Richard Feynman Lecture -- 'Los Alamos From Below'

There are quite a few copies of this Feynman lecture floating around out there, but most end prior to the question from the audience.

After the lecture, a guy in the audience asks Feynman about his safe-cracking stories and Feynman goes on for about another ten minutes relating three different stories on his safe-cracking while at Los Alamos National Laboratories. Enjoy!

[rogerkeeling]

In 1975, I was attending UCSB but, sadly, at the time I'd never heard of Richard Feynman. I was blandly unaware of his lecture. But my incredible roommate -- the late William Armbruster -- knew who he was. And William was most certainly attending that lecture, because he and a buddy were the guys who made THIS recording! William owned a high-end reel-to-reel ReVox, and was the guy who normally recorded the Santa Barbara Symphony's performances. Periodically they also recorded lecturers in UCSB's enormous Campbell Hall on behalf of the Lectures Program. As usual, he and his friend had gone early, hung the microphone(s), and then camped out in a control booth with the ReVox running. The next day he mentioned it to me, asked if I'd gone, and was shocked when I admitted I knew nothing of it. Immediately he pulled out the ReVox and new recording -- THIS recording -- and played it to me. I was transfixed, and consequently deeply regretful about having missed seeing it live. (As a student I could have attended for free, of course). A day or so later, William handed the tape over to the Lectures program people, and I've often wondered in the intervening years what happened to it (and, actually, to ALL the recordings they made of the exceptional people who came to lecture). Apparently they've been properly archived by the UCSB library, and finally somebody ("The Quadmire") has taken time to bring the long version to the world via YouTube. So: thank you, The Quadmire, much appreciated!

[Chibob]

All the while he worked at Los Alamos he had to watch his young bride suffer and eventually wilt away at age 25. I have heard of his love letters to her. A poet. A genius. And also an wonderful sense of story-telling humour..

[erichodge]

This is a priceless historical document. Can you imagine having Isaac Newton on tape going, "Now when I first went up to Cambridge..."

[canadiangemstones]

What an absolute gift to humanity was Richard Feynman. Beyond thrilled that his words were recorded!

[CretvMG]

Not only was he a physics genius, his comedic timing is perfect.

[uscdave]

Everybody talks about how amazing Carl Sagan was as a science communicator but part of me thinks Richard Feynman was even better. I could listen to him talk all day.

[PRR]

What I get from listening to Feynman is his clarity of thought. There is no trash in his speech, he has edited out everything not pertaining to a specific objective. What a fun person to listen to. Imagine being his friend? What an elite group of people!

[liamconroy]

That valve story is honestly one of the funniest stories I've heard in a long time. Really great guy, that part was actually a really good example of humility from a man like him turning into such a turn of events.

[morpheus]

Every piece of recording of Feynman in pure gold.

[lawrencetate]

He's as funny naturally as most stand-up comedians.

[TheMushroomOfficial]

This is not a lecture…this is a standup special 😂 Great material. Great guy.

[kenw]

Brilliant storyteller and comedic genius, who just happens to be a Physicist and major force on the Los Alamos project. God I love the way he can cleanly explain such complicated eng/science topics.

[docskin]

I have such fond memories of reading Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman when I was in school. Hearing essentially the same book narrated by the man himself is beyond fantastic.
We need more Feynmans.

[BoB-thwm]

0:00 intro
1:52 Richard Feynman
3:17 Richard Feynman at Princeton
5:48 Richard Feynman at Princeton meets great men ( Richard learns that great men remember and argue fast)
7:26 Group told to start in New Mexico to make the Bomb
9:21 Los Alimos before it was ready
10:30 Richard Feynman: Train Paranoia
11:20 Richard Feynman: Indian Caves
12:13 Richard Feynman: Know your place
13:54 Richard Feynman: Finds luck, pushing Bethe
14:50 Richard Feynman: Playing with numbers. Hans Bethe, teaches Little Richard math
17:00 Richard Feynman: Dormitories and makeup, plus the Town counsel
22:25 Richard Feynman: Censorship
30:48 Richard Feynman: Knowing the System
32:34 Richard Feynman: Cracks the Cab safes
34:09 Richard Feynman: Mr Teller's Drawer
35:00 Richard Feynman: Disappointing the audience.
35:10 Richard Feynman: The safety of Oak ridge. Separating Isotopes of Uranium 238 and 236, to the latter 235, (the boom one.) with Uranium nitrate purified
37:23 Richard Feynman: The safety of Oak ridge. Neutrons.
38:00 Scientific Groups & Military Priority's
39:15 Richard Feynman: walking the plant, it's bad.
40:35 Little Richard Says : Los Alimos cannot accept the responsibility for the oak ridge plant.
43:20 Richard Feynman: Valves & Windows.
46:43 Richard Feynman: Los Alimos Calculation machine repairs
49:30 Richard Feynman: Women helped but they needed breaks.
50:18 Richard Feynman: Building new machines, and fixing bent items.
51:35 The Computer disease
53:00 Special engineer detachments, punching holes
56:00 Machine mess, Colour card number mistakes.
58:14 The People Richard Feynman met. Fermi
59:20 Feynman meets John, Von Neumann; "You don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in"
1:00:10 Feynman meets Niels Bohr and his son
1:01:45 Feynman Challenges Bohr
1:02:44 The Test explosion. Feynman looks through a Truck windshield (blocks violet light)
1:05:32 William Laurence. What's That!
1:05:50 Plutonium.
1:07:16 After Explosion. Drums and Depression.
Q&A
1:09:08 Feynman cracks safes
1:14:07 Feynman cracks safes using Psychology
EDIT; correcting mistakes; sorry, Bethe.

[liquidbraino]

I've listened to this probably over 100 times and it never gets old. I sometimes put this on as I'm going to sleep (which I'm about to do again right now).

[testboga]

This guy is simply next level. He's one of the most impressive and fascinating people to ever live, I think.

[dpsamu]

After watching this in 2019 I sought out more. I found evidence that I had unknowingly met him around 1985, and he played a trick on me that lasted 35 years before I solved it.

Feynman loved puzzles, and playing intellectual tricks on people. The Caltech campus has a golf course which my dad's house in Monterey Park over looks. When I lived in Los Angeles in 1985 I was a delivery man. While delivering on the streets of LA I would see this van with Feynman diagrams as graffiti all over it. I didn't know what Feynman diagrams were or who Richard Feynman was. I just thought it was just something a collage student did to his van. You know how students will write graffiti with scientific formulas like E=MC2. I was on a delivery on my motorcycle one day, and pulled up behind this van. There was this shabby looking dude there who motioned that he wanted to talk to me. Thought he was a bum looking to bum a cigarette. That was a thing with bums in LA at the time. But if you gave one a cigarette 6 more show up bumming more. I waved him away pointing to the place I was delivering to. He nodded, and withdrew. When I came out he was still there. I mounted my bike but he was upon me before I got away. He asked me if I knew what the diagrams were. I thought it was just an opening gambit that would eventually lead to him bumming a cigarette. I told him I didn't know but thought they were just graffiti like some collage kids do like E=MC2, and that it probably belonged to a student from Caltech which was just 8 blocks up the road within sight from there. He asked if I knew what they mean. I said I don't know. Probably something nuclear but I don't know. He said OK, and didn't ask for a cigarette. A little surprised he didn't but I started up my bike, and rode away. 35 years later I'm looking on the Internet for information about Richard Feynman, and find a picture of him, and the van. It all came back to me. I figure he did that a lot. Hanging around his van asking passers by if they knew what the Feynman diagrams are. I guess kind of a measure of how much the general public knew about them. I may have surprised him that even though I didn't know what they meant I was able to figure out the van belonged to somebody from Caltech. I think he would have liked the fact that 35 years later somebody he played that trick on figured it out.

[ericemmons]

This is my favorite video on YouTube. I don't know how many times I've listened to it on long car rides.

[BladeRunner-tdbe]

Feynman was one of the most intelligent people to have ever lived and he never bragged about that fact, however if you listened to him or talked with him it was instantly obvious to you and therefore he didn't "need" to brag about it. So far I have probably listened to at least 20 hrs. of him speaking about various subjects on YouTube. I cannot get enough of this incredible human. RIP

[jashayou]

I was fortunate enough in 1970 and 71 to study undergrad physics from textbooks derived from Feynman lectures. I didn't understand until today who he was and the significance of that. What an amazing man! Thanks for posting this talk!