Страница 8 из 85
I immediately figured out what the idea was. In that room a guy named Pete Bernays and a couple of other guys liked to work very hard, and always wanted it quiet. If you wandered into their room looking for something, or to ask them how they did problem such and such, when you would leave you would always hear these guys scream, “Please close the door!”
Somebody had gotten tired of this, no doubt, and had taken the door off. Now this room, it so happened, had two doors, the way it was built, so I got an idea: I took the other door off its hinges, carried it downstairs, and hid it in the basement behind the oil tank. Then I quietly went back upstairs and went to bed.
Later in the morning I made believe I woke up and came downstairs a little late. The other guys were milling around, and Pete and his friends were all upset: The doors to their room were missing, and they had to study, blah, blah, blah, blah. I was coming down the stairs and they said, “Feynman! Did you take the doors?”
“Oh, yeah!” I said. “I took the door. You can see the scratches on my knuckles here, that I got when my hands scraped against the wall as I was carrying it down into the basement.”
They weren’t satisfied with my answer; in fact, they didn’t believe me.
The guys who took the first door had left so many clues—the handwriting on the signs, for instance—that they were soon found out. My idea was that when it was found out who stole the first door, everybody would think they also stole the other door. It worked perfectly: The guys who took the first door were pummeled and tortured and worked on by everybody, until finally, with much pain and difficulty, they convinced their tormentors that they had only taken one door, unbelievable as it might be.
I listened to all this, and I was happy.
The other door stayed missing for a whole week, and it became more and more important to the guys who were trying to study in that room that the other door be found.
Finally, in order to solve the problem, the president of the fraternity says at the di
Somebody makes a suggestion, then someone else.
After a little while, I get up and make a suggestion. “All right,” I say in a sarcastic voice, “whoever you are who stole the door, we know you’re wonderful. You’re so clever! We can’t figure out who you are, so you must be some sort of super-genius. You don’t have to tell us who you are; all we want to know is where the door is. So if you will leave a note somewhere, telling us where the door is, we will honor you and admit forever that you are a super-marvel, that you are so smart that you could take the other door without our being able to figure out who you are. But for God’s sake, just leave the note somewhere, and we will be forever grateful to you for it.”
The next guy makes his suggestion: “I have another idea,” he says. “I think that you, as president, should ask each man on his word of honor towards the fraternity to say whether he took the door or not.”
The president says, “That’s a very good idea. On the fraternity word of honor!” So he goes around the table, and asks each guy, one by one: “Jack, did you take the door?”
“No, sir, I did not take the door.”
“Tim: Did you take the door?”
“No, sir! I did not take the door!”
“Maurice. Did you take the door?”
“No, I did not take the door, sir.”
“Feynman, did you take the door?”
“Yeah, I took the door.”
“Cut it out, Feynman; this is serious! Sam! Did you take the door …”—it went all the way around. Everyone was shocked. There must be some real rat in the fraternity who didn’t respect the fraternity word of honor!
That night I left a note with a little picture of the oil tank and the door next to it, and the next day they found the door and put it back.
Sometime later I finally admitted to taking the other door, and I was accused by everybody of lying. They couldn’t remember what I had said. All they could remember was their conclusion after the president of the fraternity had gone around the table and asked everybody, that nobody admitted taking the door. The idea they remembered, but not the words.
People often think I’m a faker, but I’m usually honest, in a certain way—in such a way that often nobody believes me!
Latin or Italian?
There was an Italian radio station in Brooklyn, and as a boy I used to listen to it all the time. I LOVed the ROLLing SOUNds going over me, as if I was in the ocean, and the waves weren’t very high. I used to sit there and have the water come over me, in this BEAUtiful iTALian. In the Italian programs there was always some kind of family situation where there were discussions and arguments between the mother and father: High voice: “Nio teco TIEto capeto TUtto …”
Loud, low voice: “DRO tone pala TUtto!!” (with hand slapping).
It was great! So I learned to make all these emotions: I could cry; I could laugh; all this stuff. Italian is a lovely language.
There were a number of Italian people living near us in New York. Once while I was riding my bicycle, some Italian truck driver got upset at me, leaned out of his truck, and, gesturing, yelled something like, “Me aRRUcha LAMpe etta Tiche!”
I felt like a crapper. What did he say to me? What should I yell back?
So I asked an Italian friend of mine at school, and he said, “Just say, ‘A te! A te!’—which means ‘The same to you! The same to you!”
I thought it was a great idea. I would say “A te! A te!” back—gesturing, of course. Then, as I gained confidence, I developed my abilities further. I would be riding my bicycle, and some lady would be driving in her car and get in the way, and I’d say, “PUzzia a la maLOche!”—and she’d shrink! Some terrible Italian boy had cursed a terrible curse at her!
It was not so easy to recognize it as fake Italian. Once, when I was at Princeton, as I was going into the parking lot at Palmer Laboratory on my bicycle, somebody got in the way.
My habit was always the same: I gesture to the guy, “oREzze caB ONca MIche!”, slapping the back of one hand against the other.
And way up on the other side of a long area of grass, there’s an Italian gardner putting in some plants. He stops, waves, and shouts happily, “REzza ma LIa!”
I call back, “RONte BALta!”, returning the greeting. He didn’t know I didn’t know, and I didn’t know what he said, and he didn’t know what I said. But it was OK! It was great! It works! After all, when they hear the intonation, they recognize it immediately as Italian—maybe it’s Milano instead of Romano, what the hell. But he’s an iTALian! So it’s just great. But you have to have absolute confidence. Keep right on going, and nothing will happen.
One time I came home from college for a vacation, and my sister was sort of unhappy, almost crying: her Girl Scouts were having a father-daughter banquet, but our father was out on the road, selling uniforms. So I said I would take her, being the brother (I’m nine years older, so it wasn’t so crazy).
When we got there, I sat among the fathers for a while, but soon became sick of them. All these fathers bring their daughters to this nice little banquet, and all they talked about was the stock market—they don’t know how to talk to their own children, much less their children’s friends.
During the banquet the girls entertained us by doing little skits, reciting poetry, and so on. Then all of a sudden they bring out this fu