Chapter 3 The growth of the first little urchin-1

When I was eleven or twelve years old, I set up my own laboratory at home.The equipment in the laboratory is very simple: an old wooden box with spacers and an electric heating plate; many times I will pour some oil on the plate and fry some French fries to eat.Other equipment also includes a battery, a lamp holder and so on. The lamp base is homemade.I went to a nickel and dime store and bought some outlets, nailed them to a board, and wired them up.I've known for a long time that you can get different voltages from each bulb by connecting them in parallel or in series.But what I didn't know at the time was that the resistance of the bulb was related to its temperature, so my calculations were very different from what I actually saw in the socket.But that doesn't matter either, because when the bulbs are all connected in series.They light up slowly and it's beautiful!

I have a fuse in the wiring in case something shorts out, at best it blows the fuse.My fuse was "hard" and was just on top of an old blown fuse with foil wrapped around the break. I also connected a small five-watt light bulb externally to this self-made fuse. When the fuse blows, the original current is transferred to the small light bulb to light it up. I mounted the little light bulb on the keypad and put a coffee colored candy wrapper in front of it, and when there was a light behind it, the wrapper looked red.So if something goes wrong, I just look at the keypad and I see a big red light, which means the fuse is blown.To me, that's a lot of fun!

I like the radio very much.I originally bought a crystal radio and used to lie in bed at night with headphones on and listen to it while I slept.Occasionally, when my parents went out for business and came back late at night, they would run to my room and take off the earphones for me, worrying about what I was listening to.Around that time, I built a burglar alarm.In fact, its structure is very simple: I just connect an electric bell and battery with wires.If someone pushes my door open, the door pushes the wire switch to the battery, connects the wire, and the bell goes off. One night, my parents came home very late.In order not to wake me up, they opened my door very carefully and gently, trying to come in and take off the earphones for me.Suddenly the bell rang loudly, and I jumped out of bed with joy and yelled:

"Success! Success!" Also I have a Ford coil which is a spark coil from a car.I hooked it up to the keypad, and then I connected a tube filled with argon gas to both ends of the spark coil, and the sparks from the coil made the tube glow purple. It was awesome! One day, I was playing with that Ford coil again, and I used the sparks it sent to punch holes in a piece of paper, and it burned the paper.I couldn't hold it because my fingers were burning too, so I threw it in a metal trash can.There are a lot of old newspapers in the trash can, and the old newspapers burn the fastest. The fire in the small room looks quite amazing.I hastened to close the door so that my mother, who was playing bridge with friends in the living room, should not find out that my bedroom was on fire.Then he took a magazine and pressed it on the trash can, smothering the fire.After the fire went out, I put the magazine away, but at this time the room was full of smoke.The trash can was still too hot to touch, so I took it with the tongs and walked across the room and put it out the window to let the smoke dissipate.

Unexpectedly, when the wind blows outside the window, the old newspapers are revived!I had to take the trash can back and run to get the magazine that was used to cover the trash can. This is very dangerous because there are curtains on both sides of the windows. Anyway, finally I got the magazine and smothered the fire again.This time, I took the magazine with me, and dumped the red-glowing ashes in the trash can into the street below; The smoke dissipated slowly. Radios and Kidswant I've made some gadgets with electric motors.I once bought a photocell and designed a circuit for it.This system enables the bell to ring when a hand is placed in front of the photocell.But I always feel that there is more to say, because my mother often interrupts me and asks me to go out to play.But I still managed to stay at home and move around in the lab.

I used to buy some radios at charity fairs.I don't have much money, but they're not expensive; they're usually old radios that people donate, and I try to fix them after I buy them; A certain coil is damaged or not wound tightly, etc., so some repairs will work.One night, on one of the repaired radios, I actually heard the WACO station in Waco, Texas.At that moment, there was really indescribable excitement! Also, with this tube radio, I can listen to the WGN station in Schenectady in the laboratory.At that time, our group of kids—my sister, two cousins, and neighbor kids—used to gather around the downstairs radio in our house and listen to the "Elo Crime Club" broadcast on a New York station ( Apparently, the show is sponsored by "Salt of the Fruit of Elohim"), which is the number one thing in our lives!And I found out that I could hear the same show on WGN an hour before it aired on NYC!

So I could know what was going to happen in advance, and then when we got together on the radio downstairs and listened to "Elo's Crime Club," I'd say, "Did you notice that so-and-so hasn't appeared in a long time, I Guess he'll come to the rescue after a while." Sure enough, only two seconds later, he came!Everyone was so excited about it. After that, I guessed some other plot details.Only then did they begin to suspect that there must be something strange about it, so I had no choice but to confess truthfully, saying that I had heard it all upstairs an hour ago.

You can guess how it turned out: they couldn't wait for the usual broadcast time anymore; they couldn't wait, and they all crowded in my lab, listening to WGN's "Elo Crime Club" on the squeaky little radio. Feynman Radio Back then we lived in a big log house that my grandfather left us.I had wires all around the house and sockets in every room so that I could always hear the radio in the upstairs lab.I still have a speaker - but it's not complete, it's missing the horn horn section. One day, I connected my headphones to the speakers and observed something new:

When I touch the speaker with my finger, I can hear the touch in the earphones; when I grab it, I can hear it in the earphones as well.So I found out that the speaker can be used as a microphone without even needing a battery.At that time, the story of Bell (A1exander Graham Bell) happened to be told in the school lecture hall, and I performed the function of connecting the speaker to the earphone; I didn't know it at the time, but in retrospect, it was the kind of telephone that Bell originally used. With this mic, and the amp I ripped off from an old radio, I can broadcast in both directions, from upstairs to downstairs and from downstairs to upstairs.

At that time, my sister Joan, who was 9 years younger than me, was only two or three years old, and she liked a program broadcast by Uncle Tang on the radio very much.There were nursery rhymes like "Good Boy" and sometimes cards from parents of certain children were read, for example: "This Saturday, it's Mary's birthday in Flatbush Road." Once, my cousin Frances and I sat Joan down and told her there was a must-see special.Then we raced upstairs and started broadcasting: "I'm Uncle Don. Joan, we hear, is a nice little girl who lives on New Broadway; her birthday is coming up—not today, but on a certain day. Little girl." We sang a song, and then "played" some music: "Beep, beep, beep, beep..." After finishing Uncle Tang's full program, we ran downstairs and asked Joan: " How is it? Do you like the show?"

"The program is good," she said, "but why do you also sing your music?" Little Fixer One day, I got a call: "Sir, are you Richard Feynman?" "yes." "We're a hotel here. Our radio doesn't work, and I hear you can help." "But I'm just a kid," I said, "and I don't understand how..." "Yes, we know, but we still want you to make a trip." In fact, the hotel was owned by my aunt, but I didn't know it beforehand.They still talk about it to this day, saying that when I ran to the hotel that day, I had a huge screwdriver in my back pocket; but I was small then, and any screwdriver in my pocket looked like nothing. It looks very big. I went to look at the radio and try to fix it.To be honest, I don't know much about it, but a handyman at the hotel, can't remember if it was him or me, found that the knob on the variable resistor that controls the volume was loose, preventing the shaft of the variable resistor from turning .He went and filed something, fixed the knob, and fixed the radio. The next radio I was called in to fix didn't even sound at all for a simple reason: it wasn't plugged in.And as the repair tasks became more complicated, my skills became more sophisticated and my tricks more numerous.I bought a milliampere meter in New York, and after calculations, I connected it with thin copper wires of various lengths, and converted the milliampere meter into a voltmeter.It's not exactly accurate, but at least I can get an approximate voltage across the contacts on the wire, so I know where the problem is. In fact, the main reason they hired me to fix radios was because the Great Recession hit, and everyone was so poor that they didn't have money to spend on fixing radios.When they heard that there was such a kid who could fix the radio for a cheap fee, of course they fell for it.As a result, I often have to do some weird jobs, like climbing on the roof to adjust the antenna, etc. The work is getting more and more difficult, but I am learning more and more.I once had a job converting a radio from DC to AC and the hardest part was keeping it from "humming" sound, and the method I used was not quite right.Looking back, I shouldn't have taken the job that time, but at the time I was a bit clueless. I'm thinking!I'm thinking! Another time is also very interesting.I was working in a printing factory at the time, and a friend of the owner of the printing factory heard that I was fixing radios for someone, so he sent someone to the printing factory to find me.The man looked poor, his car was a dilapidated pile of scrap metal, and their house was located in the poorest part of the city.Halfway through I asked, "What's wrong with your radio?" He said: "Every time I flip the switch, it makes some noise. Although the sound stops after a while, everything is normal, but I don't like the sound at the beginning. " I said to myself, "Forget it! If you have no money, you deserve a little noise!" Along the way he kept saying, "Do you know the radio? How could you possibly know the radio? You're just a kid!" He kept insulting me like that, and I kept thinking in my head, "He's out What's wrong? It's just a little noise!" But when we got to his house and turned on the radio, I was really taken aback.a little voice?God!No wonder the poor pauper couldn't take it either!The radio yelled and vibrated and went "boom-boom" and then quieted down and worked normally.I thought, "How could this happen?" I started pacing back and forth, thinking, thinking, thinking, and finally realized that the vacuum tubes in the radio might be firing out of order—in other words, the amplifier had finished warming up irregularly, and the tubes had gone out of order. They are all on standby, but the radio has not given any signal to it at this time; or due to the feedback of other line signals, even the front line of the radio—I am talking about the part related to radio frequency (RF, radio frequency)—is out of order. Only when there is a problem, will there be so many noises.And finally, when the RF circuit is fully heated up, the vacuum tube voltage has been adjusted, and everything returns to normal. The guy got impatient and said to me, "What are you doing? I asked you to fix the radio, but you're just walking around here!" I said, "I'm thinking! I'm thinking!" and decided: "Okay! Pull out all the vacuum tubes and put them back in the reverse order." In fact, in the radios of that period, the same type of vacuum tubes were often used in different parts of the circuit, and the impression was the one numbered 212 or 212A kind.Anyway I reversed the order of the tubes and turned the radio on.It was as quiet as a sheep, and the line warmed up obediently, and then started broadcasting, perfectly, without any noise. If someone once looked down on you like this, but you show your strength immediately, usually their attitude will change 180 degrees, which is a bit of compensation.This is the case with this dear friend.Later, he introduced me to other jobs and kept telling others what a genius I was, saying, "He fixed the radio just by thinking!" He never thought that a child could be able to think quietly , and figured out how to fix the radio. The radios of the days of the dead are easier to deal with, because as long as you take it apart (the biggest difficulty is to determine which screw to move), you can see that this is a resistor, that is a capacitor, etc. They even Label them all. If you see wax starting to drip out of a capacitor, it must be too hot and probably burned out; likewise, if char is showing up on a resistor, something must be wrong with it; or, if you For nothing, you can use a voltmeter to measure the contacts on the line to see if there is voltage. Basically, those radios are very simple in structure, and the wiring is not complicated.Vacuum tubes are usually 1.5 or 2 volts on the grid and 100 to 100 volts on the plate, so it's not a big deal for me to figure out the wires on those radios and see what's wrong and fix them What a hard thing. But sometimes it's really time consuming.I remember once it took me an entire afternoon to find the culprit: a resistor that looked normal but was actually blown.The person who asked me to fix the radio happened to be a friend of my mother, so I could do it leisurely. No one stood behind me and said, "What are you doing now?" Instead, they came to me and asked, "Do you want a drink?" Some milk or a piece of cake?” However, I was able to fix the radio because of perseverance.Since I was a child, as long as I started to study a certain puzzle, I couldn't stop, and I had to solve it.If my mother's friend had said to me at the time, "Forget it, it's too much work!" I would have been furious, because I was going to beat this ghost radio.Anyway, so much work has been spent, and I must not give up halfway. I must stick to it until I find out its problem before giving up! When a master guesser faces a puzzle, I have an unyielding determination to admit defeat.That's why later on I would try to translate Mayan hieroglyphs into modern script or find a way to open a safe whenever I come across it.I remember in high school, every morning someone would quiz me on geometry or advanced math, and I wouldn't stop until I solved those puzzles.Usually it takes me ten or twenty minutes to figure out the answer; then in the same day someone else asks me the same question and I can tell them the answer without thinking.So I spend minutes solving problems for the first person, but at the same time 5 people think I am a super genius! Gradually, the name became more and more famous.By the time I finished high school, I'd probably run into every riddle of all time, and anyway, any crazy, wacky puzzle ever devised by a human being.Later, when I went to MIT to study in college, I once attended a prom. A senior senior came with his girlfriend. It happened that she also knew a lot of riddles. He told the girl that I was good at guessing riddles, so she ran over to me. Say: "They said you are very good, let me test you: There is a man who wants to chop eight pieces of wood..." I said immediately: "First he split the odd number of wood into three pieces." I have already encountered this problem, and she had to walk away with her tail between her legs. She came back soon and asked me another difficult problem, which did not bother me.This went back and forth several times, and at the end of the dance, she ran over again and said with a confident look: "A mother and daughter are traveling..." I then said: "That daughter has the Black Death." She died of anger. up!She just started talking about the topic!In fact, the original puzzle was very long, to the effect that a mother took her daughters to a hotel, each in a room, and the next day her daughter disappeared, and she asked, "Where is my daughter?" The hotel manager said : "What daughter?" There was only the mother's name on the register, and the story went on and on, turning into a big unsolved case. The answer is: the daughter got the Black Death, and the store was afraid of being closed for business, so they secretly removed the body and cleaned the room without leaving any traces.It's a long story, but since I've heard it before, when the girl started saying: When "A mother and daughter are traveling", although I have only heard similar topics, I boldly guessed the answer, and I guessed it right. There was also a group called "Algebra Team" in middle school. There were 5 students on the team, and they often competed with other schools.The competition method is that everyone is lined up, sitting on two rows of chairs, and the teacher presiding over the competition draws out the envelope containing the topic, on which is written "45 seconds" and so on.She opened the envelope, copied the question to the blackboard, and said, "Go!" So we actually had more than 45 seconds to solve the problem, because you can think of the answer while she is writing.The rules of the game are: everyone has paper and pen in front of them, you can write whatever you want, the important thing is the answer.If the answer is "6 books", then you have to write "6" on the paper and circle it.As long as what is written inside the circle is correct, you win. What is certain is that none of those questions can be solved by using traditional formulas. You cannot "set A as the number of red books and B as the number of blue books" and put them into formulas to solve, solve, solve, until you get "6 books" this answer.It takes at least 50 seconds to do that, because the person who asked the question has already tried it out, and then shortened the time limit a little bit.You have to think: "Is it possible to find the answer just by 'looking'?" Sometimes you can see the answer at a glance, but sometimes you have to invent some new methods, and then desperately calculate to find the answer.It was great training, and I got better and better at it, eventually becoming captain.Learning how to solve algebra quickly will help me a lot when I go to college.For example, when we encountered a calculus problem, I could see the direction of the problem very quickly, and I could figure out the answer very quickly—really very quickly. At that time, I also tried to make up my own problems and theorems.For example, when I am calculating some formulas, I will wonder whether these formulas can be used in actual situations.For example, I have compiled a bunch of questions related to right-angled triangles, but my questions are not like the traditional ones where two sides are known and the third side is known. The known condition I give is the difference between the two sides.Typical practical example: here is a flagpole, and from the top of the pole hangs a rope 3 feet longer than the flagpole.When the rope is straightened, its end is 5 feet from the bottom of the pole.My question is: how high is the flagpole? I have developed some equations to solve such problems.In the process, I discovered certain relationships in trigonometric mathematics, such as sin2+cos2=.In fact, a few years before this, when I was only eleven or twelve years old, I borrowed a book about trigonometry from the library to read, but I returned that book a long time ago and it is no longer with me. I only vaguely remember it. The net of trigonometry is the relationship between sine and cosine.So I drew some triangles by hand, figured out all the trigonometric equations, and checked and proved them one by one. I started from the sine value of 5 degrees, and used the angle addition formula ( ) and half-angle formula (half-angle formula) that I checked and calculated. ) to calculate the sine, cosine and tangent of angles such as 10 degrees, degrees...etc. A few years later, when trigonometry was taught in school, I still had my notes. In comparison, I found that my proof method was different from that in the textbook.Sometimes, because I didn't notice a simple method, it took a lot of effort and a lot of detour to find the result.But sometimes, the methods I use are very clever, and the methods used in the book are extremely complicated!Therefore, I and the textbook can be said to have wins and losses. When doing these calculations, I really dislike notations like sine, cosine, and tangent. I think "sin f" is a lot like s times i times n times f!So I invented another set of symbols.My symbol is a bit similar to the square root. The sine is pulled out with the top stroke of the Greek letter Σ, like a long arm stretched out, and the f is placed under the arm.T is used for tangent, and the stroke at the top extends to the right.For cosine, I'm using Γ, but the bad thing about this notation is that it looks a lot like a square root notation. Then, the same Σ can be used for the sign of the arcsine, but the left and right sides are reversed like a mirror, in other words, the long arm is now extended to the left, and the function f is placed below.This is the arcsine!I think the way textbooks write arcsine as sin-1 is simply crazy!To me that's what 1 divided by sin f means; my notation is much stronger. I really don't like f(x), that looks too much like f times x.I hate the way of differential writing: dy/dx, which makes people want to cancel the two d in the symbol, so I invented another symbol like "&".Logarithm (logarithm) is relatively simple: a stroke under a capital L extends to the right, and the function is placed on the arm. At that time, I felt that the symbols I invented would definitely be the same as those used by everyone, and which set of symbols I used had nothing to do with other people, but later I found that it has a very important relationship.Once when I was discussing a problem with a classmate, I started using my symbols without even thinking about it, and the classmate yelled: "What the hell are those?" So I realized: If I want to discuss with others, I must use everyone well-known standard symbols.Later, I finally gave up using my symbols. In addition, I also invented a set of symbols suitable for typewriters, like the symbols used in the Fortran computer language, so that I can use a typewriter to type equations.I have also repaired typewriters, using paper clips and rubber bands; of course, I am not a professional repairman, I just repaired the broken typewriter to the point where it was barely usable.But for me, the most interesting thing is finding out what is wrong and figuring out how to fix it.These are as fun and fun as solving puzzles!