A Postmortem Chewing Out

Another interesting letter in “Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From The Beaten Track: The Letters Of Richard P. Feynman” by T. Ferris (forward), R.P. Feynman (of course!), and M. Feynman (editor) is the following:

Mr. Todd Pramberg
Stockholm, Sweden
Dear Sir:
The fact that I beat a drum has nothing to do with the fact that I do theoretical physics. Theoretical physics is a human endeavor, one of the higher developments of human beings-and this perpetual desire to prove that people who do it are human by showing that they do other things that a few other humans do (like playing bongo drums) is insulting to me.
I am human enough to tell you to go to hell.
Sincerely,
Richard P. Feynman

Why do I find this letter interesting? Well when I was senior at Caltech a movie about Feynman, “Infinity” staring Matthew Broderick, was released (I’ve never seen the movie, but I’ve heard it’s a stinker.) CNN was doing a spot about the movie and Feynman’s legacy and they needed a token undergraduate to blab about Feynman so myself and the smartest physicist in my class, Sebastian Maurer, were interviewed for the spot. Sebastian attempted to get a quote on T.V. about the Feynman lectures on physics, which, if you listened to it carefully could actually be interpretted as a statement about Mao’s little red book (Feynman’s lectures on physics used to come as a series of three red books.) Here is what I said about Feynman:

Mention his name to physics students at Cal Tech[sic] today and watch their eyes light up: “One of the reasons it was easier to become a physicist was because he was so exciting and he wasn’t the typical, you know, nerd who doesn’t say anything,” said Cal Tech[sic] senior Dave Bacon

So you see, the above letter makes me realize that what I said was exactly the sort of thing which would have driven Feynman crazy. So I kind of feel like I’ve been chewed out from beyond the grave.