Feynman, Richard P.

AN EVOCATIVE UNPUBLISHED LETTER FROM RICHARD FEYNMAN TO HIS MOTHER, DESCRIBING A HIKING TRIP WITH HIS LOS ALAMOS COLLEAGUES, WITH HAND-DRAWN MAP

At Los Alamos, Richard Feynman and his colleagues would often take breaks from the weightiness of their work to enjoy each other's company and the outdoors; for example, he would often go for Sunday walks with Hans Bethe and John von Neumann.

In this letter to his mother, Feynman describes an attempt to hike Truchas Peak in New Mexico with his colleagues from Los Alamos. Although Feynman and a number of others did not reach the summit, he mentions that his friend and office mate, Paul Olum, was one of the three climbers to make it to the top.

After leaving Los Alamos, Olum would switch his doctoral field of research from physics to mathematics, believing that if Feynman represented the standard for a good physics student, then physics was clearly too difficult for him. It seems that Feynman did not agree with Olum's self-assessment, as he would remark on Olum's outsized intelligence ("[Olum] was always cleverer than I was.") in "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!"

Richard Feynman's autograph letter reads, in part:

"Dear Mom:

[...]

The highest mountain in New Mexico is Truchas Peak — 13,500 ft high. Saturday morning (there are several neighboring peaks all about the same size) a party of 13 (including me) started out to climb Truchas peak...We camped at the top of some hill or other during the night. In the morning we split — 7 started back for the cars, the other 6 (me incl.) went on according to the plan...We made base camp, leaving the stuff behind + just taking two oranges each + cheese + started out. 10 steps later one of us gave up — he had been having trouble + his heart was pounding. 20 steps later another gave up for reasons on the next page, see map: [map of the ridge, valley, and base camp]

We had thought to take the dotted course - - -. He had discovered the great cliff + was so disheartened he gave up! It meant going into the deep valley. I was still game because it wasn't so very terrifying to go down...30 steps and I gave up too..."

[...]

I sometimes kick myself for not going with them — but other times I remember how tired + disheartened I was + how making the peak began to seem so unimportant + about impossible. I should have tried harder tho. My hat is off to those 3 who made it (Olum was one)."

REFERENCES:

Not in Michelle Feynman, ed. Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track. The Letters of Richard P. Feynman. New York: Basic Books, 2005.

Feynman, Richard P. "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" Adventures of a Curious Character. New York: Norton, 2018 [1985], p. 224.

Leading Cornell mathematician Paul Olum, who became president of the University of Oregon, dies at 82