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发信人: asdf (变量), 信区: Science
标  题: 费曼故事(十一)
发信站: 紫丁香 (Tue Jun 30 21:53:30 1998), 转信

发信人: tnt (TNT), 信区: Physics
标  题: fey
发信站: 空间科学BBS站 . Fri Mar 28 06:43:13 1997

                               The Nobel Prize

     � � � � Feynman was quite publicly critical of the Nobel Prize.
     And he has made many public pronouncements on his dislike of
     receiving it and that people just like him and attend his lectures
     because of it. This is an argument that I just didn't buy. I would
     argue with him. "Hey, look, there are many people who have won the
     Nobel Prize and don't have the following that you do. Roger Sperry
     at Caltech does not get huge audiences every time he lectures. You
     Messenger lectures, which were delivered before you had such fame,
     had great audiences, so that argument doesn't hold." And so the
     argument went. I thought his popularity was due to other things,
     like his lecture notes, his colorful lectures, personality, and so
     forth. I thought that the Nobel Prize had very little to do with
     his fame.

     � � � � Nevertheless, I respected his views. On one weekend we
     were to go camping up in the mountains for some stargazing. I had
     arranged for a number of my friends to come along who did not know
     physics or who Feynman was. (This was before the publication of
     his two anecdote books made him famous outside the world of
     physics). I specifically did not tell my friends who Feynman was
     or anything about him.

     � � � � A group of us arrived early at the campground and we
     decided to take a walk. Feynman had not yet arrived. When we
     returned Feynman was sitting talking with my friends. I found out
     a little later that they had not been with him more than a few
     minutes before Feynman relayed the fact that he had won a Noble
     Prize and so forth. I wasn't privy to the conversation, so I
     really don't know what was said, but my friends all of sudden
     knew. I was irritated. I went through all this trouble to shield
     this fact, and Feynman himself let it out. I thought this was
     gross hypocrisy. (A number of other close Feynman acquaintances
     also felt this way). Later when we were alone with Manny Delbruck
     (her husband also won a Nobel prize), the subject came up. I tried
     to argue with him and express my irritation at how often the Prize
     comes up in conversation. That if he really didn't like the thing,
     then he should just be quiet about it. Boy were there explosions
     from his end. I don't think I ever said anything that irritated
     him as much as that.

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※ 来源:．紫丁香 bbs.hit.edu.cn．[FROM: quark.hit.edu.cn]

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