Ebook rtf mathematics Feynman, Richard Surely You’…

Judging Books by Their Covers 
After the war, physicists were often asked to go to Washington and give advice to various sections of the government, especially the military. 
What happened, I suppose, is that since the scientists had made these bombs that were so important, the military felt we were useful for something. 
Once I was asked to serve on a committee which was to evaluate various weapons for the army, and I wrote a letter back which explain ed that I 
was only a theoretical physicist, and I didn't know anything about weapons for the army. 
The army responded that they had found in their experience that theoretical physicists were very useful to them in making decisions, so would I 
please reconsider? 
I wrote back again and said I didn't really know anything, and doubted I could help them. 
Finally I got a letter from the Secretary of the Army, which proposed a compromise: I would come to the first meeting, where I could listen and 
see whether I could make a contribution or not. Then I could decide whether I should continue. 
I said I would, of course. What else could I do? 
I went down to Washington and the first thing that I went to was a cocktail party to meet everybody. There were generals and other important 
characters from the army, and everybody talked. It was pleasant enough. 
One guy in a uniform came to me and told me that the army was glad that physicists were advising the military because it had a lot of problems. 
One of the problems was that tanks use up their fuel very quickly and thus can't go very far. So the question was how to refuel them as they're going 
along. Now this guy had the idea that, since the physicists can get energy out of uranium, could I work out a way in which we could use silicon 
dioxide--sand, dirt--as a fuel? If that were possible, then all this tank would have to do would be to have a little scoop underneath, and as it goes 
along, it would pick up the dirt and use it for fuel! He thought that was a great idea, and that all I had to do was to work out the details. That was the 
kind of problem I thought we would be talking about in the meeting the next day. 
I went to the meeting and noticed that some guy who had introduced me to all the people at the cocktail party was sitting next to me. He was 
apparently some flunky assigned to be at my side at all times. On my other side was some super general I had heard of before. 
At the first session of the meeting they talked about some technical matters, and I made a few comments. But later on, near the end of the 
meeting, they began to discuss some problem of logistics, about which I knew nothing. It had to do with figuring out how much stuff you should 
have at different places at different times. And although I tried to keep my trap shut, when you get into a situation like that, where you're sitting 
around a table with all these "important people" discussing these "important problems," you 
can't
keep your mouth shut, even if you know nothing 
whatsoever! So I made some comments in that discussion, too. 
During the next coffee break the guy who had been assigned to shepherd me around said, "I was very impressed by the things you said during the 
discussion. They certainly were an important contribution." 
I stopped and thought about my "contribution" to the logistics problem, and realized that a man like the guy who orders the stuff for Christmas at 
Macy's would be better able to figure out how to handle problems like that than I. So I concluded: a) if I had made an important contributio n, it was 
sheer luck; b) anybody else could have done as well, but 
most
people could have done 
better
, and c) this flattery should wake me up to the fact that I 
am 
not
capable of contributing much. 
Right after that they decided, in the meeting, that they could do better discussing the