"Ричард Фейнман. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!/Вы, конечно, шутите, мистер Фейнман! (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора But when we had to write a theme on Goethe's Faust, it was hopeless!
The work was too long to make a parody of it or to invent something else. I was storming back and forth in the fraternity saying, "I can't do it. I'm just not gonna do it. I ain't gonna do it!" One of my fraternity brothers said, "OK, Feynman, you're not gonna do it. But the professor will think you didn't do it because you don't want to do the work. You oughta write a theme on something - same number of words - and hand it in with a note saying that you just couldn't understand the Faust, you haven't got the heart for it, and that it's impossible for you to write a theme on it." So I did that. I wrote a long theme, "On the Limitations of Reason." I had thought about scientific techniques for solving problems, and how there are certain limitations: moral values cannot be decided by scientific methods, yak, yak, yak, and so on. Then another fraternity brother offered some more advice. "Feynman," he said, "it ain't gonna work, handing in a theme that's got nothing to do with Faust. What you oughta do is work that thing you wrote into the Faust." "Ridiculous!" I said. But the other fraternity guys think it's a good idea. "All right, all right!" I say, protesting. "I'll try." So I added half a page to what I had already written, and said that Mephistopheles represents reason, and Faust represents the spirit, and Goethe is trying to show the limitations of reason. I stirred it up, cranked it all in, and handed in my theme. The professor had us each come in individually to discuss our theme. I He said, "The introductory material is fine, but the Faust material is a bit too brief. Otherwise, it's very good - B+ ." I escaped again! Now to the philosophy class. The course was taught by an old bearded professor named Robinson, who always mumbled. I would go to the class, and he would mumble along, and I couldn't understand a thing. The other people in the class seemed to understand him better, but they didn't seem to pay any attention. I happened to have a small drill, about one-sixteenth-inch, and to pass the time in that class, I would twist it between my fingers and drill holes in the sole of my shoe, week after week. Finally one day at the end of the class, Professor Robinson went "wugga mugga mugga wugga wugga..." and everybody got excited! They were all talking to each other and discussing, so I figured he'd said something interesting, thank God! I wondered what it was? I asked somebody, and they said, "We have to write a theme, and hand it in in four weeks." "A theme on what?" "On what he's been talking about all year." I was stuck. The only thing that I had heard during that entire term that I could remember was a moment when there came this upwelling, "muggawuggastreamofconsciousnessmuggawugga," and phoom! - it sank back into chaos. This "stream of consciousness" reminded me of a problem my father had given to me many years before. He said, "Suppose some Martians were to come down to earth, and Martians never slept, but instead were perpetually |
|
|