The Brilliant Mr. Feynman (Update)
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What updates are there about Richard Feynman's life?
Hey there, Stephen Dubner. A couple years ago, we made a three-part series about the physicist Richard Feynman, and we heard from so many of you that we have decided to replay it now. This is part two. We have updated facts and figures as necessary. The biggest update you'll want to keep in mind as you listen today is that both the Feynman family home and Zorthian Ranch were destroyed in the L.A. wildfires last year. As always, thanks for listening.
On July 16th, 1945, a team of U.S. scientists based in Los Alamos, New Mexico, conducted what their leader, J. Robert Oppenheimer, had named the Trinity Test. They were detonating a new kind of bomb way out in the desert, a couple hundred miles from the secret lab at Los Alamos where they had created it. The U.S. president, Harry Truman, seemed to fully grasp the magnitude of this moment.
It is an atomic bomb. It is a harnessing of the basic power of the universe.
Oppenheimer had put together a dream team of experienced physicists, many of them recent refugees from Nazi Germany. Also playing a minor but important role was a 24-year-old physicist from Queens, New York, named Richard Feynman. Years later, here is how Feynman described watching the Trinity test. Okay, time comes.
And this tremendous flash, so bright, and I see this purple splotch on the floor of the truck. And I says, that ain't it. That's an afterimage. So I turn back up, and I see this white light changing into yellow and into orange. The clouds form, and then they disappear again. And then finally, a big ball of orange has started to rise. and billow a little bit and get a little bit black around the edges. And then you see it's a big ball of smoke with flashes on the inside of the fire going out, the heat. And all this took about one minute. Finally, after about a minute and a half, suddenly there's a tremendous noise. Bang! And then rumbles like thunder. And that's what convinced me. Nobody had said a word during this whole minute.
We were all just watching quietly. But this sound released everybody because the solidity of the sound at that distance meant that it really worked. The man who was standing next to me said, what's that? I said, that was the bomb.
How did Richard Feynman's experiences during the Trinity Test shape his perspective?
Yes, that was the bomb. Just a few weeks later, the U.S. dropped one of these new atomic bombs on Japan. President Truman.
A short time ago, an American airplane dropped one bomb on Hiroshima and destroyed its usefulness to the enemy. That bomb has more power than 20,000 tons of TNT. With this bomb, we have now added a new and revolutionary increase in destruction.
Hiroshima was destroyed. Tens of thousands of Japanese were killed. Three days later, the U.S. dropped a second bomb on the port city of Nagasaki. Again, the carnage was extreme. Six days later, Japan surrendered, putting an end to World War II. The U.S. victory was, of course, welcome. But Richard Feynman was among those who wondered about the cost of the victory. My first reaction after I was finished with this thing was, it's useless to make anything. Feynman thought that with the existence of nuclear weapons, it was only a matter of time before we humans would wipe ourselves off the earth.
I remember being in New York with my mother in a restaurant right after, immediately after. I would see people building a bridge and I would say they don't understand. I really believe that it was senseless to make anything because it would all be destroyed very soon anyway.
He would take in a view, and he would automatically visualize destruction from a bomb.
That's Michelle Feynman, his daughter.
His entire being was permeated by his effort at the war, and I don't think that it was a happy time at all. His father had died. His wife had died. He would look at people building things and think, why bother?
For five years after the war, Feynman taught physics at Cornell University. He was depressed and restless. He had a hard time engaging in his work, a problem he'd never had before. Winters in upstate New York were long and cold. He needed to get away.
A friend of his said, what are you doing this summer?
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What updates are there about Richard Feynman's life?
0:04–2:34
2
How did Richard Feynman's experiences during the Trinity Test shape his perspective?
2:34–9:46
3
What was Richard Feynman's teaching style like at Caltech?
9:46–16:35
4
What impact did World War II have on Richard Feynman's outlook and career?
16:35–17:17
5
How did Richard Feynman balance his professional and personal life?
17:17–52:48
Speakers
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