Actually, string theorist John Schwarz now occupies Richard Feynman’s old office at Caltech.
But…
I got Feynman’s desk.
Caltech has a room devoted to Feynman memorabilia, and they really want this desk. (Feynman-worship is quite the industry here; the bookstore has a section labeled “Feynman” in the same way an ordinary bookstore would have sections labeled “Physics” or “Women’s Studies.”) But Helen Tuck, who was Feynman’s secretary and still occasionally visits, insists that the desk be used by a working physicist. My impression is that the desk is given to the most senior person in the theory group who is not sufficiently senior to get all brand-new fancy furniture; at the moment, that person is I. (In the background, one can discern the winner of the ultimate showdown.)
I looked for little diagrams carved into the wood, but haven’t found any yet.
In the new building of the Cavendish lab in Cambridge (obviously, UK) they have a lobby filled with Cavendish memorabilia, including an inconspicuous old leather-covered desk with a piece of paper saying: “Please do not put tea or coffee cups on Professor Maxwell’s desk.”
Wow, you’re really neat. All the other academics’ desks/offices I’ve ever seen have been riots of paper and clutter.
Is that Gnome or MacOSX on your desktop?
Which brings to mind… what OS would Feynman use?
I recall a comment by Danny Hillis to the effect that the only programming language Feynman really knew at all well was BASIC. He even thought up a parallel-processing version of BASIC to describe algorithms for the early Thinking Machines computers.
This comes out of Most of the Good Stuff, which I read about a year ago and don’t have with me now. So it goes.
There’s irony for you [John Schwarz in Feynman’s old office], given that Feynman thought rather little of string theory.
Where is Murray Gell-Mann’s office in relation to Feynman’s?
“Feynman’s Rainbow,” by Leonard Mlodinow Warner Books 2003 gives a little history of Gell Mann’s and Feynman’s relation besides what he thought of strings and some of the office stuff that went on with the secretary.
Have you Pull the drawers out and looked underneath? 🙂
No wonder you are smiling so victoriously! The desk looks very “modern” in style. I expected to see a more old-fashioned piece of furniture.
I echo Frank’s statement (post #2). Are you still waiting for your books and files to arrive, or to cart the boxes from home to office?
It seems as if theoreticians fall into two categories – those who keep all their calculations for possible future reference and those who do not. I know that there are various shades of grey here – keep some; jettison the others – but overall which category do you fall into?
And, most importantly, where is your cup of coffee? Have you decided not to besmirch The Desk with possible coffee stains?
Had dinner with Marc Kamionkowski last week. He mentioned that you were particularly smitten with your office!
Whoops, meant desk there. Grr.
It so happened that my brother sent me a link to the 1974 CalTech commencement speech given by Feynman entitled “Cargo Cult Science”, which he explained by way of an example:
“In the South Seas there is a cargo cult of people. During the war they saw airplanes with lots of good materials, and they want the same thing to happen now. So they’ve arranged to make things like runways, to put fires along the sides of the runways, to make a wooden hut for a man to sit in, with two wooden pieces on his head to headphones and bars of bamboo sticking out like antennas–he’s the controller–and they wait for the airplanes to land. They’re doing everything right. The form is perfect. It looks exactly the way it looked before. But it doesn’t work. No airplanes land. So I call these things cargo cult science, because they follow all the apparent precepts and forms of scientific investigation, but they’re missing something essential, because the planes don’t land.”
Then he spoke at length on scientific integrity as he deemed it, again by way of an exmaple:
“For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of his work were. “Well,” I said, “there aren’t any.” He said, “Yes, but then we won’t get support for more research of this kind.” I think that’s kind of dishonest. If you’re representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you’re doing– and if they don’t support you under those circumstances, then that’s their decision.”
My natural state is much higher entropy than that shown here; it’s just that the raw materials are still packed in boxes at this point. Soon enough my coffee stains will join those of the giants on whose shoulders I’m standing.
Why is there a picture of Mr. Rogers in a physics office?
Re: higher entropy offices — check out George Rieke’s.
Hi Sean,
Wondering what’s going on at Caltech Theory these days; has there been anything notable from your team anytime recently?
Take care,
Dave
Dave, isn’t that what the arxiv.org search page is for?
funny thing, I was reading Danny Hillis recollections about R. Feynman a few days ago here. Interesting stuff about RPF, including BASIC. Also, RPF was a sexist! (he treated women as servants). Very uncool. That desk has Larry Summers all over it!!
I met Danny a few yrs ago & he’s involved in some similar projects as me. I was surprised to find this site, which had pics of him with some famous Technology & Science people (B. Green, L. Randall, C. Venter, D. Kamen, B. Joy)
It’s painful to hear that the Feynman cult is still in full swing. Just recently I heard a physics undergraduate breathlessly retailing one of Feynman’s obviously mendacious stories about his sex life. What shall we call this — Cargo Cult Sexuality? God, are Caltech undergrads still that lame?
Jack: Jealousy is so unbecoming in you.
Congrats, Sean. Most Persian cats know more about physics than I do, yet even I have heard of Feynman.
that’s a sweet desk even without the heritage behind it. Very cool. Come up to JPL someday and give a talk Sean. We’ve got lots of great lecture series here. I’m sure something could be arranged.
Sean, I think it’s time to tell the world the truth… you only left Chicago because I finally beat you at poker.
Cool! If you leave blank paper on the desk, do calculations spontaneously appear?
If you leave blank paper on the desk, do calculations spontaneously appear?
I see an *excellent* science fiction movie in the making …
“I see an *excellent* science fiction movie in the making …”
science fiction? I see a sci-ghost story [:)]
I’ve been enjoying “Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman” recently and it is pretty clear that the man had some issues in his personal life. I would only hope that some of his stories aren’t based on truth.
The part of the book I found most interesting was a few pages on his “checkerboard” model of electron propagation in 1+1 dimensions. It turns out that this has an interesting relation to the old zitterbewegung model of the electron and has applications in the density formulation of QM that I’m busily writing up. What was interesting was that the book included a reproduction of a page in his notes on the subject.
Who doesn’t have some issues in her personal life? 🙂