Richard P. Feynman to Frederich Hipp, April 5, 1961

Editor's Note: Frederich Hipp, a high school student, was fascinated by physics ("atomic theory and quantum mechanics in particular") and had built a cloud chamber for his science project. He was concerned, however, that he had little aptitude for math. His question to Feynman: "Can a person of normal mathematical ability master enough math to do work on some professional level in this field?"

Mr. Frederich Hipp
New Milford, Connecticut

Dear Sir:

To do any important work in physics a very good mathematical ability and aptitude are required. Some work in applications can be done without this, but it will not be very inspired.

If you must satisfy your "personal curiosity concerning the mysteries of nature" what will happen if these mysteries turn out to be laws expressed in mathematical terms (as they do turn out to be)? You cannot understand the physical world in any deep or satisfying way without using mathematical reasoning with facility. How do you know you don't have an aptitude for math? Perhaps you disliked your teacher, or it was presented wrong for your type of mind.

What do I advise? Forget it all. Don't be afraid. Do what you get the greatest pleasure from. Is it to build a cloud chamber? Then go on doing things like that. Develop your talents wherever they may lead. Damn the torpedoes—full speed ahead!

What about the math? Maybe (1) you might find it interesting later when you need it to design a new apparatus, or (2) you may not go on with your present ambition to understand everything, but instead find yourself a leader in some other direction, such as building the most ingenious rocket-ship control devices, or (3) biological problems may ultimately absorb all your interest and talent for doing experiments and learning about nature, etc.

If you have any talent, or any occupation that delights you, do it, and do it to the hilt. Don't ask why, or what difficulties you may get into.

If you are an average student in everything and no intellectual pursuit gives you real delight, then I don't know how to advise you. You will have to discuss it with someone else. It is a problem that I have not thought about very hard.

Sincerely,
R. P. Feynman

Edward Teller to Richard P. Feynman, October 27, 1965

Dear Dick:

Congratulations! It is wonderful that you and Julian should share the Nobel Prize, which I am sure you deserve in a like manner, although in no other respect do you seem to resemble each other. I think you will illustrate to the Swedes in an excellent manner that not all Americans are alike.

I wish I could be there to observe you when you are on your best behavior in your interaction with the King of Sweden. It will be quite a phenomenon.

With best wishes,
Edward Teller

Richard P. Feynman to Edward Teller, November 30, 1965

Professor Edward Teller
University of California, Davis
Livermore, California

Dear Edward:

Thank you for your kind letter of congratulations. The phenomenon you wish to observe with my interaction with the King of Sweden frightens me as much as it interests you. Anything can happen, but I suppose nothing really will. I hope I get through it alive. It was good to hear from you.

Sincerely,
Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman to Sandra Chester, date unknown

Dear Sandra,

I was delighted too when I heard about the Nobel Prize, thinking as you did that my bongo playing was at last recognized. Imagine my chagrin when I realized that there had been some mistake—they cited some marks I made on paper some 15 years ago—and not one word about percussion technique.

I know you share in my disappointment.

Thank you,
Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman to William Neva, August 14, 1975

Mr. William Neva
Henrietta, New York

Dear Mr. Neva:

Thank you for your letter and for your question about invisibility. I would suggest that the best way to get a good answer to your question is to ask a first-rate professional magician. I do not mean this answer to be facetious or humorous, I am serious. What a magician is very good at is making things appear in an unusual way without violating any physical laws, but by arranging matter in a suitable way. I know of no physical phenomenon such as X-rays, etc., which will create invisibility as you want. Therefore if it is possible at all it will be in accordance with familiar physical phenomenon. That is what a first-rate magician is good for, to create apparently impossible effects from "ordinary" causes.

Sincerely,
Richard P. Feynman

Richard P. Feynman to Arline Feynman, April 3, 1945

Tuesday Morning, 10 AM

Dearest Putzie

You will be interested in two things. First, yesterday I got everything going smoothly and so now I won't be working late hours anymore (I worked till 12 last night), and second, I took a shower. I slept late this morning just for fun and I'm beginning to take a more relaxed view of life (I even read a book for a 1/2 hour before I went to sleep). I think the worst is over and now I can take it easy.

There is a third thing you will be interested in. I love you. You are a strong and beautiful woman. You are not always as strong as other times but it rises and falls like the flow of a mountain stream. I feel I am a reservoir for your strength—without you I would be empty and weak like I was before I knew you—but your moments of strength make me strong and thus I am able to comfort you with your own strength when your stream is low.

I find it much harder these days to write these things to you—there isn't quite the personal intimate contact that I used to get out of letters. I will come Sunday and tell them to you—I will love you Sunday.

No news from here. Oh yes, we have a regular gestapo up here. They took a guy for over an hour in a smoke filled room with men sitting around in the dark—just like in the movies—firing questions at him to prove he was a Communist. They didn't succeed—because he wasn't. The poor guy couldn't work good the next day because they got him out of bed the night before. They claim they are trying to keep spies out of this place. It is dopey, because they leave the gates open at night often by mistake. Don't get scared tho they haven't found out that I am a relativist yet!

I love you sweetheart,
RPF

Richard P. Feynman to Gweneth Feynman, October 11, 1961

October 11, 1961
Hotel Amigo, Brussels

Hello, my sweetheart,

Murray and I kept each other awake arguing until we could stand it no longer. We woke up over Greenland which was even better than last time because we went right over part of it. In London we met other physicists and came to Brussels together. One of them was worried—in his guidebook the Hotel Amigo was not even mentioned. Another had a newer guide—five stars! and rumored to be the best hotel in Europe!

It is very nice indeed. All the furniture is dark red polished wood, in perfect condition; the bathroom is grand, etc. It is really too bad you didn't come to this conference instead of the other one.

At the meeting next day things started slowly. I was to talk in the afternoon. That is what I did, but I didn't really have enough time. We had to stop at 4 PM because of a reception scheduled for that night. I think my talk was OK tho—what I left out was in the written version anyway.

So that evening we went to the palace to meet the king and queen. Taxis waited for us at the hotel—long black ones—and off we went at 5 PM, arriving through the palace gates with a guard on each side, and driving under an arch where men in red coats and white stockings with a black band and gold tassel under each knee opened the doors. More guards at the entrance, in the hallway, along the stairs, and up into a ballroom, sort of. These guards stand very straight, dark grey Russian-type hats with a chin strap, dark coats, white pants, and shiny black leather boots, each holding a sword straight up.

In the "ballroom" we had to wait perhaps 20 minutes. It has inlaid parquet floors, and L in each square (Leopold—the present king's name is Baudoin, or something). The gilded walls are 18th century and on the ceiling are pictures of naked women riding chariots among the clouds or something. Lots of mirrors and gilded chairs with red cushions around the outside edge of the room—just like so many of the palaces we have seen, but this time it was alive, no museum, everything clean and shining and in perfect condition. Several palace officials were milling around among us. One had a list and told me where to stand but I didn't do it right and was out of place later.

The doors at the end of the hall open—guards are there, and the king and queen so we all enter slowly and are introduced one by one to the king and queen. The king has a young semi-dopey face and a strong handshake, the queen is very pretty. (I think her name is Fabriola—a Spanish countess she was.) We exit into another room on the left where there are lots of chairs arranged like in a theatre, with two in front, also facing forward, for K & Q later, and a table at the front with six seats is for illustrious scientists (Niels Bohr, J. Perrin (a Frenchman), J. R. Oppenheimer etc.).

It turns out the king wants to know what we are doing, so the old boys give a set of six dull lectures—all very solemn—no jokes. I had great difficulty sitting in my seat because I had a very stiff and uncomfortable back from sleeping on the plane.

That done, the K & Q pass thru the room where we met them and into a room on right (marked R). All these rooms are very big, gilded, Victorian, fancy, etc. In R are many kinds of uniforms, guards at door, red coats, white coat sort of waiters to serve drinks and hors d'oeuvres, military khaki and medals, black coat—undertaker's type (palace officials).

On the way out of L into R, I am last because I walk slowly from stiff back and find myself talking to a palace official—nice man—teaches math part time at Louvain University, but his main job is secretary to the queen. He had also tutored K when K was young and has been in palace work 23 years. At least I have somebody to talk to, some others are talking to K or to Q; everybody standing up. After a while the professor who is head of conference (Prof. Bragg) grabs me and says K wants to talk to me. I pull boner #1 by wanting to shake hands again when Bragg says, "K, this is Feynman"; apparently wrong—no hand reaches up, but after an embarrassed pause K saves day by shaking my hand. K makes polite remarks on how smart we all must be and how hard it must be to think. I answer, making jokes (having been instructed to do so by Bragg, but what does he know?)—apparently error #2. Anyway, strain is relieved when Bragg brings over some other professor—Heisenberg, I think. K forgets F and F slinks off to resume conversation with Sec'y of Q.

After considerable time—several orange juices and many very very good hors d'oeuvres later—a military uniform with medals comes over to me and says, "Talk to the queen!" Nothing I should like to do better (pretty girl, but don't worry, she's married). F arrives at scene: Q is sitting at table surrounded by three other occupied chairs—no room for F. There are several low coughs, slight confusion, etc. and lo! one of the chairs has been reluctantly vacated. Other two chairs contain one lady and one Priest in Full Regalia (who is also a physicist) named LeMaître.

We have quite a conversation (I listen, but hear no low coughs, and am not evacuated from seat) for perhaps 15 minutes. Sample:

Q: "It must be very hard work thinking about those difficult problems."

F: "No, we all do it for the fun of it."

Q: "It must be hard to learn to change all your ideas" (a thing she got from the six lectures).

F: "No, all those guys who gave you those lectures are old fogeys—all that stuff was in 1926, when I was only eight, so when I learned physics I only had to learn the new ideas. Big problem now is, will we have to change them again?"

Q: "You must feel good, working for peace like that."

F: "No, never enters my head, whether it is for peace or otherwise we don't know."

Q: "Things certainly change fast—many things have changed in the last hundred years."

F: "Not in this palace." (I thought it, but controlled myself.)

F: "Yes," and then launched into lecture on what was known in 1861 and what we found out since—adding at end, laughingly, "Can't help giving a lecture, I guess—I'm a professor, you see. Ha, ha."

Q in desperation, turns to lady on her other side and begins pleasant conversation with same.

After a few moments K comes over, whispers something to Q who stands up and they quietly go out. F returns to Sec'y of Q who personally escorts him out of palace past guards, etc.

I'm so terribly sorry you missed it. I don't know when we'll find another king for you to meet.

I was paged in the hotel this morning just before leaving with the others.

Phone call—I returned to the others and announced, "Gentlemen, that call was from the queen's secretary." All are awestruck, for it did not go unnoticed that F talked longer and harder to Q than seemed proper. I didn't tell them, however, that it was about a meeting we arranged—he was inviting me to his home to meet his wife and two (of four) of his daughters, and see his house. I had invited him to visit us in Pasadena when he came to America and this was his response.

His wife and daughters are very nice and his house was positively beautiful. You would have enjoyed that even more than visiting the palace. He planned and built his house in a Belgian style, somewhat after an old farmhouse style, but done just right. He has many old cabinets and tables inside, right beside newer stuff, very well combined. It is much easier for them to find antiques in Belgium than for you in Los Angeles as there are so many old farms, etc. He has large grounds and a vegetable garden—and a dog—from Washington—somebody gave the king and the K gave to him. The dog has a personality somewhat like Kiwi because I think he is equally loved. He even has a bench in his garden hidden under trees that he made for himself to go and sit on and look at the surrounding countryside. The house is slightly bigger than ours and the grounds are much bigger but not yet landscaped.

I told him I had a queen in a little castle in Pasadena I would like him to see—and he said he hoped he would be able to come to America and see us. He would come if the Q ever visits America again.

I am enclosing a picture of his house, and his card so I don't lose it.

I know you must feel terrible being left out this time—but I'll make it up someday somehow. Don't forget I love you very much and am proud of my family that is and my family that is to be. The secretary and his wife send their best wishes to you and our future.

I wish you were here, or next best thing, that I were there. Kiss SNORK and tell Mom all my adventures and I will be home sooner than you think.

Your husband loves you.
Your husband.

Richard P. Feynman to Alan Woodward, March 31, 1982

Alan Woodward
Southampton, Britain

Dear Mr. Woodward:

Surely increased knowledge is not incompatible with a humanitarian career—no matter what it is you learn. And surely if your professor and fellow students seem to know some things, but seem to be oblivious to other things ("outside their laboratory door," as you say) that does not exclude you from learning what they know whilst remaining deeply aware of what they are blind to.

Of course, the course that physics is taking you has something missing. You cannot develop a personality with physics alone, the rest of your life must be worked in.

Sincerely,
Richard P. Feynman