I decided when I was asked to do this that what I really wanted to talk about was my friend, Richard Feynman. I was one of the fortunate few that really did get to know him and enjoyed his presence. And I'm going to tell you about the Richard Feynman that I knew. I'm sure there are people here who could tell you about the Richard Feynman they knew, and it would probably be a different Richard Feynman.
Kada su me zamolili da održim predavanje odlučio sam da zapravo želim pričati o svom prijatelju Richardu Feynmanu. Jedan sam od rijetkih sretnika koji su ga doista imali prilike upoznati i uživati u njegovoj prisutnosti. I pričati ću vam o Richardu Feynmanu kojeg sam ja poznavao. Siguran sam kako postoje i drugi ljudi ovdje koji bi vam mogli pričati o Richardu Feynmanu kojeg su oni poznavali, i vjerojatno bi to bio drugačiji Richard Feynman.
Richard Feynman was a very complex man. He was a man of many, many parts. He was, of course, foremost, a very, very, very great scientist. He was an actor. You saw him act. I also had the good fortune to be in those lectures, up in the balcony. They were fantastic. He was a philosopher. He was a drum player. He was a teacher par excellence. Richard Feynman was also a showman, an enormous showman. He was brash, irreverent. He was full of macho, a kind of macho one-upmanship. He loved intellectual battle. He had a gargantuan ego. But the man had, somehow, a lot of room at the bottom. And what I mean by that is a lot of room, in my case -- I can't speak for anybody else, but in my case -- a lot of room for another big ego. Well, not as big as his, but fairly big. I always felt good with Dick Feynman.
Richard Feynman je bio veoma kompleksan čovjek. Bio je raznovrsan. Bio je, naravno, prije svega jako, jako, jako dobar znanstvenik. Bio je glumac. Vidjeli ste njegove performanse. Također sam imao sreće i prisustvovati tim predavanjima, gore na balkonu. Bila su to fantastična predavanja. Bio je filozof; bubnjar; i učitelj par excellence. Richard Feynman bio je i zabavljač, strašan zabavljač. Bio je drzak, bezobziran -- bio je muževan (macho) tip, onaj natjecateljski muževni tip. Volio je intelektualne "bitke". Imao je ogroman ego. Ali je nekako imao i dosta slobodnog prostora pri dnu. A pritom mislim na dosta slobodnog prostora, u mom slučaju -- Ne mogu govoriti ni za koga drugog -- ali u mom slučaju, imao je dosta prostora za još jedan veliki ego. Dobro, ne za toliko velik poput njegovog, ali za prilično velilk. Uvijek sam se osjećao dobro uz Dicka Feynmana.
It was always fun to be with him. He always made me feel smart. How can somebody like that make you feel smart? Somehow he did. He made me feel smart. He made me feel he was smart. He made me feel we were both smart, and the two of us could solve any problem whatever. And in fact, we did sometimes do physics together. We never published a paper together, but we did have a lot of fun.
U njegovoj je blizini uvijek bilo zabavno. Uz njega sam se uvijek osjećao pametno. Kako se uz nekog poput njega možeš osjećati pametno? Nekako mu je to uspjevalo. Uz njega sam se osjećao pametno. I imao sam osjećaj kako je on pametan. Uz njega smo se oboje osjećali pametno, kao da bi mogli rješiti bilo koji problem. Zapravo smo se ponekad i bavili fizikom zajedno. Nikada zajedno nismo objavili članak, ali smo se dobro zabavljali.
He loved to win, win these little macho games we would sometimes play. And he didn't only play them with me, but with all sorts of people. He would almost always win. But when he didn't win, when he lost, he would laugh and seem to have just as much fun as if he had won.
Volio je pobjeđivati. Ponekad bi igrao svoje male muževne (macho) igrice -- ali ne samo sa mnom, već i s drugim ljudima -- i gotovo bi uvijek pobijedio. Kada ne bi pobijedio, kada bi izgubio, smijao se i zabavljao gotovo kao i da je pobijedio.
I remember once he told me a story about a joke the students played on him. I think it was for his birthday -- they took him for lunch to a sandwich place in Pasadena. It may still exist; I don't know. Celebrity sandwiches was their thing. You could get a Marilyn Monroe sandwich. You could get a Humphrey Bogart sandwich. The students went there in advance, and arranged that they'd all order Feynman sandwiches. One after another, they came in and ordered Feynman sandwiches. Feynman loved this story. He told me this story, and he was really happy and laughing. When he finished the story, I said to him, "Dick, I wonder what would be the difference between a Feynman sandwich and a Susskind sandwich." And without skipping a beat at all, he said, "Well, they'd be about the same. The only difference is a Susskind sandwich would have a lot more ham." "Ham" as in bad actor.
Jednom mi je ispričao priču o šali koju su mu studenti priredili. Odveli su ga -- mislim na njegov rođendan -- na ručak. Odveli su ga na ručak u sendvič bar u Pasadeni. Možda još postoji; Nisam siguran. Njihova glavna atrakcija bili su sendviči nazvani po slavnim osobama. Mogli ste naručiti Marilyn Monroe sendvič. Ili Humphrey Bogart sendvič. Studenti su otišli tamo prije, i dogovorili se kako će svi naručiti Feynman sendviče. Jedni za drugima naručivali su Feynman sendviče. Feynman je volio ovu priču. Pričao mi je ovu priču sretan i s osmijehom na licu. Kada je završio priču, rekao sam mu, "Dick, pitam se koja bi bila razlika između Feynman sendviča i Susskind sendviča." A on je bez oklijevanja, rekao, "Pa, mislim da bi bili isti. Jedina razlika bi bila u tome što bi Susskind sendvič imao više šunke," šunka u značenju lošeg glumca.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
Well, I happened to have been very quick that day, and I said, "Yeah, but a lot less baloney."
Bio sam brz tog dana, i rekao, "Da, ali bi imao manje gluposti." (baloney: salama; glupost)
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
(Applause)
Istina je zapravo
The truth of the matter is that a Feynman sandwich had a load of ham, but absolutely no baloney. What Feynman hated worse than anything else was intellectual pretense -- phoniness, false sophistication, jargon. I remember sometime during the mid-'80s, Dick and I and Sidney Coleman would meet a couple of times up in San Francisco -- at some very rich guy's house -- up in San Francisco for dinner. And the last time the rich guy invited us, he also invited a couple of philosophers. These guys were philosophers of mind. Their specialty was the philosophy of consciousness. And they were full of all kinds of jargon. I'm trying to remember the words -- "monism," "dualism," categories all over the place. I didn't know what those meant, neither did Dick or Sydney, for that matter.
da je Feynman sendvič imao mnogo šunke, ali ne i gluposti (salame). Ono što je Feynman prezirao ponajviše bilo je intelektualno pretvaranje -- foliranje, lažnu sofisticiranost, žargon. Sijećam se da smo se za vrijeme 80-ih, sredinom 80-ih, Dick, ja i Sidney Coleman, sastajali par puta u San Franciscu u kući nekog bogataša -- na večeri. Zadnji put kada nas je taj bogataš pozvao na večeru, pozvao je i par filozofa. Ovo su bili filozofi uma. Njihova specijalnost bila je filozofija svijesti. I razbacivali su se svakojakim žargonom. Pokušavam se prisjetiti riječi -- "monizam," "dualizam," kategorije su se bacale na sve strane. Nisam znao što sve te riječi znače, a ni Dick -- a ni Sydney.
And what did we talk about? Well, what do you talk about when you talk about minds? There's one obvious thing to talk about: Can a machine become a mind? Can you build a machine that thinks like a human being that is conscious? We sat around and talked about this -- we of course never resolved it. But the trouble with the philosophers is that they were philosophizing when they should have been science-ophizing. It's a scientific question, after all. And this was a very, very dangerous thing to do around Dick Feynman.
I o čemu smo pričali? Dobro, o čemu pričati kada pričaš o umovima? O jednom vrlo očitom problemu -- mogu li strojevi razviti um? Možeš li sagraditi stroj koji razmišlja poput čovjeka, koji je svjestan? Tako smo sjedili i pričali o ovome -- naravno, nismo uspjeli pronaći odgovor. Ali je problem s filozofima taj što su filozofirali, a zapravo su trebali znanstveno razmišljati. Naposljetku, ipak je to znanstveno pitanje. A filozofiranje je opasna igra u blizini Dicka Feynmana.
(Laughter)
Feynman let them have it -- both barrels, right between the eyes. It was brutal; it was funny -- ooh, it was funny. But it was really brutal. He really popped their balloon. But the amazing thing was -- Feynman had to leave a little early; he wasn't feeling too well, so he left a little bit early. And Sidney and I were left there with the two philosophers. And the amazing thing is these guys were flying. They were so happy. They had met the great man; they had been instructed by the great man; they had an enormous amount of fun having their faces shoved in the mud ... And it was something special. I realized there was something just extraordinary about Feynman, even when he did what he did.
Feynman ih je dočekao na nož. Bilo je brutalno, smiješno -- o da, bilo je smiješno. Ali je stvarno bilo brutalno. Spustio ih je na zemlju. Ali najbolje od svega bilo je to -- da je Feynman morao otići malo ranije. Nije se osjećao najbolje, pa je i otišao ranije. A Sydney i ja smo ostali s filozofima. A najbolja od svega bila je reakcija filozofa. Bili su presretni. Upoznali su velikana; i dobili savjet od njega; najviše od svega su se zabavili na svoj račun; i bilo je to divno za vidjeti. Shvatio sam kako se u Feynmanu krije nešto nevjerojatno, čak i kada je činio ono što je činio.
Dick -- he was my friend; I did call him Dick -- Dick and I had a little bit of a rapport. I think it may have been a special rapport that he and I had. We liked each other; we liked the same kind of things. I also like the intellectual macho games. Sometimes I would win, mostly he would win, but we both enjoyed them. And Dick became convinced at some point that he and I had some kind of similarity of personality. I don't think he was right. I think the only point of similarity between us is we both like to talk about ourselves. But he was convinced of this. And the man was incredibly curious. And he wanted to understand what it was and why it was that there was this funny connection.
Dick je bio moj prijatelj. Zvao sam ga Dick. Dick i ja smo se slagali. Mislim da smo imali jedan poseban odnos - on i ja. Odgovarali smo jedno drugom; voljeli iste stvari. I meni su se sviđale intelektualne muževne (macho) igrice. Ponekad bih pobijedio, ali je većinom on pobjeđivao, ali oboje smo uživali. U jednom je trenutku Dick postao uvjeren kako ja i on dijelimo slične osobnosti. Mislim da nije bio u pravu. Mislim da nam je jedino zajedničko bilo to što smo oboje voljeli pričati o sebi. No, on je bio uvjeren. I znatiželjan. Čovjek je bio nevjerojatno znatiželjan. I htio je razumjeti zašto i kako je postojala ta poveznica između nas.
And one day, we were walking. We were in France, in Les Houches. We were up in the mountains, 1976. And Feynman said to me, "Leonardo ..." The reason he called me "Leonardo" is because we were in Europe, and he was practicing his French.
I jednoga dana smo šetali. Bili smo u Francuskoj. U La Zoucheu. Bili smo u planinama 1976. godine. Bili smo u planinama i Feynman mi je rekao, "Leonardo." Zvao me Leonardo jer smo bili u Europi
(Laughter)
a on je vježbao svoj francuski.
And he said, "Leonardo, were you closer to your mother or your father when you were a kid?" I said, "Well, my real hero was my father. He was a working man, had a fifth-grade education. He was a master mechanic, and he taught me how to use tools. He taught me all sorts of things about mechanical things. He even taught me the Pythagorean theorem. He didn't call it the hypotenuse, he called it the shortcut distance."
I rekao je, "Leonardo, jesi li bio bliži majci ili ocu kada si bio dijete?" A ja sam rekao, "Pa, moj pravi junak je bio moj otac. Bio je radnik, imao pet razreda osnovne škole. Bio je dobar mehaničar i naučio me kako koristiti alate. Naučio me razne stvari o mehanici. Čak me naučio i Pitagorin teorem. Nije upotrebljavao riječ hipotenuza, već je to nazvao najkraćom udaljenošću."
And Feynman's eyes just opened up. He went off like a lightbulb. And he said that he had had basically exactly the same relationship with his father. In fact, he had been convinced at one time that to be a good physicist, it was very important to have had that kind of relationship with your father. I apologize for the sexist conversation here, but this is the way it really happened.
A Feynmanove oči su se zasjajile. Upalila mu se lampica. I rekao je kako je imao gotovo identičnu vezu sa svojim ocem. Zapravo, jedno je vrijeme bio uvjeren kako je za dobrog fizičara vrlo važna takva veza s ocem. Ispričavam se na ovom seksističkom razgovoru, ali je doista bilo tako.
He said he had been absolutely convinced that this was necessary, a necessary part of the growing up of a young physicist. Being Dick, he, of course, wanted to check this. He wanted to go out and do an experiment.
Rekao je kako je absolutno uvjeren da je to nužno -- onaj nužni dio odrastanja mladog fizičara. Budući da pričamo o Dicku, on je naravno htio sve to provjeriti. Htio je napraviti istraživanje.
(Laughter)
Pa ga je i napravio.
Well, he did. He went out and did an experiment. He asked all his friends that he thought were good physicists, "Was it your mom or your pop that influenced you?" They were all men, and to a man, every single one of them said, "My mother."
Izašao je van i napravio istraživanje. Pitao je sve svoje prijatelje koje je smatrao dobrim fizičarima, "Jesu li na tebe utjecali majka ili otac?" A svaki od njih -- svi su bili muškarci -- svaki od njih je rekao, "Moja majka." (Smijeh)
(Laughter)
I tako je teorija završila na smetlištu povijesti.
There went that theory, down the trash can of history.
(Laughter)
Ipak je bio vrlo sretan što je napokon susreo nekoga
But he was very excited that he had finally met somebody who had the same experience with his father as he had with his father. And for some time, he was convinced this was the reason we got along so well. I don't know. Maybe. Who knows?
tko je imao isto iskustvo s mojim ocem kakvo je on imao sa svojim. I neko je vrijeme bio uvjeren da je to bio razlog našeg prijateljstva. Ne znam. Možda. Tko zna?
But let me tell you a little bit about Feynman the physicist. Feynman's style -- no, "style" is not the right word. "Style" makes you think of the bow tie he might have worn, or the suit he was wearing. It's something much deeper than that, but I can't think of another word for it. Feynman's scientific style was always to look for the simplest, most elementary solution to a problem that was possible. If it wasn't possible, you had to use something fancier. No doubt, part of this was his great joy and pleasure in showing people that he could think more simply than they could. But he also deeply believed, he truly believed, that if you couldn't explain something simply, you didn't understand it. In the 1950s, people were trying to figure out how superfluid helium worked.
Ali, dopustite da vam ispričam ponešto i o Feynmanu fizičaru. Feynmanov stil -- ne, stil nije prava riječ. Stil podsjeća na leptir mašnu koju je mogao nositi ili na odjelo koje je nosio. Postoji nešto mnogo dublje od toga, ali se ne mogu sjetiti neke prikladnije riječi. Feynmanov znanstveni stil uvijek je težio pronalasku najjednostavnijeg, najelementarnijeg mogućeg rješenja nekog problema. Ako to nije bilo moguće, morao bi smisliti nešto kompliciranije. Ali neupitno mu je dio ovoga predstavljalo veliko zadovoljstvo kako bi pokazao ljudima da može misliti jednostavnije od njih. Ali je isto tako duboko vjerovao, bio istinski uvjeren, da ako nisi u stanju nešto objasniti jednostavno onda to nisi ni shvatio. 1950-ih ljudi su pokušavali shvatiti supratekući helij.
There was a theory. It was due to a Russian mathematical physicist. It was a complicated theory; I'll tell you what it was soon enough. It was a terribly complicated theory, full of very difficult integrals and formulas and mathematics and so forth. And it sort of worked, but it didn't work very well. The only way it worked is when the helium atoms were very, very far apart. And unfortunately, the helium atoms in liquid helium are right on top of each other.
Postojala je teorija. Osmišljena zahvaljujući ruskom matematičkom fizičaru, i bila je to komplicirana teorija. Ubrzo ću vam ispričati nešto o toj teoriji. Bila je to užasno komplicirana teorija puna teških integrala i formula i matematike, itd. I nekako je funkcionirala, ali ne baš dobro. Ispravna je bila jedino u slučaju kada su atomi helija bili međusobno vrlo, vrlo udaljeni. Atomi helija morali su biti vrlo udaljeni. A nažalost, atomi helija u tekućem heliju naslagani su jedan na drugi.
Feynman decided, as a sort of amateur helium physicist, that he would try to figure it out. He had an idea, a very clear idea. He would try to figure out what the quantum wave function of this huge number of atoms looked like. He would try to visualize it, guided by a small number of simple principles. The small number of simple principles were very, very simple. The first one was that when helium atoms touch each other, they repel. The implication of that is that the wave function has to go to zero, it has to vanish when the helium atoms touch each other. The other fact is that in the ground state -- the lowest energy state of a quantum system -- the wave function is always very smooth; it has the minimum number of wiggles.
Feynman je odlučio, kao amaterski fizičar helija, kako će pokušati shvatiti o čemu je zapravo riječ. Imao je vrlo jasnu ideju. Pokušao je shvatiti kako bi izgledala funkcija kvantnog vala tog velikog broja atoma. Pokušao si je to vizualizirati, pritom se koristeći jednostavnim principima. Par jednostavnih principa bili su vrlo, vrlo jednostavni. Prvi je glasio: kada se atomi helija dodirnu međusobno se odbijaju. Kao posljedica toga valna funkcija mora težiti nuli, mora nestati kada se atomi helija dodirnu. Druga činjenica je ta da primarno stanje, najniža energija kvantnog sistema, -- a funkcija vala je uvijek mirna -- ima minimalan broj titraja.
So he sat down -- and I imagine he had nothing more than a simple piece of paper and a pencil -- and he tried to write down, and did write down, the simplest function that he could think of, which had the boundary conditions that the wave function vanish when things touch and is smooth in between. He wrote down a simple thing -- so simple, in fact, that I suspect a really smart high-school student who didn't even have calculus could understand what he wrote down. The thing was, that simple thing that he wrote down explained everything that was known at the time about liquid helium, and then some.
I tako je sjeo za stol -- mislim kako i nije imao ništa više od običnog papira i olovke -- pokušao zapisati, i zapisao, najjednostavniju funkciju koje se mogao sjetiti a koja je imala takve uvjete graničnosti zbog kojih bi valna funkcija nestala kada se stvari dodirnu i koja nema titraja između. Zapisao je vrlo jednostavnu stvar. Zapravo je bila toliko jednostavna da bi ju i jedan pametni srednjoškolac, koji pri sebi nema ni kalkulatora, shvatio bez problema. Stvar je bila u tome da je ta jednostavna funkcija koju je zapisao opisivala sve što je do tada bilo poznato o tekućem heliju i još ponešto.
I've always wondered whether the professionals -- the real professional helium physicists -- were just a little bit embarrassed by this. They had their super-powerful technique, and they couldn't do as well. Incidentally, I'll tell you what that super-powerful technique was. It was the technique of Feynman diagrams.
Uvijek sam se pitao jesu li se profesionalci, pravi profesionalni fizičari helija, osjećali osramoćenima. Imali su na raspolaganju svoju super snažnu teoriju, i nisu uspjeli shvatiti o čemu se radi. Uzgredno, reći ću vam o kojoj super snažnoj teoriji je bila riječ. Bila je to teorija Feynmanovih dijagrama.
(Laughter)
(Smijeh)
He did it again in 1968. In 1968, in my own university -- I wasn't there at the time -- they were exploring the structure of the proton. The proton is obviously made of a whole bunch of little particles; this was more or less known. And the way to analyze it was, of course, Feynman diagrams. That's what Feynman diagrams were constructed for -- to understand particles. The experiments that were going on were very simple: you simply take the proton, and you hit it really sharply with an electron. This was the thing the Feynman diagrams were for.
Ponovno mu je pošlo za rukom 1968. godine. 1968. godine, na mom sveučilištu -- Tada nisam bio tamo -- ali 1968., istraživali su strukturu protona. Proton se naravno sastoji od skupine malih čestica. To je bilo više-manje poznato svima. A analizirali su se, naravno, Feynmanovim dijagramima. Zato su Feynmanovi dijagrami bili i osmišljeni -- kako bi se shvatile čestice. Eksperimenti koji su se izvodili bili su vrlo jednostavni. Proton se snažno sudari s elektronom. Ovome su i služili Feynmanovi dijagrami.
The only problem was that Feynman diagrams are complicated. They're difficult integrals. If you could do all of them, you would have a very precise theory, but you couldn't -- they were just too complicated. People were trying to do them. You could do a one-loop diagram. Don't worry about one loop. One loop, two loops -- maybe you could do a three-loop diagram, but beyond that, you couldn't do anything.
Jedini je problem bila činjenica da su Feynmanovi dijagrami komplicirani. Riječ je o kompliciranim integralima. Ako si ih mogao sve rješiti, dobio bi vrlo preciznu teoriju. Ali to je bilo gotovo nemoguće; jednostavno su bili previše komplicirani. Ali ljudi su ih pokušavali rješiti. Mogao se rješiti dijagram s jednom petljom. Nije bilo brige za jednu petlju. Jedna petlja, dvije petlje -- možda ste mogli rješiti dijagram s tri petlje, ali više od toga niste mogli ići.
Feynman said, "Forget all of that. Just think of the proton as an assemblage, a swarm, of little particles." He called them "partons." He said, "Just think of it as a swarm of partons moving real fast." Because they're moving real fast, relativity says the internal motions go very slow. The electron hits it suddenly -- it's like taking a very sudden snapshot of the proton. What do you see? You see a frozen bunch of partons. They don't move, and because they don't move during the course of the experiment, you don't have to worry about how they're moving. You don't have to worry about the forces between them. You just get to think of it as a population of frozen partons." This was the key to analyzing these experiments. Extremely effective. Somebody said the word "revolution" is a bad word. I suppose it is, so I won't say "revolution," but it certainly evolved very, very deeply our understanding of the proton, and of particles beyond that.
Feynman je rekao, "Zaboravite sve to. Samo zamislite proton kao skupinu malih čestica -- kao roj malih čestica." Nazvao ih je partonima. Rekao je, "Samo zamislite roj partona koji se kreće veoma brzo." Budući da se kreću veoma brzo, teorija relativnosti kaže kako se unutarnji mehanizmi kreću veoma sporo. Elektron ih udara odjednom. Kao da napravite jedan brzi snimak protona. Što vidite? Vidite zamrznutu sliku partona. Ne miču se, a budući da se ne miču za vrijeme trajanja eksperimenta, ne morate se brinuti o načinu na koji se kreću. Ne morate se brinuti o silama koje djeluju između njih. Samo o njima razmišljate kao o skupini zamrznutih partona. I ovo je bio ključ u analizi ovih eksperimenata. Nevjerojatno efikasno, netko je spomenuo kako je riječ revolucija loša riječ. Vjerojatno i je, pa neću spomenuti revoluciju -- ali je zasigurno jako dobro razvila naše shvaćanje protona, i čestica van toga.
Well, I had some more that I was going to tell you about my connection with Feynman, what he was like, but I see I have exactly half a minute. So I think I'll just finish up by saying: I actually don't think Feynman would have liked this event. I think he would have said, "I don't need this." But ...
Htio sam vam ispričati još toga o mom odnosu s Feynmanom, kakav je bio, ali vidim da mi je ostalo još pola minute vremena. Pa mislim da ću završiti i reći kako mislim da se ovakav događaj Feynmanu ne bi svidio. Mislim da bi rekao, "Ne treba mi ovo."
(Laughter)
Ali kako da odamo počast Feynmanu?
How should we honor Feynman? How should we really honor Feynman? I think the answer is we should honor Feynman by getting as much baloney out of our own sandwiches as we can.
Kako stvarno odati počast Feynmanu? Mislim da mu trebamo odati počast tako da izbacimo što je više moguće gluposti (baloney: glupost; salama) iz naših sendviča. Hvala.
Thank you.
(Pljesak)
(Applause)