The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
Page 25
I don’t know the answer to this central problem–the problem of maintaining the real value of religion, as a source of strength and of courage to most men, while, at the same time, not requiring an absolute faith in the metaphysical aspects.
The Heritages of Western Civilization
Western civilization, it seems to me, stands by two great heritages. One is the scientific spirit of adventure–the adventure into the unknown, an unknown which must be recognized as being unknown in order to be explored; the demand that the unanswerable mysteries of the universe remain unanswered; the attitude that all is uncertain; to summarize it–the humility of the intellect. The other great heritage is Christian ethics–the basis of action on love, the brotherhood of all men, the value of the individual–the humility of the spirit.
These two heritages are logically, thoroughly consistent. But logic is not all; one needs one’s heart to follow an idea. If people are going back to religion, what are they going back to? Is the modern church a place to give comfort to a man who doubts God–more, one who disbelieves in God? Is the modern church a place to give comfort and encouragement to the value of such doubts? So far, have we not drawn strength and comfort to maintain the one or the other of these consistent heritages in a way which attacks the values of the other? Is this unavoidable? How can we draw inspiration to support these two pillars of Western civilization so that they may stand together in full vigor, mutually unafraid? Is this not the central problem of our time?
I put it up to the panel for discussion.
PERMISSION ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
“The Pleasure of Finding Things Out” is the edited transcript of an interview with Richard P. Feynman that was broadcast as a BBC2 television program called “Horizon: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out.” It is reprinted with permission of the producer Christopher Syckes, Carl Feynman, and Michelle Feynman.
“Computing Machines in the Future” was originally published in 1985 as a Nishina Memorial Lecture. It is reprinted here with kind permission of Professor K. Nishijima on behalf of the Nishina Memorial Foundation.
“Los Alamos from Below” was originally published by the California Institute of Technology in Engineering and Sciencemagazine. It is reprinted with permission.
“What Is and What Should Be the Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society” is reprinted with permission of the Societa Italiana di Fisica.
“There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom” was originally published by the California Institute of Technology in Engineering and Science magazine. It is reprinted with permission.
“The Value of Science” is from What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman as told to Ralph Leighton. Copyright ©1988 by Gweneth Feynman and Ralph Leighton. Reprinted with permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
“What Is Science?” is reprinted with permission from The Physics Teacher, volume 9, pp. 313–320. Copyright © 1969 American Association of Physics Teachers.
“The Smartest Man in the World” is reprinted by permission of OMNI, © 1992 Omni Publications International, Ltd.
“Cargo Cult Science: The 1974 Caltech Commencement Address” was originally published by the California Institute of Technology in Engineering and Science magazine. It is reprinted with permission.
“It’s As Simple as One, Two, Three” is from What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard P. Feynman as told to Ralph Leighton. Copyright © 1988 by Gweneth Feynman and Ralph Leighton. Reprinted by permission of W.W. Norton & Company, Inc.
“The Relation of Science and Religion” was originally published by the California Institute of Technology in Engineering and Science magazine. It is reprinted with permission.
INDEX
Accelerators. See Atom smashers
Adding machines. See IBM tabulators; Marchant calculating machines
Advertising, 108–109, 210, 212–213
Alamogordo test. See under Los Alamos
Algebra, 5–6, 228. See also Mathematics
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 225
Annalen der Physik (Einstein), 38(n)
Arithmetic, 6, 60, 106, 242. See also Mathematics
Artificial intelligence, 28
Astrology, 106–107, 108, 109–110, 206
Astronomy, 212, 240
Atomic bomb, 9, 10, 16, 56, 72, 75, 79, 87, 91, 94, 230–231. See also Los Alamos; Manhattan Project
Atoms, 8, 16–17, 50, 101, 123, 129, 144, 145, 190, 192, 196, 202, 229, 236–237, 250
controlled individually, 45, 51, 135–136, 137–138
grouped as transistors, 42–44
nuclei of, 236–237. See also Neutrons; Nuclear forces; Protons
and particles in gas, 41
See also Electrons
Atom smashers (accelerators), 214, 236, 239
Authority, 104, 146, 149
Automobiles, 129
Awards, 233
Bacher, Bob, 86, 233
Bacon, Francis, 173
Beauty, 2, 17, 59, 185, 186
Bennett, C. H., 39, 40, 43
Bessel functions, 223
Beta decay, 192
Bethe, Hans, 11, 60–61, 64, 86, 190, 197–198, 235
Bets, 69
Big Bang, 199, 200
Biology, 99, 100, 101, 105, 123–124, 124–125, 126, 241.
See also under Chemistry
Black holes, 229(n)
Bohr, Aage, 86, 87
Bohr, Niels, 86–88, 190, 203
Bongos, 191
Books of the world, 121–122
Bose-Einstein condensate, xvii
Brains, 145, 194, 218, 222. See also Computers, analogy with brains
Brass, 90
Brave New World (Huxley), 99
Bridgman, Percy, 118
British Museum Library, 121
Brownian motion, 38–39, 38(fig.), 42
Buddhism, 142
Cadmium, 74, 76
Calculus, 6–7, 195
California Institute of Technology (Caltech), 13, 191–192, 205–216, 226, 232–233
Caltech Cosmic Cube, 30
Cargo cults, 187, 242–243. See also Science, Cargo Cult Science
Cathode ray oscilloscope, 120
Catholic Church, 7, 98, 111, 112–113
Censorship. See under Los Alamos
Certainty. See Uncertainty
Challenger. See Space Shuttle Challenger
Chemistry
and biology, 137, 138
chemical analysis/synthesis, 125, 137–138
chemical reactions, 131, 218
Chess, 48
chess game analogy, 13–14, 14–15
Chicago, 56–57
Children, 21–22, 145–146, 172
Christ, divinity of, 251, 254
Christie, Bob, 62, 73, 83
Communication, 113, 147
Communism, 251–252
Compton, 55, 56
Computers, 27–52, 126–129, 194
analogy with brains, 46–48
central processors, 29, 30–31
on Challenger Orbiter, 164–168
chips in, 28–29, 44
clock time vs. circuit time in, 35
debugging, 28
energy consumption of, 29, 32–37, 38, 42, 43, 44, 50–51
gates, reversible/irreversible, 39–40, 41(fig.), 43, 50. See also Computers, reversible/irreversible
limitations on, 43
miniaturizing, 127–129. See also Computers, size of
parallel processing, 29–32, 35
playing with, 81–82
programming languages, 28
programs, making of, 48–49
reversible/irreversible, 49–50. See also Computers, gates, reversible/irreversible
size of, 29, 36, 37–44, 45, 50, 51, 127–129, 131
software, 166–167
universal, 49
vector processors, 30
<
br /> voltage use in, 32, 34, 35(fig.), 38, 39 See also Transistors
Connection Machine, 31
Consciousness, 144, 145, 206, 227
Conservation of charge and parity (CP), 101, 101(n), 102
Consistency, 104, 110, 111, 247, 249, 254, 256
Construction vs. destruction, 11, 91
Cornell University, 11, 91, 175, 197, 213
Laboratory of Nuclear Studies, 232
Cosmic rays, 39
Cosmology, 199, 212
Counting, 218–223
CP. See Conservation of charge and parity
Crime, 207, 243
Death, 100
Decision making, 75, 109
Definitions, 177–178, 179, 181, 196
DeHoffman, Freddy, 94, 96
Design, bottom-up vs. top-down, 158–159, 160–161
Deuterium, 214
Diagrams. See Feynman diagrams
Dinosaurs, 3
Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice, 196, 199, 203
Disease(s), 113, 147
of mistaken ideas, 185
Disinterest, 104, 108
DNA/RNA molecules, 124
Domain problem, 130
Doubt, xviii, 24, 104, 111, 112, 115, 146, 149, 185, 186, 187, 192, 200, 209, 246, 247–248, 249, 251, 256
Dreams, 217–218
Economics, 105, 113, 114, 115, 138
Education, 113, 147, 174, 184–185, 202, 207, 242, 243. See also Teaching
Einstein, Albert, 38(n), 229, 230. See also Relativity
Electric circuits, 136, 177
Electron microscope, 119, 124–126
lenses in, 120, 126
Electrons, 8, 16, 36, 37, 120–121, 190–191, 196, 237, 238charge on, 211
in electron microscope, 124
energy levels of, 235
and photons, 234
Encyclopaedia Britannica, 3
written on head of a pin, 118–121
Energy, 83, 99, 131, 178–179, 180, 190, 196, 235. See also Computers, energy consumption of
Esalen, 206–207
ESP. See Extrasensory perception
Essential Shakespeare, The (Wilson), xii, xiii
Evaporation method, 119, 128–129
Every Man in His Humour (Jonson), ix, xii
Evidence, 103–104, 105, 107, 112, 187
Evolution, 101, 103, 184, 194, 250
Experiments, 12, 17, 18, 19, 22, 56, 90, 106, 176–177, 187, 196, 209, 210, 211, 217, 220, 241–242, 255
in ESP, 216
of rats in mazes, 214–216
repeating, 213–214, 216, 242
Experts, 22, 187, 208
Extrasensory perception (ESP), 206, 207, 216
FAA. See Federal Aviation Administration
Faith healing, 106, 107, 110
Faraday, Michael, 194
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), 161, 162, 164
Female mind, 175–176
Fermi, Enrico, 85–86, 190, 190(n), 203
Feynman diagrams, xi, 191, 198
Feynman integrals, 191
Feynman Lectures on Physics, The 191
Feynman, Richard
awards for, 233. See also Feynman, Richard, and Nobel Prize
and Challenger O-rings, 152. See also Space Shuttle Challenger, O-ring seals
and his children, 21–22, 172, 195, 204
death of, 1
and father, 3, 4–5, 7–8, 65, 174, 180, 181–182, 183–184, 225–226
first formal lecture of, 229–230
and Freeman Dyson, x-xias irresponsible, 19–20, 86
and nanotechnology, 117, 138–139. See also Computers, size of; Machines as tiny
and Nobel Prize, xviii, 11, 11(n), 12, 189, 196, 225, 227, 233–234, 235, 237
Ph.D. degree of, 55
prizes offered by, 138–139
as student, 2, 5–6, 13, 109, 172, 175, 176–177, 196, 197, 218, 228
wives of, 58, 62, 65, 66, 67, 68, 233–234
Finnegans’s Wake (Joyce), 238
Fission, 16. See also Atomic bomb
Flywheels, 33
Food, 99–100
Fooling oneself, 211–212
France, National Library in, 121
Frankle, Stanley, 79, 80, 81
Fredkin, 40, 43, 48, 49
Fuchs, 84
“Fundamental Physical Limits of Computation, The” (Bennett and Landauer), 39
Galileo, 102, 103, 104–105, 111
recantation of, 112–113
Gases, 41
Gauge theories, 193
Geller, Uri, 207
Gell-Mann, Murray, 192, 192(n), 238
Generalizations, 241
Geometry, 175–176, 194
Glass, 130
Gluons, 17, 199
Go (game), 48
Gold, 90, 119
Golden rule, 251, 255
Green water, 72
Groves, 58
Growth and decay, 183
Hadrons, 16, 17, 18, 238, 240
Hamilton, Sir William Rowan, 200, 200(n)
Harvey, William, 173, 195
Hau, Lene, xvii
Heat loss, 130–131
Helium, 117(n), 191, 227
Heredity, 100
Hibbs, Albert R., 131
Hiroshima, 10, 53(n), 91
History, 105, 114, 115, 199, 211
Honors, 12–13. See also Nobel Prize
Horizon (BBC program), 1
Hot clocking, 34, 35(fig.)
Humanities, 2–3
Huxley, Aldous, 99
IBM tabulators, 79–80, 80–81, 82
Ignorance, 146, 147, 148–149, 248
of experts, 187
See also Uncertainty
Imagination, 143, 149
Imitating nature, 47
Inductance, 33, 34, 34(fig.), 177
Inertia, 5, 33, 34(fig.), 51, 179
Infinities. See under Problems
Information, 44, 45, 102, 104, 106, 109, 126, 128, 143, 210, 255
concerning Challenger safety risks, 153, 165
loss of, 40, 41
on small scale, 122–124, 138
Institute for Advanced Study, 11
Institute of Parapsychology, 216
Integrity. See under Science
International relations, 10
Ions, 120, 231
Japan, 27, 28, 30
Jet Propulsion Laboratory, 153
Jonson, Ben, ix-x, xii, xiii
Joyce, James, 238
Kamane, 70
Kamerlingh-Onnes, 117–118
Kaons, 16
“Kick of discovery,” xviii, 12
Laboratories, 58, 228
Lamb, Willis, 196
Lamdas, 16, 238
Landauer, R., 39
Laurence, William, 89
Laws (physical), 14, 15, 16, 23, 37, 42–43, 101, 122, 124, 199
of quantum mechanics, 43, 136
Leaders, 109
Library of Congress, 121
Light, xviii, 120, 121, 136, 183, 229
speed of light, xvii, 43
ultraviolet, 88
See also Photons
Liquid helium, 117(n)
Locksmiths, 92. See also Safes, stories about
Logic gates. See Computers, gates, reversible/irreversible
Los Alamos, 9, 10, 53–96, 190, 232
Alamogordo test, 83, 84, 88–89
Army people at, 72–73
censorship at, 64–70
governing board, 64
laboratories, 58
living quarters, 62–63
Special Engineer Detachment, 82–83, 83–85
theoretical work at, 56, 60, 62
Town Council, 63–64
Lourdes, 106, 107
Love, 15, 256
Luck, 77, 87, 94
McAuliffe, 169
Machines as tiny, 51–52, 129–135, 137, 138, 139. See also Atoms, controlled individually; Computers, size of
Magnetic properties, 130
> Manhattan Project, 53, 53(n). See also Atomic bomb; Los Alamos
Manley, 58
Marchant calculating machines, 60–61, 78–79, 80
Mass production, 79, 80, 137
Master-slave systems, 132–133, 134
Material properties, 135–136, 158
Mathematics, xi, 11, 124
Feynman integrals, 191
and mystery of pi, 176–177
necessity of, 15
and patterns, 174–175, 226
qualitative content of equations, 201–202, 202–203
teaching, 242 See also Algebra; Arithmetic; Quantification; under Physics; Quantum electrodynamics
Meaning of It All, The (Feynman), xviii(n)
Meaning of life, 114, 148
Medical issues. See Disease(s)
Mesons, 237, 237(n), 238
Microscopes. See Electron microscope; Optical microscope
Middle Ages, 205
Military, 75, 76, 78. See also Los Alamos, Army people at
Millikan, Robert, 211
Miniaturization, 118. See also Computers, miniaturizing; Machines as tiny
Moore, N., 153
Moral issues, 9–10, 98, 99, 185, 247, 252
and religion, 251, 252–253, 256
scientific morality, 108, 142See also Science, and responsibility
Mosler Lock Company, 91
Motors. See Machines as tiny
Muons 238, 240
Mystery, 24, 144, 176, 180, 250, 256
Mysticism, 206
Nagasaki, 53(n)
Names, 5
NAND gates, 39–41, 40(fig.)
Nanotechnology, 117. See also Atoms, controlled individually; Machines as tiny
National Academy of Sciences, 13
National Accelerator Laboratory, 214
Nature, xvii
Neutrons, 17, 73, 74, 75–76, 90, 94, 190(n), 238, 239
Newton, Isaac, 195
New York Times, xvii, 7, 89
Nobel Prize, 11(n), 117(n), 118(n), 134(n), 190(notes), 191, 196, 196(n), 201(n), 202(n), 229(n), 237(n). See also under Feynman, Richard
Nova, 1
Nuclear forces, 12, 16, 237
Oak Ridge plant, 71–73, 74–78
Objectivity, 104
Observations, 182
Olum, Paul, 57, 59
Omni magazine, 189
Oppenheimer, Robert, 9, 55, 58, 73, 74, 82
Optical microscope, 120
Padlocks, 70
Pantographs, 133
Parapsychology, 216. See also Extrasensory perception
Parasitism, 181–182
Particles, 16, 191, 199, 236, 237–238, 239. See also Quarks; Ultimate particles