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 explained 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 contribution, 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 organization of scientific research (such as, should
scientific development be under the Corps of Engineers or the Quartermaster
Division?) than specific technical matters. I knew that if there was to be
any hope of my making a real contribution, it would be only on some specific
technical matter, and surely not on how to organize research in the army.
Until then I didn't let on any of my feelings about the situation to
the chairman of the meeting -- the big shot who had invited me in the first
place. As we were packing our bags to leave, he said to me, all smiles,
"You'll be joining us, then, for the next meeting..."
"No, I won't." I could see his face change suddenly. He was very
surprised that I would say no, after making those "contributions."
In the early sixties, a lot of my friends were still giving advice to
the government. Meanwhile, I was having no feeling of social responsibility
and resisting, as much as possible, offers to go to Washington, which took a
certain amount of courage in those times.
I was giving a series of freshman physics lectures at that time, and
after one of them, Tom Harvey, who assisted me in putting on the
demonstrations, said, "You oughta see what's happening to mathematics in
schoolbooks! My daughter comes home with a lot of crazy stuff!"
I didn't pay much attention to what he said.
But the next day I got a telephone call from a pretty famous lawyer
here in Pasadena, Mr. Norris, who was at that time on the State Board of
Education. He asked me if I would serve on the State Curriculum Commission,
which had to choose the new schoolbooks for the state of California. You
see, the state had a law that all of the schoolbooks used by all of the kids
in all of the public schools have to be chosen by the State Board of
Education, so they have a committee to look over the books and to give them
advice on which books to take.
It happened that a lot of the books were on a new method of teaching
arithmetic that they called "new math," and since usually the only people to
look at the books were schoolteachers or administrators in education, they
thought it would be a good idea to have somebody who uses mathematics
scientifically, who knows what the end product is and what we're trying to
teach it for, to help in the evaluation of the schoolbooks.
I must have had, by this time, a guilty feeling about not cooperating
with the government, because I agreed to get on this committee.
Immediately I began getting letters and telephone calls from book
publishers. They said things like, "We're very glad to hear you're on the
committee because we really wanted a scientific guy..." and "It's wonderful
to have a scientist on the committee, because our books are scientifically
oriented..." But they also said things like, "We'd like to explain to you
what our book is about..." and "We'll be very glad to help you in any way we
can to judge our books..." That seemed to me kind of crazy. I'm an objective
scientist, and it seemed to me that since the only thing the kids in school
are going to get is the books (and the teachers get the teacher's manual,
which I would also get), any extra explanation from the company was a
distortion. So I didn't want to speak to any of the publishers and always
replied, "You don't have to explain; I'm sure the books will speak for
themselves."
I represented a certain district, which comprised most of the Los
Angeles area except for the city of Los Angeles, which was represented by a
very nice lady from the L.A. school system named Mrs. Whitehouse. Mr. Norris
suggested that I meet her and find out what the committee did and how it
worked.
Mrs. Whitehouse started out telling me about the stuff they were going
to talk about in the next meeting (they had already had one meeting; I was
appointed late). "They're going to talk about the counting numbers." I
didn't know what that was, but it turned out they were what I used to call
integers. They had different names for everything, so I had a lot of trouble
right from the start.
She told me how the members of the commission normally rated the new
schoolbooks. They would get a relatively large number of copies of each book
and would give them to various teachers and administrators in their
district. Then they would get reports back on what these people thought
about the books. Since I didn't know a lot of teachers or administrators,
and since I felt that I could, by reading the books myself, make up my mind
as to how they looked to me, I chose to read all the books myself. (There
were some people in my district who had expected to look at the books and
wanted a chance to give their opinion. Mrs. Whitehouse offered to put their
reports in with hers so they would feel better and I wouldn't have to worry
about their complaints. They were satisfied, and I didn't get much trouble.)
A few days later a guy from the book depository called me up and said,
"We're ready to send you the books, Mr. Feynman; there are three hundred
pounds."
I was overwhelmed.
"It's all right, Mr. Feynman; we'll get someone to help you read them."
I couldn't figure out how you do that: you either read them or you
don't read them. I had a special bookshelf put in my study downstairs (the
books took up seventeen feet), and began reading all the books that were
going to be discussed in the next meeting. We were going to start out with
the elementary schoolbooks.
It was a pretty big job, and I worked all the time at it down in the
basement. My wife says that during this period it was like living over a
volcano. It would be quiet for a while, but then all of a sudden,
"BLLLLLOOOOOOWWWWW!!!!" -- there would be a big explosion from the "volcano"
below. The reason was that the books were so lousy. They were false. They
were hurried. They would try to be rigorous, but they would use examples
(like automobiles in the street for "sets") which were almost OK, but in
which there were always some subtleties. The definitions weren't accurate.
Everything was a little bit ambiguous -- they weren't smart enough to
understand what was meant by "rigor." They were faking it. They were
teaching something they didn't understand, and which was, in fact, useless,
at that time, for the child.
I understood what they were trying to do. Many people thought we were
behind the Russians after Sputnik, and some mathematicians were asked to
give advice on how to teach math by using some of the rather interesting
modern concepts of mathematics. The purpose was to enhance mathematics for
the children who found it dull.
I'll give you an example: They would talk about different bases of
numbers -- five, six, and so on -- to show the possibilities. That would be
interesting for a kid who could understand base ten -- something to
entertain his mind. But what they had turned it into, in these books, was
that every child had to learn another base! And then the usual horror would
come: "Translate these numbers, which are written in base seven, to base
five." Translating from one base to another is an utterly useless thing. If
you can do it, maybe it's entertaining; if you can't do it, forget it.
There's no point to it.
Anyhow, I'm looking at all these books, all these books, and none of
them has said anything about using arithmetic in science. If there are any
examples on the use of arithmetic at all (most of the time it's this
abstract new modern nonsense), they are about things like buying stamps.
Finally I come to a book that says, "Mathematics is used in science in
many ways. We will give you an example from astronomy, which is the science
of stars." I turn the page, and it says, "Red stars have a temperature of
four thousand degrees, yellow stars have a temperature of five thousand
degrees..." -- so far, so good. It continues: "Green stars have a
temperature of seven thousand degrees, blue stars have a temperature of ten
thousand degrees, and violet stars have a temperature of... (some big
number)." There are no green or violet stars, but the figures for the others
are roughly correct. It's vaguely right -- but already, trouble! That's the
way everything was: Everything was written by somebody who didn't know what
the hell he was talking about, so it was a little bit wrong, always! And how
we are going to teach well by using books written by people who don't quite
understand what they're talking about, I cannot understand. I don't know
why, but the books are lousy; UNIVERSALLY LOUSY!
Anyway, I'm happy with this book, because it's the first example of
applying arithmetic to science. I'm a bit unhappy when I read about the
stars' temperatures, but I'm not very unhappy because it's more or less
right -- it's just an example of error. Then comes the list of problems. It
says, "John and his father go out to look at the stars. John sees two blue
stars and a red star. His father sees a green star, a violet star, and two
yellow stars. What is the total temperature of the stars seen by John and
his father?" -- and I would explode in horror.
My wife would talk about the volcano downstairs. That's only an
example: it was perpetually like that. Perpetual absurdity! There's no
purpose whatsoever in adding the temperature of two stars. Nobody ever does
that except, maybe, to then take the average temperature of the stars, but
not to find out the total temperature of all the stars! It was awful! All it
was was a game to get you to add, and they didn't understand what they were
talking about. It was like reading sentences with a few typographical
errors, and then suddenly a whole sentence is written backwards. The
mathematics was like that. Just hopeless!
Then I came to my first meeting. The other members had given some kind
of ratings to some of the books, and they asked me what my ratings were. My
rating was often different from theirs, and they would ask, "Why did you
rate that book low?"
I would say the trouble with that book was this and this on page
so-and-so -- I had my notes.
They discovered that I was kind of a goldmine: I would tell them, in
detail, what was good and bad in all the books; I had a reason for every
rating.
I would ask them why they had rated this book so high, and they would
say, "Let us hear what you thought about such and such a book." I would
never find out why they rated anything the way they did. Instead, they kept
asking me what I thought.
We came to a certain book, part of a set of three supplementary books
published by the same company, and they asked me what I thought about it.
I said, "The book depository didn't send me that book, but the other
two were nice."
Someone tried repeating the question: "What do you think about that
book?"
"I said they didn't send me that one, so I don't have any judgment on
it."
The man from the book depository was there, and he said, "Excuse me; I
can explain that. I didn't send it to you because that book hadn't been
completed yet. There's a rule that you have to have every entry in by a
certain time, and the publisher was a few days late with it. So it was sent
to us with just the covers, and it's blank in between. The company sent a
note excusing themselves and hoping they could have their set of three books
considered, even though the third one would be late."
It turned out that the blank book had a rating by some of the other
members! They couldn't believe it was blank, because they had a rating. In
fact, the rating for the missing book was a little bit higher than for the
two others. The fact that there was nothing in the book had nothing to do
with the rating.
I believe the reason for all this is that the system works this way.
When you give books all over the place to people, they're busy; they're
careless; they think, "Well, a lot of people are reading this book, so it
doesn't make any difference." And they put in some kind of number -- some of
them, at least; not all of them, but some of them. Then when you receive
your reports, you don't know why this particular book has fewer reports than
the other books -- that is, perhaps one book has ten, and this one only has
six people reporting -- so you average the rating of those who reported; you
don't average the ones who didn't report, so you get a reasonable number.
This process of averaging all the time misses the fact that there is
absolutely nothing between the covers of the book!
I made that theory up because I saw what happened in the curriculum
commission: For the blank book, only six out of the ten members were
reporting, whereas with the other books, eight or nine out of the ten were
reporting. And when they averaged the six, they got as good an average as
when they averaged with eight or nine. They were very embarrassed to
discover they were giving ratings to that book, and it gave me a little bit
more confidence. It turned out the other members of the committee had done a
lot of work in giving out the books and collecting reports, and had gone to
sessions in which the book publishers would explain the books before they
read them; I was the only guy on that commission who read all the books and
didn't get any information from the book publishers except what was in the
books themselves, the things that would ultimately go to the schools.
This question of trying to figure out whether a book is good or bad by
looking at it carefully or by taking the reports of a lot of people who
looked at it carelessly is like this famous old problem: Nobody was
permitted to see the Emperor of China, and the question was, What is the
length of the Emperor of China's nose? To find out, you go all over the
country asking people what they think the length of the Emperor of China's
nose is, and you average it. And that would be very "accurate" because you
averaged so many people. But it's no way to find anything out; when you have
a very wide range of people who contribute without looking carefully at it,
you don't improve your knowledge of the situation by averaging.
At first we weren't supposed to talk about the cost of the books. We
were told how many books we could choose, so we designed a program which
used a lot of supplementary books, because all the new textbooks had
failures of one kind or another. The most serious failures were in the "new
math" books: there were no applications; not enough word problems. There was
no talk of selling stamps; instead there was too much talk about commutation
and abstract things and not enough translation to situations in the world.
What do you do: add, subtract, multiply, or divide? So we suggested some
books which had some of that as supplementary -- one or two for each
classroom -- in addition to a textbook for each student. We had it all
worked out to balance everything, after much discussion.
When we took our recommendations to the Board of Education, they told
us they didn't have as much money as they had thought, so we'd have to go
over the whole thing and cut out this and that, now taking the cost into
consideration, and ruining what was a fairly balanced program, in which
there was a chance for a teacher to find examples of the things (s)he
needed.
Now that they changed the rules about how many books we could recommend
and we had no more chance to balance, it was a pretty lousy program. When
the senate budget committee got to it, the program was emasculated still
further. Now it was really lousy! I was asked to appear before the state
senators when the issue was being discussed, but I declined: By that time,
having argued this stuff so much, I was tired. We had prepared our
recommendations for the Board of Education, and I figured it was their job
to present it to the state -- which was legally right, but not politically
sound. I shouldn't have given up so soon, but to have worked so hard and
discussed so much about all these books to make a fairly balanced program,
and then to have the whole thing scrapped at the end -- that was
discouraging! The whole thing was an unnecessary effort that could have been
turned around and done the opposite way: start with the cost of the books,
and buy what you can afford.
What finally clinched it, and made me ultimately resign, was that the
following year we were going to discuss science books. I thought maybe the
science would be different, so I looked at a few of them.
The same thing happened: something would look good at first and then
turn out to be horrifying. For example, there was a book that started out
with four pictures: first there was a wind-up toy; then there was an
automobile; then there was a boy riding a bicycle; then there was something
else. And underneath each picture it said, "What makes it go?"
I thought, "I know what it is: They're going to talk about mechanics,
how the springs work inside the toy; about chemistry, how the engine of the
automobile works; and biology, about how the muscles work."
It was the kind of thing my father would have talked about
: "What makes
it go? Everything goes because the sun is shining." And then we would have
fun discussing it:
"No, the toy goes because the spring is wound up," I would say.
"How did the spring get wound up?" he would ask.
"I wound it up."
"And how did you get moving?"
"From eating."
"And food grows only because the sun is shining. So it's because the
sun is shining that all these things are moving." That would get the concept
across that motion is simply the transformation of the sun's power.
I turned the page. The answer was, for the wind-up toy, "Energy makes
it go." And for the boy on the bicycle, "Energy makes it go." For
everything, "Energy makes it go."
Now that doesn't mean anything. Suppose it's "Wakalixes." That's the
general principle: "Wakalixes makes it go." There's no knowledge coming in.
The child doesn't learn anything; it's just a word!
What they should have done is to look at the wind-up toy, see that
there are springs inside, learn about springs, learn about wheels, and never
mind "energy." Later on, when the children know something about how the toy
actually works, they can discuss the more general principles of energy.
It's also not even true that "energy makes it go," because if it stops,
you could say, "energy makes it stop" just as well. What they're talking
about is concentrated energy being transformed into more dilute forms, which
is a very subtle aspect of energy. Energy is neither increased nor decreased
in these examples; it's just changed from one form to another. And when the
things stop, the energy is changed into heat, into general chaos.
But that's the way all the books were: They said things that were
useless, mixed-up, ambiguous, confusing, and partially incorrect. How
anybody can learn science from these books, I don't know, because it's not
science.
So when I saw all these horrifying books with the same kind of trouble
as the math books had, I saw my volcano process starting again. Since I was
exhausted from reading all the math books, and discouraged from its all
being a wasted effort, I couldn't face another year of that, and had to
resign. Sometime later I heard that the energy-makes-it-go book was going to
be recommended by the curriculum commission to the Board of Education, so I
made one last effort. At each meeting of the commission the public was
allowed to make comments, so I got up and said why I thought the book was
bad.
The man who replaced me on the commission said, "That book was approved
by sixty-five engineers at the Such-and-such Aircraft Company!"
I didn't doubt that the company had some pretty good engineers, but to
take sixty-five engineers is to take a wide range of ability -- and to
necessarily include some pretty poor guys! It was once again the problem of
averaging the length of the emperor's nose, or the ratings on a book with
nothing between the covers. It would have been far better to have the
company decide who their better engineers were, and to have them look at the
book. I couldn't claim that I was smarter than sixty-five other guys -- but
the average of sixty-five other guys, certainly!
I couldn't get through to him, and the book was approved by the board.
When I was still on the commission, I had to go to San Francisco a few
times for some of the meetings, and when I returned to Los Angeles from the
first trip, I stopped in the commission office to get reimbursed for my
expenses.
"How much did it cost, Mr. Feynman?"
"Well, I flew to San Francisco, so it's the airfare, plus the parking
at the airport while I was away."
"Do you have your ticket?"
I happened to have the ticket.
"Do you have a receipt for the parking?"
"No, but it cost $2.35 to park my car."
"But we have to have a receipt."
"I told you how much it cost. If you don't trust me, why do you let me
tell you what I think is good and bad about the schoolbooks?".
There was a big stew about that. Unfortunately, I had been used to
giving lectures for some company or university or for ordinary people, not
for the government. I was used to, "What were your expenses?" -- "So-and-so
much." -- "Here you are, Mr. Feynman."
I then decided I wasn't going to give them a receipt for anything.
After the second trip to San Francisco they again asked me for my
ticket and receipts.
"I haven't got any."
"This can't go on, Mr. Feynman."
"When I accepted to serve on the commission, I was told you were going
to pay my expenses."
"But we expected to have some receipts to prove the expenses."
"I have nothing to prove it, but you know I live in Los Angeles and I
go to these other towns; how the hell do you think I get there?"
They didn't give in, and neither did I. I feel when you're in a
position like that, where you choose not to buckle down to the System, you
must pay the consequences if it doesn't work. So I'm perfectly satisfied,
but I never did get compensation for the trips.
It's one of those games I play. They want a receipt? I'm not giving
them a receipt. Then you're not going to get the money. OK, then I'm not
taking the money. They don't trust me? The hell with it; they don't have to
pay me. Of course it's absurd! I know that's the way the government works;
well, screw the government! I feel that human beings should treat human
beings like human beings. And unless I'm going to be treated like one, I'm
not going to have anything to do with them! They feel bad? They feel bad. I
feel bad, too. We'll just let it go. I know they're "protecting the
taxpayer," but see how well you think the taxpayer was being protected in
the following situation.
There were two books that we were unable to come to a decision about
after much discussion; they were extremely close. So we left it open to the
Board of Education to decide. Since the board was now taking the cost into
consideration, and since the two books were so evenly matched, the board
decided to open the bids and take the lower one.
Then the question came up, "Will the schools be getting the books at
the regular time, or could they, perhaps, get them a little earlier, in time
for the coming term?"
One publisher's representative got up and said, "We are happy that you
accepted our bid; we can get it out in time for the next term."
A representative of the publisher that lost out was also there, and he
got up and said, "Since our bids were submitted based on the later deadline,
I think we should have a chance to bid again for the earlier deadline,
because we too can meet the earlier deadline."
Mr. Norris, the Pasadena lawyer on the board, asked the guy from the
other publisher, "And how much would it cost for us to get your books at the
earlier date?"
And he gave a number: It was less!
The first guy got up: "If he changes his bid, I have the right to
change my bid!" -- and his bid is still less!
Norris asked, "Well how is that -- we get the books earlier and it's
cheaper?"
"Yes," one guy says. "We can use a special offset method we wouldn't
normally use..." -- some excuse why it came out cheaper.
The other guy agreed: "When you do it quicker, it costs less!"
That was really a shock. It ended up two million dollars cheaper.
Norris was really incensed by this sudden change.
What happened, of course, was that the uncertainty about the date had
opened the possibility that these guys could bid against each other.
Normally, when books were supposed to be chosen without taking the cost into
consideration, there was no reason to lower the price; the book publishers
could put the prices at any place they wanted to. There was no advantage in
competing by lowering the price; the way you competed was to impress the
members of the curriculum commission.
By the way, whenever our commission had a meeting, there were book
publishers entertaining curriculum commission members by taking them to
lunch and talking to them about their books. I never went.
It seems obvious now, but I didn't know what was happening the time I
got a package of dried fruit and whatnot delivered by Western Union with a
message that read, "From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving -- The
Families."
It was from a family I had never heard of in Long Beach, obviously
someone wanting to send this to his friend's family who got the name and
address wrong, so I thought I'd better straighten it out. I called up
Western Union, got the telephone number of the people who sent the stuff,
and I called them.
"Hello, my name is Mr. Feynman. I received a package..."
"Oh, hello, Mr. Feynman, this is Pete Pamilio" and he says it in such a
friendly way that I think I'm supposed to know who he is! I'm normally such
a dunce that I can't remember who anyone is.
So I said, "I'm sorry, Mr. Pamilio, but I don't quite remember who you
are..."
It turned out he was a representative of one of the publishers whose
books I had to judge on the curriculum commission.
"I see. But this could be misunderstood."
"It's only family to family."
"Yes, but I'm judging a book that you're publishing, and maybe someone
might misinterpret your kindness!" I knew what was happening, but I made it
sound like I was a complete idiot.
Another thing like this happened when one of the publishers sent me a
leather briefcase with my name nicely written in gold on it. I gave them the
same stuff: "I can't accept it; I'm judging some of the books you're
publishing. I don't think you understand that!"
One commissioner, who had been there for the greatest length of time,
said, "I never accept the stuff; it makes me very upset. But it just goes
on."
But I really missed one opportunity. If I had only thought fast enough,
I could have had a very good time on that commission. I got to the hotel in
San Francisco in the evening to attend my very first meeting the next day,
and I decided to go out to wander in the town and eat something. I came out
of the elevator, and sitting on a bench in the hotel lobby were two guys who
jumped up and said, "Good evening, Mr. Feynman. Where are you going? Is
there something we can show you in San Francisco?" They were from a
publishing company, and I didn't want to have anything to do with them.
"I'm going out to eat."
"We can take you out to dinner."
"No, I want to be alone."
"Well, whatever you want, we can help you."
I couldn't resist. I said, "Well, I'm going out to get myself in
trouble."
"I think we can help you in that, too."
"No, I think I'll take care of that myself." Then I thought, "What an
error! I should have let all that stuff operate and keep a diary, so the
people of the state of California could find out how far the publishers will
go!" And when I found out about the two-million-dollar difference, God knows
what the pressures are!
Originally Posted by Aimless
i thought back at you in the healthcare debates and chuckled
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