do without teaching.  The reason is, I have to have something so that when I donÕt have any ideas and IÕm not getting anywhere I can say to myself, ÒAt least IÕm living; at least IÕm doing something; IÕm making some contributionÓÑitÕs just psychological.

 

When I was at Princeton in the 1940s I could see what happened to those great minds at the Institute for Advanced Study, who had been specially selected for their tremendous brains and were now given this opportunity to sit in this lovely house by the woods there, with no classes to teach, with no obligations whatsoever.  These poor bastards could now sit and think clearly all by themselves, OK?  So they donÕt get an idea for a while: They have every opportunity to do something, and theyÕre 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.  And nothing happens.  Still no ideas come.

 

Nothing happens because thereÕs not enough real activity and challenge: YouÕre not in contact with the experimental guys.  You donÕt have to think how to answer questions from the students.  Nothing!

 

In any thinking process there are moments when everything is going good and youÕve got wonderful ideas.  Teaching is an interruption, and so itÕs the greatest pain in the neck in the world.  And then there are the longer periods of time when not much is coming to you.  YouÕre not getting any ideas, and if youÕre doing nothing at all, it drives you nuts!  You canÕt even say ÒIÕm teaching my class.Ó

 

If youÕre teaching a class, you can think about the elementary things that you know very well.  These things are kind of fun and delightful.  It doesnÕt do any harm to think them over again.  Is there a better way to present them?  Are there any new problems associated with them?  Are there any new thoughts you can make about them?  The elementary things are easy to think about; if you canÕt think of a new thought, no harm done; what you thought about it before is good enough for the class.  If you do think of something new, youÕre rather pleased that you have a new way of looking at it.

 

The questions of the students are often the source of new research.  They often ask profound questions that IÕve thought about at times and then given up on, so to speak, for a while.  It wouldnÕt do me any harm to think about them again and see if I can go any further now.  The students may not be able to see the thing I want to answer, or the subtleties I want to think about, but they remind me of a problem by asking questions in the neighborhood of that problem.  ItÕs not so easy to remind yourself of these things.

 

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 solution for me where I donÕt have to teach.  Never.

 

But once I was offered such a position.

 

During the war, when I was still at Los Alamos, Hans Bethe got me this job at Cornell, for $3700 a year.  I got an offer from some other place for more, but I like Bethe, and I had decided to go to Cornell and wasnÕt worried about the money.  But Bethe was always watching out for me, and when he found out that others were offering more, he got Cornell to give me a raise to $4000 even before I started.

 

Cornell told me that I would be teaching a course in mathematical methods of physics, and they told me what day I should come November 6, I think, but it sounds funny that it could be so late in the year.  I took the train from Los Alamos to Ithaca, and spent most of my time writing final reports for the Manhattan Project.  I still remember that it was on the night train from Buffalo to Ithaca that I began to work on my course.

 

You have to understand the pressures at Los Alamos.  You did everything as fast as you could; everybody worked very, very hard; and everything was finished at the last minute.  So, working out my course on the train a day or two before the first lecture seemed natural to me.

 

Mathematical methods of physics was an ideal course for me to teach.  It was what I had done during the warÑapply mathematics to physics.  I knew which methods were really useful, and which were not.  I had lots of experience by that time, working so hard for four years using mathematical tricks.  So I laid out the different subjects in mathematics and how to deal with them, and I still have the papersÑthe notes I made on the train.

 

I got off the train in Ithaca, carrying my heavy suitcase on my shoulder, as usual.  A guy called out, ÒWant a taxi, sir?Ó

 

I had never wanted to take a taxi: I was always a young fella, short on money, wanting to be my own man.  But I thought to myself, ÒIÕm a professorÑI must be dignified.Ó  So I took my suitcase down from my shoulder and carried it in my hand, and said ÒYes.Ó

 

ÒWhere to?Ó

 

ÒThe hotel.Ó

 

ÒWhich hotel?Ó

 

ÒOne of the hotels youÕve got in Ithaca.Ó

 

ÒHave you got a reservation?Ó

 

ÒNo.Ó

 

ÒItÕs not so easy to get a room.Ó

 

ÒWeÕll just go from one hotel to another.  Stay and wait for me.Ó

 

I try the Hotel Ithaca: no room.  We go over to the TravellerÕs Hotel; they donÕt have any room either.  I say to the taxi guy, ÒNo use driving around town with me; itÕs gonna cost a lot of money. IÕll walk from hotel to hotel.Ó  I leave my suitcase in the TravellerÕs Hotel and I start to wander around, looking for a room.  That shows you how much preparation I had, a new professor.

 

I found some other guy wandering around looking for a room too.  It turned out that the hotel room situation was utterly impossible.  After a while we wandered up some sort of a hill, and gradually realized we were coming near the campus of the university.

 

We saw something that looked like a rooming house, with an open window, and you could see bunk beds in there.  By this time it was night, so we decided to ask if we could sleep there.  The door was open, but there was nobody in the whole place.  We walked up into one of the rooms, and the other guy said, ÒCome on, letÕs just sleep here!Ó

 

I didnÕt think that was so good.  It seemed like stealing to me.  Somebody had made the beds; they might come home and find us sleeping in their beds, and weÕd get in trouble.

 

So we go out.  We walk a little further, and we see, under a streetlight, an enormous mass of leaves that had been collectedÑit was autumnÑfrom the lawns.  I say, ÒHey! We could crawl in these leaves and sleep here!Ó  I tried it; they were rather soft.  I was tired of walking around, and if the pile of leaves hadnÕt been right under a streetlight, it would have been perfectly all right.  But I didnÕt want to get into trouble right away.  Back at Los Alamos people had teased me (when I played drums and so on) about what kind of ÒprofessorÓ Cornell was going to get.  They said IÕd get a reputation right off by doing something silly, so I was trying to be a little dignified.  I reluctantly gave up the idea of sleeping in the pile of leaves.

 

We wandered around a little more, and came to a big building, some important building of the campus.  We went in, and there were two couches in the hallway.  The other guy said, ÒIÕm sleeping here!Ó and collapsed onto the couch.

 

I didnÕt want to get into trouble, so I found a janitor down in the basement and asked him whether I could sleep on the couch, and he said ÒSure.Ó

 

The next morning I woke up, found a place to eat breakfast, and started rushing around as fast as I could to find out when my first class was going to be.  I ran into the physics department: ÒWhat time is my first class?  Did I miss it?Ó

 

The guy said, ÒYou have nothing to worry about.  Classes donÕt start for eight days.Ó

 

That was a shock to me!  The first thing I said was, ÒWell, why did you tell me to be here a week ahead?Ó

 

ÒI thought youÕd like to come and get acquainted, find a place to stay and settle down before you begin your classes.Ó

 

I was back to civilization, and I didnÕt know what it was!

 

Professor Gibbs sent me to the Student Union to find a place to stay.  ItÕs a big place, with lots of students milling around.  I go up to a big desk that says HOUSING and I say, ÒIÕm new, and IÕm looking for a room.Ó

 

The guy says, ÒBuddy, the housing situation in Ithaca is tough. In fact, itÕs so tough that, believe it or not, a professor had to sleep on a couch in this lobby last night!Ó

 

I look around, and itÕs the same lobby!  I turn to him and I say, ÒWell, IÕm that professor, and the professor doesnÕt want to do it again!Ó

 

My early days at Cornell as a new professor were interesting and sometimes amusing.  A few days after I got there, Professor Gibbs came into my office and explained to me that ordinarily we donÕt accept students this late in the term, but in a few cases, when the applicant is very, very good, we can accept him.  He handed me an application and asked me to look it over.

 

He comes back: ÒWell, what do you think?Ó

 

ÒI think heÕs first rate, and I think we ought to accept him.  I think weÕre lucky to get him here.Ó

 

ÒYes, but did you look at his picture?Ó

 

ÒWhat possible difference could that make?Ó I exclaimed.

 

ÒAbsolutely none, sir!  Glad to hear you say that.  I wanted to see what kind of a man we had for our new professor.Ó  Gibbs liked the way I came right back at him without thinking to myself, ÒHeÕs the head of the department, and IÕm new here, so IÕd better be careful what I say.Ó  I havenÕt got the speed to think like that; my first reaction is immediate, and I say the first thing that comes into my mind.

 

Then another guy came into my office.  He wanted to talk to me about philosophy, and I canÕt really quite remember what he said, but he wanted me to join some kind of a club of professors.  The club was some sort of anti‑Semitic club that thought the Nazis werenÕt so bad.  He tried to explain to me how there were too many Jews doing this and thatÑsome crazy thing.  So I waited until he got all finished, and said to him, ÒYou know, you made a big mistake: I was brought up in a Jewish family.Ó  He went out, and that was the beginning of my loss of respect for some of the professors in the humanities, and other areas, at Cornell University.

 

I was starting over, after my wifeÕs death, and I wanted to meet some girls.  In those days there was a lot of social dancing.  So there were a lot of dances at Cornell, mixers to get people together, especially for the freshmen and others returning to school.

 

I remember the first dance that I went to.  I hadnÕt been dancing for three or four years while I was at Los Alamos; I hadnÕt even been in society.  So I went to this dance and danced as best I could, which I thought was reasonably all right.  You can usually tell when somebodyÕs dancing with you and they feel pretty good about it.

 

As we danced I would talk with the girl a little bit; she would ask me some questions about myself, and I would ask some about her.  But when I wanted to dance with a girl I had danced with before, I had to look for her.

 

ÒWould you like to dance again?Ó

 

ÒNo, IÕm sorry; I need some air.Ó  Or, ÒWell, I have to go to the ladiesÕ roomÓ this and that excuse, from two or three girls in a row!  What was the matter with me?  Was my dancing lousy?  Was my personality lousy?

 

I danced with another girl, and again came the usual questions: ÒAre you a student, or a graduate student?Ó (There were a lot of students who looked old then because they had been in the army.)

 

ÒNo, IÕm a professor.Ó

 

ÒOh? A professor of what?Ó

 

ÒTheoretical physics.Ó

 

ÒI suppose you worked on the atomic bomb.Ó

 

ÒYes, I was at Los Alamos during the war.Ó

 

She said, ÒYouÕre a damn liar!ÓÑand walked off.

 

That relieved me a great deal.  It explained everything.  I had been telling all the girls the simple‑minded, stupid truth, and I never knew what the trouble was.  It was perfectly obvious that I was being shunned by one girl after another when I did everything perfectly nice and natural and was polite, and answered the questions.  Everything would look very pleasant, and then thwoopÑit wouldnÕt work.  I didnÕt understand it until this woman fortunately called me a damn liar.

 

So then I tried to avoid all the questions, and it had the opposite effect: ÒAre you a freshman?Ó

 

ÒWell, no.Ó

 

ÒAre you a graduate student?Ó

 

ÒNo.Ó

 

ÒWhat are you?Ó

 

ÒI donÕt want to say.Ó

 

ÒWhy wonÕt you tell us what you are?Ó  ÒI donÕt want to. . .ÓÑand theyÕd keep talking to me!

 

I ended up with two girls over at my house and one of them told me that I really shouldnÕt feel uncomfortable about being a freshman; there were plenty of guys my age who were starting out in college, and it was really all right.  They were sophomores, and were being quite motherly, the two of them.  They worked very hard on my psychology, but I didnÕt want the situation to get so distorted and misunderstood, so I let them know I was a professor.  They were very upset that I had fooled them.  I had a lot of trouble being a young professor at Cornell.

 

Anyway, I began to teach the course in mathematical methods in physics, and I think I also taught another courseÑelectricity and magnetism, perhaps.  I also intended to do research.  Before the war, while I was getting my degree, I had many ideas: I had invented new methods of doing quantum mechanics with path integrals, and I had a lot of stuff I wanted to do.

 

At Cornell, IÕd work on preparing my courses, and IÕd go over to the library a lot and read through the Arabian Nights and ogle the girls that would go by.  But when it came time to do some research, I couldnÕt get to work.  I was a little tired; I was not interested; I couldnÕt do research!  This went on for what I felt was a few years, but when I go back and calculate the timing, it couldnÕt have been that long.  Perhaps nowadays I wouldnÕt think it was such a long time, but then, it seemed to go on for a very long time.  I simply couldnÕt get started on any problem: I remember writing one or two sentences about some problem in gamma rays and then I couldnÕt go any further.  I was convinced that from the war and everything (the death of my wife) I had simply burned myself out.

 

I now understand it much better.  First of all, a young man doesnÕt realize how much time it takes to prepare good lectures, for the first time especiallyÑand to give the lectures, and to make up exam problems, and to check that theyÕre sensible ones.  I was giving good courses, the kind of courses where I put a lot of thought into each lecture.  But I didnÕt realize that thatÕs a lot of work!  So here I was, Òburned out,Ó reading the Arabian Nights and feeling depressed about myself.

 

During this period I would get offers from different placesÑuniversities and industryÑwith salaries higher than my own.  And each time I got something like that I would get a little more depressed.  I would say to myself, ÒLook, theyÕre giving me these wonderful offers, but they donÕt realize that IÕm burned out!  Of course I canÕt accept them.  They expect me to accomplish something, and I canÕt accomplish anything!  I have no ideas. . .Ó

 

Finally there came in the mail an invitation from the Institute for Advanced Study: Einstein... Von Neumann...Weyl... all these great minds!  They write to me, and invite me to be a professor there!  And not just a regular professor.  Somehow they knew my feelings about the Institute: how itÕs too theoretical; how thereÕs not enough real activity and challenge.  So they write, ÒWe appreciate that you have a considerable interest in experiments and in teaching, so we have made arrangements to create a special type of professorship, if you wish: half professor at Princeton University, and half at the Institute.Ó

 

Institute for Advanced Study!  Special exception!  A position better than Einstein, even!  It was ideal; it was perfect; it was absurd!

 

It was absurd.  The other offers had made me feel worse, up to a point.  They were expecting me to accomplish something.  But this offer was so ridiculous, so impossible for me ever to live up to, so ridiculously out of proportion.  The other ones were just mistakes; this was an absurdity!  I laughed at it while I was shaving, thinking about it.

 

And then I thought to myself, ÒYou know, what they think of you is so fantastic, itÕs impossible to live up to it.  You have no responsibility to live up to it!Ó

 

It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish.  I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be.

 

ItÕs their mistake, not my failing.

 

It wasnÕt a failure on my part that the Institute for Advanced Study expected me to be that good; it was impossible.  It was clearly a mistakeÑand the moment I appreciated the possibility that they might be wrong, I realized that it was also true of all the other places, including my own university.  I am what I am, and if they expected me to be good and theyÕre offering me some money for it, itÕs their hard luck.

 

Then, within the day, by some strange miracleÑperhaps he overheard me talking about it, or maybe he just understood me, Bob Wilson, who was head of the laboratory there at Cornell, called me in to see him.  He said, in a serious tone, ÒFeynman, youÕre teaching your classes well; youÕre doing a good job, and weÕre very satisfied.  Any other expectations we might have are a matter of luck.  When we hire a professor, weÕre taking all the risks.  If it comes out good, all right.  If it doesnÕt, too bad.  But you shouldnÕt worry about what youÕre doing or not doing.Ó  He said it much better than that, and it released me from the feeling of guilt.

 

Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics.  Why did I enjoy it?  I used to play with it.  I used to do whatever I felt like doingÑit didnÕt have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with.  When I was in high school, IÕd see water running out of a faucet growing narrower, and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve.  I found it was rather easy to do.  I didnÕt have to do it; it wasnÕt important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it.  That didnÕt make any difference: IÕd invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.

 

So I got this new attitude.  Now that I am burned out and IÕll never accomplish anything, IÕve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, IÕm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.

 

Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air.  As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around.  It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.

 

I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate.  I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rateÑtwo to one.  It came out of a complicated equation!  Then I thought, ÒIs there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why itÕs two to one?Ó

 

I donÕt remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.

 

I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, ÒHey, Hans! I noticed something interesting.  Here the plate goes around so, and the reason itÕs two to one is. . .Ó and I showed him the accelerations.

 

He says, ÒFeynman, thatÕs pretty interesting, but whatÕs the importance of it? Why are you doing it?Ó

 

ÒHah!Ó I say.  ÒThereÕs no importance whatsoever.  IÕm just doing it for the fun of it.Ó  His reaction didnÕt discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.

 

I went on to work out equations of wobbles.  Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity.  Then thereÕs the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics.  And then quantum electrodynamics.  And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ÒplayingÓÑworking, really with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis‑type problems; all those old‑fashioned, wonderful things.

 

It was effortless.  It was easy to play with these things.  It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly.  I almost tried to resist it!  There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was.  The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.

 

 

ÒSURELY YOUÕRE JOKING, MR. FEYNMANÓ will be available at bookstores in January, or it can be ordered directly from the publisher now. Books will be shipped in December.