Richard Feynman Almost QUIT Physics Then a Spinning Plate Changed Everything

Описание: Richard Feynman Almost QUIT Physics Then a Spinning Plate Changed Everything

I was 28 years old, and I was certain my career was over.
I had lost my wife. I had lost my father. I had lost my ability to think.
Then I saw something in a cafeteria that won me the Nobel Prize.

It was 1946. Cornell University. I was sitting in the cafeteria, staring at nothing, when some student started fooling around. He threw a plate in the air.
The plate went up. It spun. And as it spun, it wobbled.

I noticed something strange. The plate had a red medallion, the Cornell emblem, on its surface. And I could see that the medallion was going around at a different rate than the wobble.

The spin and the wobble were not the same speed.

Most people would have looked away. Gone back to their lunch. But I had nothing else. My mind was empty. So I started to figure out the motion of that rotating plate.

And that wobbling plate would change everything.

Chapters

00:00 My career was over
00:27 The spinning plate
01:05 What I lost
03:41 Permission to play
05:34 From plates to Nobel Prize
08:57 The lesson

Sources

"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" (1985), pp. 157-158
Nobel Prize lecture, December 11, 1965
Feynman's Caltech lectures on physics

Disclaimer
This is a dramatic retelling of real events, narrated in first person to bring Feynman's story to life. The voice is AI-generated and is not an imitation of Richard Feynman. All facts are sourced from historical records.

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