Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (29 page)

At the end of the academic year, the students asked me to give a talk about my experiences of teaching in Brazil. At the talk there would be not only students, but professors and government officials, so I made them promise that I could say whatever I wanted. They said, “Sure. Of course. It’s a free country.”

So I came in, carrying the elementary physics textbook that they used in the first year of college. They thought this book was especially good because it had different kinds of typeface–bold black for the most important things to remember, lighter for less important things, and so on.

Right away somebody said, “You’re not going to say anything bad about the textbook, are you? The man who wrote it is here, and everybody thinks it’s a good textbook.”

“You promised I could say whatever I wanted.”

The lecture hall was full. I started out by defining science as an understanding of the behavior of nature. Then I asked, “What is a good reason for teaching science? Of course, no country can consider itself civilized unless . . . yak, yak, yak.” They were all sitting there nodding, because I know that’s the way they think.

Then I say, “That, of course, is absurd, because why should we feel we have to keep up with another country? We have to do it for a _good_ reason, a _sensible_ reason; not just because other countries do.” Then I talked about the utility of science, and its contribution to the improvement of the human condition, and all that–I really teased them a little bit.

Then I say, “The main purpose of my talk is to demonstrate to you that _no_ science is being taught in Brazil!”

I can see them stir, thinking, “What? No science? This is absolutely crazy! We have all these classes.”

So I tell them that one of the first things to strike me when I came to Brazil was to see elementary school kids in bookstores, buying physics books. There are so many kids learning physics in Brazil, beginning much earlier than kids do in the United States, that it’s amazing you don’t find many physicists in Brazil–why is that? So many kids are working so hard, and nothing comes of it.

Then I gave the analogy of a Greek scholar who loves the Greek language, who knows that in his own country there aren’t many children studying Greek. But he comes to another country, where he is delighted to find everybody studying Greek–even the smaller kids in the elementary schools. He goes to the examination of a student who is coming to get his degree in Greek, and asks him, “What were Socrates’ ideas on the relationship between Truth and Beauty?”–and the student can’t answer. Then he asks the student, What did Socrates say to Plato in the Third Symposium?” the student lights up and goes, “_Brrrrrrrrr-up_”–he tells you everything, word for word, that Socrates said, in beautiful Greek.

But what Socrates was talking about in the Third Symposium was the relationship between Truth and Beauty!

What this Greek scholar discovers is, the students in another country learn Greek by first learning to pronounce the letters, then the words, and then sentences and paragraphs. They can recite, word for word, what Socrates said, without realizing that those Greek words actually _mean_ something. To the student they are all artificial sounds. Nobody has ever translated them into words the students can understand.

I said, “That’s how it looks to me, when I see you teaching the kids ’science’ here in Brazil.” (Big blast, right?)

Then I held up the elementary physics textbook they were using. “There are no experimental results mentioned anywhere in this book, except in one place where there is a ball, rolling down an inclined plane, in which it says how far the ball got after one second, two seconds, three seconds, and so on. The numbers have ‘errors’ in them–that is, if you look at them, you think you’re looking at experimental results, because the numbers are a little above, or a little below, the theoretical values. The book even talks about having to correct the experimental errors–very fine. The trouble is, when you calculate the value of the acceleration constant from these values, you get the right answer. But a ball rolling down an inclined plane, _if it is actually done_, has an inertia to get it to turn, and will, _if you do the experiment_, produce five-sevenths of the right answer, because of the extra energy needed to go into the rotation of the ball. Therefore this single example of experimental ‘results’ is obtained from a _fake_ experiment. Nobody had rolled such a ball, or they would never have gotten those results!

“I have discovered something else,” I continued. “By flipping the pages at random, and putting my finger in and reading the sentences on that page, I can show you what’s the matter–how it’s not science, but memorizing, in every circumstance. Therefore I am brave enough to flip through the pages now, in front of this audience, to put my finger in, to read, and to show you.”

So I did it. _Brrrrrrrup_–I stuck my finger in, and I started to read: “Triboluminescence. Triboluminescence is the light emitted when crystals are crushed..

I said, “And there, have you got science? No! You have only told what a word means in terms of other words. You haven’t told anything about nature-what crystals produce light when you crush them, _why_ they produce light. Did you see any student go home and _try_ it? He can’t.

“But if, instead, you were to write, ‘When you take a lump of sugar and crush it with a pair of pliers in the dark, you can see a bluish flash. Some other crystals do that too. Nobody knows why. The phenomenon is called “triboluminescence.”‘ Then someone will go home and try it. Then there’s an experience of nature.” I used that example to show them, but it didn’t make any difference where I would have put my finger in the book; it was like that everywhere.

Finally, I said that I couldn’t see how anyone could he educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, and teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything. “However,” I said, “I must be wrong. There were two students in my class who did very well, and one of the physicists I know was educated entirely in Brazil. Thus, it must be possible for some people to work their way through the system, had as it is.”

Well, after I gave the talk, the head of the science education department got up and said, “Mr. Feynman has told us some things that are very hard for us to hear, but it appears to he that he really loves science, and is sincere in his criticism. Therefore, I think we should listen to him. I came here knowing we have some sickness in our system of education; what I have learned is that we have a _cancer!_”–and he sat down.

That gave other people the freedom to speak out, and there was a big excitement. Everybody was getting up and making suggestions. The students got some committee together to mimeograph the lectures in advance, and they got other committees organized to do this and that.

Then something happened which was totally unexpected for me. One of the students got up and said, “I’m one of the two students whom Mr. Feynman referred to at the end of his talk. I was not educated in Brazil; I was educated in Germany, and I’ve just come to Brazil this year.”

The other student who had done well in class had a similar thing to say. And the professor I had mentioned got up and said, “I was educated here in Brazil during the war, when, fortunately, all of the professors had left the university, so I learned everything by reading alone. Therefore I was not really educated under the Brazilian system.”

I didn’t expect that. I knew the system was bad, but 100 percent–it was terrible!

Since I had gone to Brazil under a program sponsored by the United States Government, I was asked by the State Department to write a report about my experiences in Brazil, so I wrote out the essentials of the speech I had just given. I found out later through the grapevine that the reaction of somebody in the State Department was, “That shows you how dangerous it is to send somebody to Brazil who is so naive. Foolish fellow; he can only cause trouble. He didn’t understand the problems.” Quite the contrary! I think this person in the State Department was naive to think that because he saw a university with a list of courses and descriptions, that’s what it was.

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Man of a Thousand Tongues
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When I was in Brazil I had struggled to learn the local language, and decided to give my physics lectures in Portuguese. Soon after I came to Caltech, I was invited to a party hosted by Professor Bacher. Before I arrived at the party, Bacher told the guests, “This guy Feynman thinks he’s smart because he learned a little Portuguese, so let’s fix him good: Mrs. Smith, here (she’s completely Caucasian), grew up in China. Let’s have her greet Feynman in Chinese.”

I walk into the party innocently, and Bacher introduces me to all these people: “Mr. Feynman, this is Mr. So-and-so.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Feynman.”

“And this is Mr. Such-and-such.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Feynman.”

“And this is Mrs. Smith.”

“_Ai, choong, ngong jia!_” she says, bowing.

This is such a surprise to me that I figure the only thing to do is to reply in the same spirit. I bow politely to her, and with complete confidence I say, “_Ah ching, jong jien!_”

“Oh, my God!” she exclaims, losing her own composure. “I knew this would happen–I speak Mandarin and he speaks Cantonese!”

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Certainly, Mr. Big!
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I used to cross the United States in my automobile every summer, trying to make it to the Pacific Ocean. But, for various reasons, I would always get stuck somewhere-usually in Las Vegas.

I remember the first time, particularly, I liked it very much. Then, as now, Las Vegas made its money on the people who gamble, so the whole problem for the hotels was to get people to _come_ there to gamble. So they had shows and dinners which were very inexpensive–almost free. You didn’t have to make any reservations for anything: you could walk in, sit down at one of the many empty tables, and enjoy the show. It was just _wonderful_ for a man who didn’t gamble, because I was enjoying all the advantages–the rooms were inexpensive, the meals were next to nothing, the shows were good, and I liked the girls.

One day I was lying around the pool at my motel, and some guy came up and started to talk to me. I can’t remember how he got started, but his idea was that I presumably worked for a living, and it was really quite silly to do that. Look how easy it is for me,” he said. “I just hang around the pool all the time and enjoy life in Las Vegas.”

“How the hell do you do that without working?”

“Simple: I bet on the horses.”

“I don’t know anything about horses, but I don’t see how you can make a living betting on the horses,” I said, skeptically.

“Of course you can,” he said. “That’s howl live! I’ll tell you what: I’ll teach _you_ how to do it. We’ll go down and I’ll guarantee that you’ll win a hundred dollars.”

“How can you do that?”

“I’ll _bet_ you a hundred dollars that you’ll win,” he said. “So if you win it doesn’t cost you anything, and if you lose, you get a hundred dollars!”

So I think, “Gee! That’s right! If I win a hundred dollars on the horses and I have to pay him, I don’t lose anything; it’s just an exercise–it’s just proof that his system works. And if he fails, I win a hundred dollars. It’s quite wonderful!”

He takes me down to some betting place where they have a list of horses and racetracks all over the country. He introduces me to other people who say, “Geez, he’s great! I won a hunerd dollas!”

I gradually realize that I have to put up some of my own money for the bets, and I begin to get a little nervous. “How much money do I have to bet?” I ask.

“Oh, three or four hundred dollars.”

I haven’t got that much. Besides, it begins to worry me: Suppose I lose all the bets?

So then he says, “I’ll tell you what: My advice will cost _you_ only _fifty_ dollars, and _only if it works_. If it doesn’t work, I’ll give you the hundred dollars you would have won anyway.”

I figure, “Wow! Now I win both ways–either fifty or a hundred dollars! How the heck can he _do_ that?” Then I realize that if you have a reasonably even game–forget the little losses from the take for the moment in order to understand it–the chance that you’ll win a hundred dollars versus losing your four hundred dollars is four to one. So out of five times that he tries this on somebody, four times they’re going to win a hundred dollars, he gets two hundred (and he points out to them how smart he is); the fifth time he has to _pay_ a hundred dollars. So he receives _two_ hundred, on the average, when he’s paying out _one_ hundred! So I finally understood how he could do that.

This process went on for a few days. He would invent some scheme that sounded like a terrific deal at first, but after I thought about it for a while I’d slowly figure out how it worked. Finally, in some sort of desperation he says, “All right, I’ll tell you what: You pay me fifty dollars for the advice, and if you lose, I’ll pay you back _all_ your money.”

Now I _can’t lose_ on that! So I say, “All right, you’ve got a deal!”

“Fine,” he says. “But unfortunately, I have to go to San Francisco this weekend, so you just mail me the results, and if you lose your four hundred dollars, I’ll send you the money.

The first schemes were designed to make him money by honest arithmetic. Now, he’s going to be out of town. The only way he’s going to make money on _this_ scheme is _not_ to send it–to be a _real cheat_.

So I never accepted any of his offers. But it was very entertaining to see how he operated.

The other thing that was fun in Las Vegas was meeting show girls. I guess they were supposed to hang around the bar between shows to attract customers. I met several of them that way, and talked to them, and found them to be nice people. People who say, “Show girls, eh?” have already made up their mind what they are! But in any group, if you look at it, there’s all kinds of variety. For example, there was the daughter of a dean of an Eastern university. She had a talent for dancing and liked to dance; she had the summer off and dancing jobs were hard to find, so she worked as a chorus girl in Las Vegas. Most of the show girls were very nice, friendly people. They were all beautiful, and I just _love_ beautiful girls. In fact, show girls were my real reason for liking Las Vegas so much.