Chapter 5 The growth of the first little urchin-3

At MIT, all fraternities hold what they call "interview meetings," where they recruit new members every year.The summer before MIT, I was also invited to New York to attend a Jewish fraternity party called Phi Beta Delta.At that time, as long as you were a Jewish child or a child who grew up in a Jewish family, you had no chance to join other fraternities, and other people would not favor you at all. To be honest, I didn't particularly look forward to being around other Jewish classmates, and the guys in the Jewish fraternity didn't care how Jewish I was.In fact, I have no Jewish beliefs at all, let alone a devout Christian.At this reunion, a few guys from the fraternity asked me some questions and gave me some advice, like that I should take the Calculus exam freshman year so I can get some free credit, etc.In hindsight, I found that to be good advice.I also kind of liked the fraternity guys I met in New York, and the two guys who got me into it became my roommates.

MIT also has a Jewish fraternity, referred to as SAM ().Their idea was to give me a lift to Boston (MIT is in Boston) and I could live in a fraternity first.I accepted their arrangement and spent my first night in Boston in an upstairs room at SAM's fraternity. I looked out the window the next morning and I happened to see these two guys I knew in New York.Several SAM fraternity members approached them, and a heated argument ensued.I yelled out the window, "Hey! I'm supposed to be with them!" and ran out, completely unaware that the parties were negotiating for my membership.I didn't feel particularly grateful for the hitchhiking, much less thought of anything else.

Nerds learn to communicate. The Fraternity of Fe Beta Delta had nearly collapsed the previous year due to a split in two factions.One group liked to socialize, dance, and drive around in cars after proms; They had a general meeting just before I joined as a member.There were major concessions and compromises between the two parties in the meeting, and finally they decided to unite and help each other: everyone's grades must be above a certain level, and if someone falls behind in homework, the school that specializes in books will tutor them , to help them do their homework.On the other hand, everyone had to go to the dance too, and if someone didn't know how to date a girl, the gregarious party had to find a way to find him a partner; if someone couldn't dance, they were responsible for teaching him.So one group taught others how to think, and the other group taught others how to communicate.

For me, this arrangement is just right, because I am not very social.Every time I walked in and out of the fraternity doors, I was overwhelmed with shyness and didn't know how to walk past them with frat seniors and their girlfriends sitting on the steps.Even if a girl says, "Oh! He's so cute!" it doesn't help. Not long after, the sophomore seniors brought their girlfriends and girlfriends' girlfriends to teach us how to dance.Later, a senior taught me to drive.They try really hard to teach us "smart" guys to dance, socialize, and take it easy; we also try to help them get through the hard times of schoolwork—it's a nice balance.

I don't think I'll ever figure out what exactly "sociable" means.After the gregarious guys taught me how to get girls, I was eating alone at a restaurant one day and saw a beautiful waitress.I finally worked up the courage to ask her if she would be my date at the next frat dance, and she said yes. Back at the fraternity, when everyone was discussing the date for the next prom, I told them that this time they didn't bother, that I had found my own date, and I was proud of myself.But when those seniors found out that my dance partner was actually a waitress, they were all shocked.They told me that would not work and that they would find another "suitable" partner for me.This leaves me feeling very lost.Later they also decided to come forward to deal with the matter.They went to the restaurant, found the waitress, talked her out, and found me another partner.They wanted to educate me, the "wayward child".I felt they were wrong the whole time, but I was just a freshman and didn't feel confident enough to stop them from ruining my date.

When I was formally sworn in, one of the various tricks they tried to tease the newcomers was to take us blindfolded out into the wilderness on a freezing winter day by the edge of a frozen lake.It was deserted, not a house to be seen, nothing, and we had to find our way back to the fraternity.Since everyone was young, it was kind of scary, but no one talked much, except for one guy named Mel, who kept joking and making stupid puns, resigned and didn't care, and seemed to say : "Ha! Nothing to worry about, isn't it fun?" We're getting more and more mad at Mel.Especially when everyone else was worried and didn't know how to find a way out, he was always a few steps behind us and kept joking about our situation.

Walking to the intersection not far from the lake, looking around, it is still desolate and there is nothing.Everyone was discussing which way to go when Mel caught up to us and said, "Go this way." "Mel, what do you know?" We were all pissed off, "You're always making jokes. Why should we go this way?" "It's easy, just look at these phone wires. A place with a lot of people must lead to a place with a lot of people.” This guy, who seems to be indifferent to everything, came up with this brilliant idea!We followed his instructions and walked all the way back to the city without going wrong.

been "kidnapped". The next day was a mud match between freshmen and sophomores in the whole school, that is to say, everyone wrestled and competed in the mud.Late that night, a group of sophomores ran to the fraternity and kidnapped us. Some of them were seniors in the fraternity, and some of them were from outside.They wanted to tire us out so they could easily win the next day. They tie up freshmen so easily, except for me, and I don't want my frat buddies to find out I'm a "sissy."I'm not good at sports, and when I play tennis, whenever the ball goes over the net and flies towards me, I'm afraid; because I can never hit the ball back, it always lands before it goes over the net.

But I found it was a new state, a new world, a new name I could make for myself.So, trying not to look like I can't fight, I wrestled with them like hell, and it took three or four guys a long way to tie me up.The sophomore took us to a room in the woods and strapped us all to the floor. I tried various ways to escape, but with the sophomore guarding us, all my schemes were ineffective.But there was one young man among whom they dared not tie, because he was so frightened that his face was blue and he kept shaking.I later found out that he was from Europe. It was the early 1930s, when Europe was in turmoil: he didn't understand that our kidnapping was a joke, and he was so frightened that it was unbearable to watch.

Before dawn, only 3 sophomores were left guarding our 20 freshmen, but we didn't know this situation.They drove the car in and out occasionally, making all sorts of noises, as if they were busy and active.It's a pity that we didn't notice that it was actually the same cars and the same people moving all the time. My parents happened to be there that day to see how our son was doing, and the frat guys were trying to hold it off until we were released.Since I hadn't slept all night and had struggled, I looked very sloppy.They were horrified to discover that their son had behaved like this at MIT.

After tossing and tossing that night, my neck was also stiff and I couldn't move.I remember standing in line for review that afternoon at ROTC, but I couldn't keep looking straight ahead.The commander grabbed my head and twisted it vigorously, shouting: "Look forward!" I put my head back, shoulders on one side, and said, "I can't help it, sir." "Oh, sorry!" He jumped. In any case, my long struggle against being tied up has earned me an excellent reputation.I'm so relieved that I don't have to worry about being "sissy" anymore! Two of my roommates are seniors, and I often sit in on their discussions about physics. One day they worked hard to solve a seemingly simple exercise.I finally couldn't bear it anymore and said, "Why don't you try the Burola Lala formula?" "What's that?" they cried. "What are you talking about?" I explained to them what I meant, and how to apply the equation to the problem, and I solved the problem.Later, I found out that I was referring to the "Bernoulli" equation.Since I got all this knowledge from encyclopedias and never discussed it with others before, I didn't know how to pronounce it correctly.But my two roommates were very happy. Since then, they have discussed their physics problems with me. Although my luck is not really that good, I still can't solve many problems.Interestingly, by the time I started taking physics classes in my sophomore year, my physics also improved by leaps and bounds.I often feel that practicing senior year physics problems and learning how to pronounce the correct sounds is a good way to get educated. Prom Adventures At a ball, I danced several times with a girl, but we didn't say anything.At the end she said, "You're--you're very good." I didn't quite understand what she meant, she had a bit of a hard time talking, but I guess she meant "You're a very good dancer." So I said : "Thank you, it was an honor to dance with you." We went to the table, and the friend who came with her also found a male companion, and the four of us sat together.Of the two girls, one was severely hard of hearing and the other was nearly deaf. When they talked, they used many quick gestures of sign language and occasionally made a little sound.I don't think it matters, they're nice people and they dance well. After a few more dances, we sat down and they started talking in sign language again, comparing each other.Finally, she finally said something to me.I guess she meant that we took them to a hotel somewhere. I asked the other guy if he wanted to go. "What do they want us to do in a hotel?" he asked. "I don't know, we haven't communicated that well yet." But I don't really need to know that, I just think it's fun.I'm curious what's going to happen, like an expedition. The other guy was scared and didn't want to go.In the end, I took the two girls to the hotel by taxi.When I arrived, I found out that there was a dance for the deaf. They were all members of the same club, and many people could feel the rhythm of the music, dance to it, and clap at the end of the music. It was so much fun!I feel like I am in a foreign country with a language barrier. Of course, I can still talk, but no one can hear me.Everyone was talking in sign language and I couldn't understand it at all!Later, I asked a girl to teach me a few simple sign languages, just like learning a foreign language, just for fun. Everyone was happy and at ease, joking with each other, smiling all over their faces, and there seemed to be no communication barriers.They talk like any other language, except for one thing: their heads keep turning when they're not communicating with sign language.It dawned on me what was going on: If someone wanted to cut in or interrupt someone, he couldn't yell, "Hey! Jack—" He could only sign language, so without the habit of looking around a lot, I didn't even notice that anyone wanted to intervene. They were so at ease together and it was a wonderful experience for me to find a way to be less awkward. The dance went on for a long time.After the dance, we went to the restaurant and we all ordered with our hands.While waiting for my meal, someone asked my dance partner in sign language: "Where are you from?" She also spelled in sign language: "New Yorker." Another person gestured to me: "Amazing!" He gave a thumbs up It means ding ba ba, this system really works. Everyone sat around and joked, and I blended into it unconsciously. Then I wanted to buy a bottle of milk, so I walked up to the counter and mouthed "milk" without making any sound. The counter clerk looked at me suspiciously. I made the gesture of "milk" again, and made the movement of milking the cow with both hands, but he still didn't understand. I tried pointing to where the milk was on the price list, but he still didn't seem to get it. Finally, someone next to me ordered milk, and I immediately pointed to the milk. "Oh! Milk!" he said, and I nodded, "Yes." He handed me a bottle of milk and I said, "Thank you very much!" "You bastard!" he said, laughing. When I was a bunch of clueless guys at MIT, I enjoyed playing tricks on people.Once in a mechanical drawing class, a joking classmate picked up a curve ruler and said, "I'm curious if there are any special equations for these curves on the curve ruler?" I thought about it and said: "Of course, these curves are very special curves. I will show them to you." I picked up a curve ruler and turned it slowly. "The characteristic of the curve ruler is that no matter how you turn it, the tangent line at the lowest point of each curve must be a horizontal line." So all the students in the class picked up the curve ruler, turned it at different angles, held a pencil in their hand, and compared the position of the tangent along the lowest point of the curve—of course, they found that the tangent was horizontal.They are all very excited about this "new discovery". In fact, they should not be surprised at all, because they have already learned calculus, and they have learned that the tangent line of the lowest point of the curve on any coordinate graph must be a horizontal line (in mathematics, the lowest point) The differential of each point is equal to zero); it's just that they didn't put two and two together, they don't even know what they "know"! Sometimes I really don't know what's wrong with people: they don't learn by knowing, but by rote or other methods, so the basis of knowledge is very weak. Years later, I tried the same trick again at Princeton.At the time, I was chatting with an experienced physicist who was a research assistant to Einstein and had a deep understanding of gravity.I asked him, if you are launched into space on a rocket, there is a clock in the rocket, and there is a clock on the ground.Assume that we require that the rocket must return to Earth when the clock on the ground has gone one hour, so you would want the clock on the rocket to be as far ahead as possible when the rocket starts to fly back to Earth.According to Einstein's theory, the higher the rocket flies, the smaller the gravitational force of the earth, and the faster the clock will go.But since you have to get back to Earth in an hour, you have to fly very fast, which slows down the clock, so you can't fly too high.The question is, how do you adjust the speed and altitude so that the clock on the rocket is as far ahead as possible? This Einstein's assistant studied for a long time before he realized that this problem was no different from the general problem of free fall.He only needs to imagine launching an object upwards, and then limit the total time it takes to fly up and down to no more than one hour, and that is the correct motion. In fact, this is one of Einstein's basic laws of gravity, that is, The so-called "proper time" - reaches the highest value for any real curve.Interestingly, when I asked him the clock and rockets, he didn't recognize the question. Although the level is different, he made the same problem as my classmates in mechanical drawing class.It seems that there are so many people with this kind of weakness, even those who are specialized in learning. During my junior and senior years, I frequented a restaurant in Boston.I used to eat there by myself for several nights in a row, so everyone in the restaurant knew me, and I was greeted by a waitress named Suzie. I noticed that they were always in such a hurry, running in and out.One day, just for fun, I put the tip—two nickels—in two glasses and filled the glasses with water.Cover the cup with a card, then turn the cup over on the table and remove the card.As I covered the glass tightly, no air could get in, so not a drop of water leaked out. I put the tips in two glasses because I know they are always busy, if I put all the tips in one glass, when they are clearing the table, they will pick up the glass in a hurry, and the water will flow out , and end there.Now the situation is, after she picks up the first cup and finds that there is water, what is she going to do with the second cup?She must not have dared to pick up the cup directly. As I walked out of the restaurant, I said to Suzie, "Careful, the glass you brought me is kind of weird. It's full on the top and has a hole in the bottom!" I went back to the restaurant the next day and found that they had a new waitress to greet me and Suzie didn't bother me anymore.The new waitress says: "Susie was furious. She asked the boss to come out. The two of them studied for a long time, but they didn't have time to discuss what to do. Finally, they decided to just pick up the second cup. As a result, the water flowed all over the table. It was a mess, and Suzie slipped, and they were all pissed." I laugh out loud.She said: "It's not funny at all. What would you do if someone did this to you?" “I’ll take a soup bowl and very carefully slide the glass over the edge of the table and let the water flow into the soup bowl so it doesn’t spill onto the floor. Then, I pick up the copper plate.” "Oh! That's a good idea," she said. That night, I flipped the coffee cup over on the table and put the tip inside. When I got to the restaurant the next night, I was greeted by the same waiter. "Why did you cover your coffee cup on the table last night?" "I mean, even if you're in such a hurry, you'll run back to the kitchen, get a soup bowl, and slowly and carefully move the glass to the table..." She complained: "That's what I did, but there was no water in the glass!" A classic of my pranks is in a frat house. I woke up very early one morning, maybe around 5 o'clock, and I couldn't fall back asleep.I went downstairs and was greeted by a poster saying, "Gate! Door!Who stole this door? ’ Someone removed the door from its hinges, which had a sign on it saying: ‘Please close! " I knew right away what was going on.There was a guy named Bennis and a few other boys who lived in that room. They were very hardworking and didn't like other people's noise. If you wandered into their room to find something or ask them about homework, they would yell when you left: " Please close the door!" Apparently someone didn't like what they were doing, so the door was removed.But this room originally had left and right doors, so I came up with an idea: I removed the other door as well, moved downstairs, hid behind the oil sump in the basement, and quietly went back upstairs to sleep. I pretended to get up late that morning, and when I went downstairs, I saw other people running around like headless chickens. Bennis and his friends were very upset: the door was missing, and they had to read... When they saw me, they Then asked: "Feynman, did you take the door away?" "Oh! Yes!" I said. "Look at the scratch marks on my knuckles, which I scratched on the wall when I moved the door to the basement." They weren't satisfied with the answer; they didn't believe me at all! The guys who stole the first door left too many clues, such as the handwriting on the sign - they soon found out whose masterpiece it was.My opinion is: When they find out who stole the first door, everyone will think he stole the second door too.My plan worked out perfectly, the guys who stole the first door were tortured by everyone.After much ordeal, they finally convinced their extractors that they only stole one door, although the claim was too implausible. I watched with cold eyes, and found it very amusing. The other door disappeared for a whole week, and Bennis and the others became more and more anxious.Finally, in order to solve the problem, the president of the fraternity announced over dinner: "We have to solve this problem. But I can't do anything about this problem myself. So I hope you can make some suggestions, Bennis They really want to Study hard." Everyone made suggestions. After a while, I stood up and said, "Okay!" I put on an aggrieved tone, "Whoever stole this door, we know you're great, you're smart! We can't guess who you are." Who, you must be a super genius! Don't tell us who you are, we just want to know where the door is; so you just leave a note somewhere telling us where the door is, and we'll honor you as a wizard forever.You're too smart to steal the door without us guessing who you are.But for heaven's sake, leave us a note!We will be forever grateful to you. " Then a guy stood up and said, "I've got another idea. As president, you should ask everybody to vouch for their fraternity's honor and say they didn't steal the door." The president said: "This is a really good idea! I swear on the honor of the membership to tell the truth!" So he walked around the table and asked one by one: "Jack, did you steal the door?" "No, I didn't steal the door." "Tim, did you steal the door?" "No, I didn't steal the door." "Maurice, did you steal the door?" "No, I didn't steal the door." "Feynman, did you steal the door?" "Yes! I stole the door." "Stop it! Feynman, we are serious! Sam, did you steal it?" He circled around and everyone was shocked, there must be some real scumbag in the fraternity who didn't respect the honor of being a fraternity member! That night, I left a note with a drawing of an oil tank with a door next to it.The next day, they took the door out and put it back on. When I finally admitted that I had stolen the door, I was immediately accused of lying.But they don't remember what I said, they just remember when the fraternity president went around and asked everyone and concluded that no one admitted to stealing the door.They only remember the general results, not what each person actually said. Many people often think that I am a liar, but in fact I am very honest, but I am often so honest that no one will believe it!