Surely You

By+Richard+Feynman+++張玲++辛彩娜

理查德·費曼（Richard Feynman， 1918～1988），美國著名物理學家，1918年出生于美國的一個猶太家庭，年少時就熱衷于觀察、思考和做實驗，喜歡惡作劇。他曾相繼就讀于麻省理工學院和普林斯頓大學，獲理論物理學博士；之后參加了研制原子彈的曼哈頓計劃，與愛因斯坦等偉大的物理學家和數學家共事；二戰后相繼執教于康奈爾大學和加州理工學院，深受學生歡迎。1965年，費曼因在量子電動力學方面的貢獻獲得諾貝爾物理獎。《別鬧了，費曼先生》（Surely You're Joking， Mr. Feynman）可以說是費曼的回憶錄，記述了費曼人生中精彩有趣的片段。他對物理和自己感興趣的領域專注執著的追求令人動容，他人生中那些像頑童似的惡作劇令人捧腹，他對科學的嚴謹治學與真知灼見也令人受益匪淺。

費曼為什么要研究物理？是奔著某個目標去做的嗎？讀完下文費曼的煩惱后，你就會明白，一切皆源于這是他喜歡做的事，與其他無關。

精彩片段

At Cornell， I'd work on preparing my courses， and I'd go over to the library a lot and read through The Arabian Nights and ogle1） the girls that would go by. But when it came time to do some research， I couldn't get to work. I was a bit tired； I was not interested； I couldn't do research！ This went on for what I felt was a few years， but when I go back and calculate the timing， it couldn't have been that long. Perhaps nowadays I wouldn't think it was such a long time， but then， it seemed to go on for a very long time. I simply couldn't get started on any problem： I remember writing one or two sentences about some problem in gamma rays and then I couldn't go any further. I was convinced that from the war and everything else （the death of my wife） I had simply burned myself out2）.

During this period I would get offers from different places—universities and industry—with salaries higher than my own. And each time I got something like that I would get a little more depressed. I would say to myself， "Look， they're giving me these wonderful offers， but they don't realize that I'm burned out！ Of course I can't accept them. They expect me to accomplish something， and I can't accomplish anything！ I have no ideas ..."

Then I had another thought： physics disgusts me a little bit now， but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it？ I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing—it didn't have anything to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics， but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. When I was in high school， I'd see water running out of a faucet3） growing narrower， and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn't have to do it； it wasn't important for the future of science； somebody else had already done it. That didn't make any difference： I'd invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.

So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything， I've got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy， and just like I read The Arabian Nights for pleasure， I'm going to play with physics， whenever I want to， without worrying about any importance whatsoever.endprint