"Ричард Фейнман. Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!/Вы, конечно, шутите, мистер Фейнман! (англ.)" - читать интересную книгу автора

doing these experiments on the ants, so I thought to myself, "What can I do
to stop them from coming to my larder without killing any ants? No poison;
you gotta be humane to the ants!"
What I did was this: In preparation, I put a bit of sugar about six or
eight inches from their entry point into the room, that they didn't know
about. Then I made those ferry things again, and whenever an ant returning
with food walked onto my little ferry, I'd carry him over and put him on the
sugar. Any ant coming toward the larder that walked onto a ferry I also
carried over to the sugar. Eventually the ants found their way from the
sugar to their hole, so this new trail was being doubly reinforced, while
the old trail was being used less and less. I knew that after half an hour
or so the old trail would dry up, and in an hour they were out of my larder.
I didn't wash the floor; I didn't do anything but ferry ants.



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Part 3


Feynman, the Bomb, and the Military



----
Fizzled Fuses


When the war began in Europe but had not yet been declared in the
United States, there was a lot of talk about getting ready and being
patriotic. The newspapers had big articles on businessmen volunteering to go
to Plattsburg, New York, to do military training, and so on.
I began to think I ought to make some kind of contribution, too. After
I finished up at MIT, a friend of mine from the fraternity, Maurice Meyer,
who was in the Army Signal Corps, took me to see a colonel at the Signal
Corps offices in New York.
"I'd like to aid my country, sir, and since I'm technically-minded,
maybe there's a way I could help."
"Well, you'd better just go up to Plattsburg to boot camp and go
through basic training. Then we'll be able to use you," the colonel said.
"But isn't there some way to use my talent more directly?"
"No; this is the way the army is organized. Go through the regular
way."
I went outside and sat in the park to think about it. I thought and
thought: Maybe the best way to make a contribution is to go along with their
way. But fortunately, I thought a little more, and said, "To hell with it!
I'll wait awhile. Maybe something will happen where they can use me more
effectively."
I went to Princeton to do graduate work, and in the spring I went once
again to the Bell Labs in New York to apply for a summer job. I loved to