The image originates from the internet
True wisdom in laughter
Feynman
Momotaro, I surrender!
That year in Brazil, towards the end of the year, I received a letter from Professor Wheeler.
He said that Japan was about to hold an international conference on theoretical physics and asked me if I would like to participate. Before the war, Japan produced several well-known physicists, such as Nobel Prize winner Hideki Yukawa (1907-1981), Asahino Shinichiro (1906-1979), and Yoshio Renko (1890-1951). But the holding of this meeting was the first sign of Japan's renewed vitality after the war; we all felt that we should participate in order to help them move forward.
Wheeler said in his letter that it would be better if we could learn a little Japanese first, and he also attached a reading book of military phrases. I found a Japanese woman who corrected my pronunciation, practiced picking up the scraps of paper with chopsticks, and read a lot of books about Japan. At that time, Japan was a mysterious country for me, and I thought it would be interesting to go to a strange and wonderful country, so I worked very hard.
On arrival in Japan, we were picked up at the airport and taken to a hotel in Tokyo designed by a famous architect, Frank Lloyd Wright. It was a European-style hotel, and their European style was so thorough that even the waiters wore full Western uniforms. It didn't feel like we were in Japan, we were in Europe or the United States. The waiter who took us to the room walked around, pulled the shutters up and down, and waited for us to tip - american style everywhere!
Our hosts arranged everything. On the first night, we dined on the top floor of the hotel, greeted by a Japanese woman in a kimono with the menu still written in English. It took me a lot of effort to learn some Japanese, so toward the end of dinner, I said to the waitress, "コ——ヒ-を持てきて下さぃ." She bowed, and went out.
My friend Marsak asked in a loud voice, "What?" What the? ”
"I'm speaking Japanese," I said.
"Oh, you liar! You're kidding, Feynman. ”
"What do you mean?" I'm serious.
"Okay! What were you talking about? He said.
"I asked her to give us coffee."
Marschakh didn't believe it. "I'll bet you," he said, "if she comes in with coffee..."
The waitress showed up with coffee, and Marschak lost.
It turned out that I was the only one who had learned a little Japanese, and I couldn't stand it, even Professor Wheeler, who asked us to learn Japanese, didn't bother to learn it myself. I've read a bit about Japanese hotels, and Japanese-style hotels should be very different from the one we stayed in!
Japanese culture is really strange
The next morning, I invited the Japanese who had arranged the itinerary for us to come to my room. I said, "I want to stay in a Japanese-style hotel." ”
"Professor Feynman, I'm afraid this is impossible."
I read in books that the Japanese are polite, but also very stubborn; you have to keep working. So I decided to be as stubborn as they were, and just as polite as they were. It was a mental battle, and we kept grinding it over and over for half an hour.
"Why did you want to stay in a ryokan instead?"
"Because in this hotel, you can't feel like you're in Japan."
"The ryokan is not good, you have to sleep on the floor."
"I just wanted to, I want to taste what it's like."
"And there's no chair there, so you sit directly on the floor in front of the table."
"It's okay, it's good, I'm just looking for a place like this."
Finally, he confessed: "If you stay in another hotel, the bus will take a detour to pick you up for a meeting." ”
"No! No! I said, "I'll pick up my own ride at this hotel in the morning." ”
"Okay, well, that's fine." The result is so simple, it only takes half an hour to talk about the real problem.
He was about to walk over to the phone to call another hotel when he suddenly remembered what had stopped. Things are hitting rocks again. It took me another fifteen minutes to figure it out, and this time the problem was in the mail, in case there was any letter to be sent from the venue?
They have already made proper mail delivery arrangements at this hotel!
"It doesn't matter," I said, "when I come to catch the bus in the morning, I'll go to the hotel first to see if I have any letters." ”
"Okay, then it's no problem." He made a call and we finally hit the road to the ryokan.
As soon as I arrived at the hotel, I knew it was worth it: the hotel was so cute, there was a place in front of its gate for you to take off your shoes, and then there was a girl in a traditional kimono, with slippers on her feet, coming out and picking up your luggage. You have to follow her through the mat floor of the hallway, through the paper door, only to hear her "paint-paint-paint" stepping on the broken step. Everything was so beautiful!
After entering my room, the Japanese who arranged things for me were lying on the floor, their noses against the floor, and the waitresses knelt down and pressed their noses to the floor. I feel overwhelmed, should I also put my nose on the floor?
It turned out that they were greeting each other, and he accepted the room for me.
It was a great room. Today everyone is familiar with the standard equipment of Japanese-style rooms, but at that time, everything was a new experience for me. A painting hangs in a small indented area on the wall; a vase is elegantly lined with willow branches, a table is placed on the floor with a chair cushion next to it; there are two paper doors at one end of the room, which are pushed open and directly facing the garden.
The waitress who greeted me was a middle-aged woman. She helped me take off my coat and gave me a kimono—a simple blue-and-white robe—that I could wear in the hotel.
I pushed open the door to admire the loveliness of the garden and then sat down at the table to do something.
Ten or twenty minutes later, something seemed to catch my eye. I looked up in the direction of the garden and saw a beautiful young Japanese woman, dressed in cute clothes, sitting on the entrance.
I read a lot about Japanese customs and knew why she had been sent to my room. I thought, "That might be fun!" ”
She speaks a little English. "Do you like to visit the garden?" she asked.
I put on my shoes, put on my kimono and walked out. She put her arm around me and pointed out the view of the garden to show me.
Later, I found out that it was only because she knew a little English that the hotel manager thought I would probably like her to take me around the garden, it was as simple as that. Of course, I was a little disappointed, but I know that when there is a cultural exchange between the East and the West, it is easy to misunderstand.
Make yourself Japanese
After a while, the waitress came in and said a few words in Japanese—it had to do with bathing. I knew Japanese bathing was fun and I was tempted to give it a try, so I said, "Good! ”
The book says that Japanese bathing is complicated, and they put a lot of water in the bath and heat it from the outside. You can't put soap in the bath water and get the water dirty – so the next person can't wash it.
I walked to the bathroom, where the bath was over there. Although there was a door in the middle and it was closed, I could hear someone taking a shower next door. Suddenly the door opened and the man who was taking a shower came out to see who had broken in. "Professor!" He said to me in English, "It's a terrible mistake for someone else to walk into the bathroom like this while they're in the shower!" "It's Actually Professor Yukawa!"
He told me that there was no doubt that the waitress was asking me if I wanted to take a shower; if so, she would prepare it for me first and notify me when the bathroom was vacant. When I made such a serious social mistake, I was really glad that the other person was Professor Yukawa and not anyone else.
This Japanese inn is very pleasant and the service is especially attentive when other people come to visit me. When someone came to my room, we sat on the floor and talked.
In less than 5 minutes, the waitress came in with a tea tray with tea and candy on it, as if entertaining guests at home. In the United States, if someone comes to visit you in a hotel room, no one will pay attention to you, and you have to call someone to serve you. Dining here is also different. When you eat, the girl who brings food in will always be by your side, so you are not alone in eating; although I can't talk to this girl in depth, it doesn't matter. The food is also very special, for example, the soup is served in a small bowl with a lid, and when the lid is opened, it presents a beautiful picture: a little green onion floating on the delicious soup, which is really wonderful.
For Japanese people, the appearance of food is also important.
I decided to live a Japanese life as much as possible, but that meant I had to eat a lot of fish. I didn't like to eat fish since I was a kid, but I found that it was childish not to eat fish in Japan, and I ate a lot of fish there and enjoyed it.
(When I got back to the United States, the first thing I would do was run to the place where the fish were sold, but it was horrible—just like before, I couldn't stand it.) Later I found out why: it turned out that the fish had to be very, very fresh, otherwise it would have some strange smell that I hated. ）
Once, I was eating at a ryokan, and they brought a yellow liquid with something round, hard, egg yolk-sized. Until then, I had eaten everything, but this thing frightened me, and it looked like it was tangled up, like a brain. I asked the waitress what it was, and she replied, "Kuri." "It didn't help me much, I guess it was probably octopus eggs or something like that." I ate it in a creepy way because I wanted to be as Japanese as possible (for 30 years, I remembered "Kuri").
The word, as if it were something life-threatening).
The next day, I asked a Japanese person at the venue what "Kuri" really was.
I told him I found it hard to swallow.
"That's chestnuts." He replied.
What am I doing wrong?
The Japanese dialect I learned has really played a big role in many times.
Once, when the bus was delayed, a guy said, "Hey, Feynman! You know Japanese, tell them to hurry up! ”
Gatsujo: "Hak, Hak, Iku, Ikumashou! "Will" good point! A good point! Run! Run! ”
I immediately noticed that my Japanese was probably not a common language. I learned these words from the army's fragmentary readings, and they must have been very rude; for the people in the hotel ran away like rats in a panic, saying, "Yes!" be! ”
And the car immediately drove away.
The conference in Japan is divided into two parts, half in Tokyo and the other half in Kyoto. On the way to Kyoto, I told my friend Abraham Pais about the ryokan, and he wanted to try it too. We stayed at a hotel called "Miyakoku", where there are Japanese and American rooms, and Pais and I shared a Japanese-style room.
The next morning the young waitress who took care of our room prepared the bath water for us, and the bath tub was in the room. After a while, she came in with breakfast, and I was not yet dressed. She turned to me and greeted me politely: "ぉはょぅござぃます (good morning)." ”
The school is a good bathroom, and it is one thing in the body, and it drips. 她转样 self-youth: "Oh goza. ”
Then put the breakfast plate down.
Pais looked at me and said, "Oh my God, we're so uncivilized. ”
In the United States, when the waitress comes to deliver breakfast, if the male tenant is seen standing there naked, the custodian will scream and trouble. But in Japan, they are completely accustomed to it. We feel that they are more advanced and civilized than we are in these things.
During this time, I was studying the theory of liquid helium and discovered that the laws of quantum dynamics could be used to explain the phenomenon of "superfluidity." I am proud of this and will present my research and findings at the Kyoto conference.
The night before the presentation, sitting next to me in the dinner party happened to be Professor LarsOnsager. He is a titan of solid-state physics and liquid helium problems, and he is also the kind of scholar who does not make a sound and is a blockbuster.
"Feynman," he said in a hoarse voice, "you think you know liquid helium. ”
"Uh, yes..."
"Ahem!" That was the only passage he had ever said to me all night, and it wasn't very encouraging.
The next day I published a report on what I knew about liquid helium theory. At the end, I complain that I still have some confusion about liquid helium: is the phase conversion of liquid helium—from one phase to another—a first orderer" (for example, when a solid melts or a liquid boils, the temperature is constant at that time) or a second stage (such as some phenomenon seen in magnets, in which the temperature is constantly changing)?
Professor Onsag stood up and said in his cold voice, "Professor Feynman is still a novice in our field, and I think he needs a little guidance." There are some things he should know and we should teach him. ”
I thought to myself, "Oh my God! What am I doing wrong? ”
"We should tell him that no one has ever been able to start with a basic theory and develop any phase transitions of order of magnitude," Onsage said. Therefore, if his theory does not allow him to correctly calculate the order of magnitude, it does not mean that he has not yet fully understood the other layers of liquid helium. "It turns out that all he's going to say is a compliment!" But the tone of his speech at the beginning made me think that this time it would be repaired miserably!
Trees beckon
Less than a day later, I was in my room when I got a call from Time Magazine, and the caller said, "We're very interested in your research, can you send us a report?" ”
I've never been in Time magazine and I'm excited. I was very proud of my research, and the results were well received at the conference, so I said, "Of course!" ”
"It was good. Please send it to our office in Tokyo. "He gave me the address and I thought it was fantastic.
I repeated the address and the man said, "That's right. Thank you very much, Mr. Pais. ”
"Oh no!" I said in shock, "I'm not Pais, are you looking for Pais?" I'm sorry, when he comes back, I'll tell him you're going to talk to him. ”
A few hours later Pais returned: "Hey, Pais! Pais! I said excitedly, "Time Magazine called!" They want you to send a copy of the report you just published. ”
"Oh!" He said, "It's not a good thing to be in the limelight!" ”
I was shocked.
As I went on, I slowly discovered that Pais was right; but at the time, I thought it would be great if my name could appear in Time Magazine.
Enjoyable trip to Japan
It was my first time in Japan. I would love to go back again, and I told them that as long as there was a university that wanted me, I would go. So the Japanese arranged a series of locations for me to stay in each place for a few days.
By this time, I was married to Marylou, and we were well received wherever we went. There was a place that specially arranged a set of dance ceremonies for us, usually they only perform for large groups. In another place, all the students ran to the boat to meet us; in another place, even the mayor himself came to meet us.
There is one place that is very special, we live in a simple hut in the woods, that is where the emperor came to live here. The place is lovely, surrounded by woods and has a secluded beauty. The emperor would come to such a place to stay, indicating that his feelings for nature were much stronger than those of us in the West.
In every place, people who study physics tell me what research they're doing, and I talk to them about it. They'll tell me the general direction they're working on and start writing down a bunch of equations.
"Wait a minute," I said, "are there any examples of the problem you are talking about?" ”
"Absolutely."
"Well, so let's take an example." This is my style: unless I can have a specific example in my head and then calculate it according to this particular case, I cannot understand what they say. So a lot of people start out thinking I'm a bit slow and don't understand the problem because I ask a bunch of stupid questions like "Is the cathode positive or negative?" Is the anion this or that? ”
But after a while, when those guys wrote down a whole bunch of equations and stopped to explain something, I would say, "Wait a minute! There's a bug here!
This can't be true! “
The guy stared at his equations, and sure enough, after a while, he found the error, and then began to understand how this guy, who knew almost nothing at first, could find a way to find the error in this mess of equations?
He thought I was following him step by step, but it wasn't. What I had in mind was a particular, practical example in the theory he was analyzing, and based on past experience and intuition, I was well aware of the characteristics of this example. So when the equations should be how, I knew that was a step wrong inference, so I jumped up and said, "Wait a minute! There's a bug there! ”
So, in Japan, unless they give me an actual example, I have no way to understand or discuss their research work, but most people can't come up with such an example. The examples given are often extremely weak and can be solved in other, simpler ways.
Since I always asked people to give me practical examples rather than to write mathematical equations, there was a mimeographed journal circulating among scientists (a simple and effective way of disseminating information that they devised after the war) that summarized my visits around Japan with the headline "Feynman's Bombing and Our Response."
After visiting several universities, I spent several months at the Yukawa Research Institute in Kyoto. I really like working there, and it's all so beautiful: in the morning you go to work, take off your shoes, and when you want to have tea, someone comes up and offers you a cup of tea. It was so pleasant!
Surrender to The Japanese
When I was in Kyoto, I worked hard to learn Japanese, worked harder than before, and then progressed to the point where I could take a taxi to run around and do things. During that time, I studied Japanese with a Japanese person for an hour a day.
One day, he was teaching me the Japanese word "look." "Okay,"
He said, "If you want to say, 'Can I have a look at your garden?' 'What should you say?' "I made a sentence out of words I had just learned.
"No, no!" He said: "When you say, 'Would you like to see my garden?' You use the first 'look', but when you want to see someone else's garden, you have to use the other 'look' word, which is more polite. “
Basically, the implication of the first statement is "Do you want to take a look at my rotten garden?" But when you want to see someone else's garden, you have to say something like, "Can I visit your beautiful garden?" Such words. Because you have to use two different words.
Then he came up with another question: "You go to the temple and want to see the garden there..."
I created a sentence, and this time I used the polite word "look."
"No, no!" He said: "The garden in the temple is more and more elegant. So you should speak in a tone like, 'Can I keep my eyes on your elegant garden?' ’”
The same concept is expressed in three or four different words, just because when I do it, it is terrible, but when it is you, it is very elegant.
The main reason I studied Japanese was to discuss professional things, so I planned to see if the same problem could happen to scientists.
The next day I asked my Japanese colleague at the institute, "What do you say in Japanese, 'I solved the Dirac equation?'" ”
They taught me to say.
"Okay. Now I'm going to say, "Would you please solve the Dirac equation?" 'What am I going to say?' “
"Well, you'll have to use different 'solutions.'" They said.
"Why?" I protested, "Whether I solve the equation or you solve the equation, we're doing the same ghost thing!" ”
"Yes, yes, but with different words — it's politeer."
I surrendered. I felt that Japanese was not learned by people like me, so I stopped learning Japanese.
(From "Don't Make Trouble, Mr. Feynman" [Beauty] Feynman / Wu Chengyuan / Life, Reading, Xinzhi Triptych Bookstore / 2005)
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