Oppenheimer's recommendation letter for Richard Feynman

http://www.lettersofnote.com/2009/12/he-is-second-dirac-only-this-time-human.html

by sindhiparsani • 15 years ago

293 78 15 years ago

signa11• 15 years ago

just like dirac, only human ! here is an anecdote from wikipedia about dirac: According to a story told in different versions, a friend or student visited Dirac, not knowing of his marriage. Noticing the visitor's surprise at seeing an attractive woman in the house, Dirac said, "This is... this is Wigner's sister". Margit Dirac told both George Gamow and Anton Capri in the 1960s that her husband had actually said, "Allow me to present Wigner's sister, who is now my wife."

techiferous• 15 years ago

"extremely normal"

I wonder what he meant. Besides the fact that this is an oxymoron, saying he's normal goes against everything else in the recommendation.

bentoner• 15 years ago

Normal = not eccentric.

It means he's someone you wouldn't mind having as a colleague.

Tichy• 15 years ago

Oops, sorry, accidental downvote.

vladd• 15 years ago

I've read it as "works nice with others".

lpolovets• 15 years ago

Thank you for sharing this, it's a neat little piece of history.

Two side notes:

1) Letters Of Note has some excellent content. Here are a few more letters that have been discussed on HN previously: http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1424324 and http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1045311

2) I'm a big Feynman fan, and several of my several friends are as well. We've read most of his biographies and autobiographies, and were recently surprised to find that a new biography came out a few months ago. It's supposed to be quite good, and has strong focus on Feynman's scientific accomplishments. http://www.amazon.com/Quantum-Man-Richard-Feynmans-Discoveri...

ThaddeusQuay217• 15 years ago

"To label the letter a glowing recommendation would be an understatement ..."

"He is ... extremely normal in all respects ..."

That doesn't seem so "glowing", unless it's 1943 government employee code for "not gay, not a communist, and not anything else that could get your university into trouble, mister".

EDIT: To understand the political climate of that era, consider that Turing and Oppenheimer got into lots of trouble because of actual, or perceived, homosexuality and communist sympathy, respectively. So, it is certainly not a stretch of the imagination to think that something as innocuous as "extremely normal in all respects" could be code for "not gay, not a communist" and not anything else that a university might care about in those days.

jleyank• 15 years ago

Gleick makes the point that this might be code for "Jewish, but not really", as he talks about the bias against such people back then.

ThaddeusQuay217• 15 years ago

Interesting. I wouldn't have guessed such a connection, given Einstein's apparent popularity in that particular circle.

I find it amusing to be reading this important recommendation letter to a university on the same weekend that someone asked me to look into the background of an applicant for an important position at another university. This person might be a homosexual, and the contract for the position states that they cannot be involved in an "alternative lifestyle". In that regard, not much has changed regarding the politics of universities since 1943.

Angostura2• 15 years ago

Edward Teller seemed to manage OK.

rudiger• 15 years ago

I interpreted "extremely normal in all respects" as meaning he's someone you wouldn't mind working with. You see, a lot of theoretical physicists are brilliant but have very difficult personalities.

ThaddeusQuay217• 15 years ago

Yes, that could easily have been what he meant, but then again, a university would be more likely to care about the "gay, communist, whatever" thing much more than how easy he was to work with. Therefore, I think that the former was more important for Oppenheimer to communicate. Any university would want an Einstein. Only a few, or maybe even none, would want a gay Einstein or a communist Einstein.

brain5ide• 15 years ago

I totally agree with you on this one. I dont't think that Feynman was truly regarded as normal. I mean, the guy liked to crack safes of high rank military officers in a wartime nuclear base to just screw with them. Disrespect to authority shouldn't have been normal at that time. Especially at Los Alamos.

Create2• 15 years ago

His father was a MIL contractor, maybe it was uniforms -- or whatever that was a cover for (ie. not limbs).

Feynman's starring was high on the agenda for the then-authorities: he was basically the first (and only?) successful physicist "born and bred" in the USA, not being a self-proclaiming (or immigrant) Jew.

lurker14• 15 years ago

Of course, cracking a safe just to screw with someone (and, you know, to remind someone that their safes aren't in fact secure) is perhaps the single most honorable thing to do with a safe.

Better that the safe be left around for spies to infiltrate?

gwern• 15 years ago

I'd do with the interpretation that 'he's not a cranky Aspie, who you can actually work with', especially given the description of him 'a second Dirac, only this time human'.

angstrom• 15 years ago

Quantum Man goes into a bit of detail about this matter http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/quantum-man-lawrence-m-kraus...

Dirac was a very bright, but logically bound person. His decisions, right down to his marriage, were based on logic. If you've ever seen "The Big Bang Theory" think of Sheldon. Feynmann, on the other hand, had both the logical abilities of Dirac and the sociable abilities that made him capable of interaction outside his narrow discipline. That is what he meant by "extremely normal in all aspects".

When you get into people who are extremely skiled in something it's often the case they do so at the expense of everything else. This tends to create an eccentric attitude that doesn't transcend social circles.

gcb• 15 years ago

Agree. And more relevant to the teaching career, "not too autist", as was the case with Dirac.

thisrod4• 15 years ago

Note that Feynman was Jewish. I don't know if that mattered in America in 1945, but it certainly did in Australia.

See http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s632081.htm : "What too are we to make of the cavalier disregard of an applicant whose list of referees included Rudolf Carnap, G.E. Moore, Niels Bohr, and Bertrand Russell?"

nl3• 15 years ago

Attitudes to Jews in the 1930's (which is what your link refers to) and attitudes in the 1940's (especially postwar) were very different (in Australia and elsewhere).

hsparikh• 15 years ago

Feynman clearly mentions in "Surely You are Joking..." that he got turned down from Columbia for his undergraduate degree due to Jewish quotas that existed among universities at that time. So yes, it certainly mattered in America in the 1940s.

Angostura2• 15 years ago

I think you need to read that line in the content of a few others within the letter, in particular the "he's a second durac, but this time human" quote. Oppenheimer also points out that he is a good communicator and in particular can bridge the divide between theoretical and experimental physicists. Being that brilliant and that nice can be an unusual combination.

starpilot• 15 years ago

I like a recommendation letter from a CMU prof of John Nash,

This man is a genius.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Forbes_Nash,_Jr.#Post-grad...

steve-howard• 15 years ago

I wonder if such a letter would be available for posterity if it were written today. Technically the student has the right to see what letters are written about him, but most schools want the student to waive that right (if they don't already have a policy of discarding the letters after matriculation). I suppose I am merely deathly curious about the letter I had written before my transfer from the University of Washington (since I only had one instructor I really expected to know anything about me, and I never got to see the letter), as obviously nothing written about me will merit later revisiting. At least not yet.

danso3• 15 years ago

I highly recommend both of Feynman's memoirs:

"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!", http://www.amazon.com/Surely-Feynman-Adventures-Curious-Char...

"What Do You Care What Other People Think?" http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/039332...

He's of course a good writer. But if you didn't know any better, you'd think him to be a sort of adult-Pollyanna, someone of innocent optimism and immense curiosity. It reminds me a lot of reading Woz's autobiography, in fact; I guess it makes sense that this characteristic of constantly questioning and challenging the norms is what leads to great innovation.

In a chapter from "Surely You're Joking", Feynman describes how he was curious about the accepted fact that dogs have a much better sense of smell than humans. So he went around sniffing objects held by humans, even getting down on the carpet on his hands and knees to see if he could smell his own footprints: http://goo.gl/WBbw1

It's an amusing story, but one that is very telling of Feynman's insatiable curiosity and scientific mind. He did these smell-experiments not as a child, but when he was a scientist at Los Alamos.

gus_massa• 15 years ago

Feynman didn´t write the book himself. It is an edited version of the taped conversations of Feynman with Ralph Leighton.

jamesbritt2• 15 years ago

There's an audio recording of him telling some of his tales, as well as him playing bongo drums.

Safecracker Suite: Drumming and Storytelling

http://www.amazon.com/Safecracker-Suite-Storytelling-Richard...

danso3• 15 years ago

I'll take your word for it. Though "Surely You're Joking" reads very closely in style to his letter and with "What Do You Care What Other People Think?", in which he's listed as author with Ralph Leighton as editor.

jamesbritt2• 15 years ago

But if you didn't know any better, you'd think him to be a sort of adult-Pollyanna, someone of innocent optimism and immense curiosity.

And you're saying he wasn't? Based on what information?

danso3• 15 years ago

Sorry, what I meant was, if you didn't know he was a brilliant scientist (and learned in many other areas), you would think he was someone of only those qualities, rather than someone who has those qualities and was also a stellar intellectual and scientist. IMO, sometimes those qualities are seen as mutually exclusive.

jerometinkton• 15 years ago

Really fun reads. Great to give to people who think anything 'sciency' is stuffy:) I love this old Horizon as well: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsgBtOVzHKI

tnicola• 15 years ago

There is a third one: "The Pleasure Of Finding Things Out".

http://www.amazon.ca/Pleasure-Finding-Things-Out-Richard/dp/...

It has some duplicates from the other two books, but it also has some new stories.

jpeterson• 15 years ago

Every time I read something like this, I feel a certain sense of regret for idolizing this man--alas, no one will ever say these kind of things about me.

ebbyamir• 15 years ago

What are the chances Oppenheimer asked Feynman to write it himself. I've had professors do that because they were too busy haha.

dennisgorelik• 15 years ago

It's fun to imagine that, but realistically why would Feynman write that recommendation if he didn't want to accept the position?

ThaddeusQuay217• 15 years ago

Because he wanted to future prank the historians. We can thus add "inventor of the FuturePrank" to his list of accomplishments.

_gd3l• 15 years ago

"In these war times it is not always easy to think constructively about the peace that is to follow."

Wow. Oppenheimer and many of the other top scientists (then and now) also happen to be great writers. Brilliant, brilliant people.

Oppenheimer's recommendation letter for Richard Feynman

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