Chapter 13 The second part accidentally broke into Princeton-5

I often describe myself as an "unliterate" or "anti-intellectual" molecular.The reason why it became like this, I think the reason can be traced back to middle school. At that time, I worried all day long that I was too sissy, like a weak scholar. For me, a real man doesn't put his mind on things like poems and songs.I never even thought about how poems are written!That's why I can't stand boys who read "elegant" things like French literature, music or poetry.I prefer a steelworker, a welder, or a machine room mechanic.I often feel that the real men are those who work in the machine room and make things!That was my mentality back then.

It seems to me that being a practical person is a virtue, but being "literate" or "intellectual" is not.The former sentence is certainly true, but in fact the latter idea is extremely absurd. Anyway, after I got to the Princeton Academy, I still had that mentality, and you'll see what I mean later.At that time I often ate in a small and elegant restaurant called "Papa's Restaurant".One day, while I was eating there, a painter in overalls came down from upstairs and sat near me. He had been hired by the owner of the restaurant to paint the upstairs room.I forget how it all started, we started talking and he mentioned that there is so much to learn in the paint business. "For example," he said, "take this restaurant, if you had to decide, what color would you paint the walls here?"

I said I didn't know, and he said: "At this height, you need to paint a wide dark strip, because the guests sitting on the dining chair will always rub their elbows on the wall. So this Some parts cannot be white, otherwise it will be easily stained. But going up is the opposite, because that can make customers feel that the restaurant is clean. " The guy seemed to be very good at it, and I just sat there and listened dumbfounded. What colors were used to make it?" I'm not sure how to call up the yellow paint.If it was light, I knew it was going to be green and red, but he was talking about paint.So I said, "If you don't use yellow paint, I don't know how you get yellow."

"Oh," said he, "if you mix red with white, you can make yellow." "Are you sure you can't make it pink?" "No," he said, "you got yellow." I believed him because he was a professional painter, and I've always looked up to that type of guy, but I still don't understand how he did it. point. Suddenly an idea occurred to me, and I said, "That must be caused by some chemical change. You must be using some special pigments that cause chemical changes?" "No," he said, "any paint will do. You go 'fifty and dime'

I bought some paint from the cheap store, which is the usual red paint and white paint. I will mix some yellow paint and show you. " That's when I thought, "That's weird. I don't know anything about paint, you can't get yellow. But he's pretty sure he can get yellow. That's interesting. I'm going to see." !" So I said, "Okay, I'm going to buy paint." The painter went back upstairs to continue his work, and the restaurant owner came up to me and said: "Why are you still arguing with him? He is a painter, and he has been a painter all his life. And he said he can make it yellow, why are you arguing with him?"

I felt embarrassed and didn't know what to say.Finally I said, "I've been studying light all my life. I don't think red and white can make yellow, but only pink." I literally went to the nickel and dime store, bought the paint, and went back to the diner. The painter came down from upstairs, and the restaurateur joined in the fun.I put two cans of paint on an old chair and the painter mixed the paint.He added a little red, and a little white, but it still looked pink; he went on adding and adjusting and adjusting.Finally he mumbled something like "I used to carry a small bottle of yellow with me, and I added it to make it brighter, and then it became yellow."

"Oh!" I said, "of course! You add yellow and of course you get yellow, but you can't do it without yellow." The painter went back upstairs to work on his own. At this time, the owner of the restaurant said: "That guy is so courageous, he dared to argue with someone who has studied light all his life!" It shows how much I trust these "real men" from this incident.The painter told me many reasonable things, which led me to believe that there might be a strange phenomenon which I was not aware of.Although I was expecting to see pink, I thought, "If he does come up with yellow, that must be some interesting new way of doing it, I'll have to see."

I often make similar mistakes when studying physics.I sometimes feel that a certain theory is not as perfect as it seems on the surface, and feel that at some point, side effects will arise and destroy it.So my attitude is: "Anything can happen, although you may actually be pretty sure what should happen."