Then I had another thought: Physics disgusts me a little bit now, but I used to enjoy doing physics. Why did I enjoy it? I used to play with it. I used to do whatever I felt like doing - it didn't have to do with whether it was important for the development of nuclear physics, but whether it was interesting and amusing for me to play with. When I was in high school, I'd see water running out of a faucet growing narrower, and wonder if I could figure out what determines that curve. I found it was rather easy to do. I didn't have to do it; it wasn't important for the future of science; somebody else had already done it. That didn't make any difference. I'd invent things and play with things for my own entertainment.

So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out and I'll never accomplish anything, I've got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I'm going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.

Within a week I was in the cafeteria and some guy, fooling around, throws a plate in the air. As the plate went up in the air I saw it wobble, and I noticed the red medallion of Cornell on the plate going around. It was pretty obvious to me that the medallion went around faster than the wobbling.

I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate - two to one [Note: Feynman mis-remembers here---the factor of 2 is the other way]. It came out of a complicated equation! Then I thought, ``Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it's two to one?''

I don't remember how I did it, but I ultimately worked out what the motion of the mass particles is, and how all the accelerations balance to make it come out two to one.

I still remember going to Hans Bethe and saying, ``Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason it's two to one is ...'' and I showed him the accelerations.

He says, ``Feynman, that's pretty interesting, but what's the importance of it? Why are you doing it?''

``Hah!'' I say. ``There's no importance whatsoever. I'm just doing it for the fun of it.'' His reaction didn't discourage me; I had made up my mind I was going to enjoy physics and do whatever I liked.

I went on to work out equations of wobbles. Then I thought about how electron orbits start to move in relativity. Then there's the Dirac Equation in electrodynamics. And then quantum electrodynamics. And before I knew it (it was a very short time) I was ``playing'' - working, really - with the same old problem that I loved so much, that I had stopped working on when I went to Los Alamos: my thesis-type problems; all those old-fashioned, wonderful things.

It was effortless. It was easy to play with these things. It was like uncorking a bottle: Everything flowed out effortlessly. I almost tried to resist it! There was no importance to what I was doing, but ultimately there was. The diagrams and the whole business that I got the Nobel Prize for came from that piddling around with the wobbling plate.

In The Periodic Table, Primo Levi tells a story that happened when he was working in a varnish factory. He was a chemist, and he was fascinated by the fact that the varnish recipe included a raw onion. What could it be for? No one knew; it was just part of the recipe. So he investigated, and eventually discovered that they had started throwing the onion in years ago to test the temperature of the varnish: if it was hot enough, the onion would fry.

• Mark Pilkington
• The Guardian, Thursday 16 October 2003 02.54 BST
• Article history

Have you ever wondered what a ghost sounds like? Engineer Vic Tandy may already know. In the early 1980s, Tandy was working in a laboratory designing medical equipment. Word began to spread among the staff that the labs might be haunted, something Tandy put down to the constant wheeze of life-support machines operating in the building.

One evening he was working on his own in the lab when he began to feel distinctly uncomfortable, breaking into a cold sweat as the hairs on the back of his neck stood on end. He was convinced that he was being watched. Then, out of the corner of his eye, Tandy noticed an ominous grey shape drifting slowly into view, but when he turned around to face it, it was gone. Terrified, he went straight home.

The next day Tandy, a keen fencer, noticed that a foil blade clamped in a vice was vibrating up and down very fast. He found that the vibrations were caused by a standing sound wave that was bouncing between the end walls of the laboratory and reached a peak of intensity in the centre of the room. He calculated that the frequency of the standing wave was about 19hz (cycles per second) and soon discovered that it was produced by a newly installed extractor fan. When the fan was turned off, the sound wave disappeared.

The key here is frequency: 19hz is in the range known as infrasound, below the range of human hearing, which begins at 20hz. Tandy learned that low frequencies in this region can affect humans and animals in several ways, causing discomfort, dizziness, blurred vision (by vibrating your eyeballs), hyperventilation and fear, possibly leading to panic attacks.

A more recent investigation took place in an allegedly haunted 14th-century pub cellar in Coventry, where people have reported terrifying experiences for many years, including seeing a spectral grey lady. Here Tandy also uncovered a 19hz standing wave, adding further evidential weight to his theory.

In an interesting parallel, researchers have recorded that, prior to an attack, a tiger's roar contains frequencies of about 18hz, which might disorientate and paralyse their intended victim. Is this the sound of fear itself?

Kenneth Cole is a fashion giant.  The company is publicly traded and is worth over $200 million.  They have over 100 stores and a robust e-commerce business, selling everything from men’s dress shirts to women’s handbags, and, of course, shoes. The footwear business is how Kenneth Cole — the company — got its start, after all, if you do not count the fake movie Kenneth Cole — the person — pretended to shoot.

Yes, a fake movie.

In 1982, the New York-based Mr. Cole had an idea and some shoe leather, and not a ton of funding. He was able to produce about 40,000 pairs of shoes but found it incredibly difficult to sell them, as renting a Manhattan commercial space was way too pricey for his meager budget (and, we assume, trying to sell 40,000 pairs of expensive footwear would be difficult in areas with cheaper rents). But when he learned that Market Week was coming to the New York Hilton — a monstrous hotel with nearly 2,000 rooms in Midtown Manhattan — Mr. Cole decided to do as roughly a thousand other companies and exhibitors were doing: he went to rent a suite. Unfortunately, that too turned out to be too expensive given Mr. Cole’s limited budget.

So he borrowed a truck.  One with a forty-foot trailer, to be specific — one which could act as a roadside storefront and exhibit hall, replete with models and of course, those 40,000 shoes ready for sale. Mr. Cole then went to the mayor’s office to get a permit to park the truck near the Hilton during Market Week — and was rebuffed.

It turns out that at the time (and less so, but still somewhat true today), the city greatly restricted the availability of the permit Mr. Cole required.  The permits were only granted to two types of companies: utility companies, so that they could perform maintenance and build out their infrastructure; and production studios, so that they could film television shows and movies.  So Mr. Cole decided to do just that — shoot a movie. He filed for a permit to shoot “The Birth of a Shoe Company,” and outfitted his trailer with a director, cameramen (although not all of them had film), and “actresses” who played the “roles” of models, displaying the shoes.

And yes, the shoes were indeed for sale. Kenneth Cole sold all 40,000 pairs of shoes over two and a half days, establishing itself as a force in the fashion of footwear, and giving the company a much needed cash infusion as it expanded toward greater heights.

To this day, the company’s full name is “Kenneth Cole Productions, Inc.,” — the name used to secure the truck permit — as a homage to its peculiar beginnings as a sham movie studio.

One very hot afternoon, two farmers, Ram and Shyam sat under the shade of a large tree. They had brought tasty chapatis [basically Indian tortillas] for lunch.

Ram had 3 pieces, and Shyam had 5. And they were about to begin their meal when a young nobleman rode by. “Good day, good sirs,” he said.

The nobleman looked tired and hungry. So Ram and Shyam invited the nobleman to share their food. “But, how are we supposed to divide these 8 chapatis among the 3 of us?” asked Ram.

“We shall stack up the chapatis and cut them into 3 equal parts,” suggested Shyam.

So they stacked up the chapatis and cut them into 3 equal parts. They ate the pieces equally so that no one ate more or less than anyone.

When they finished, the grateful nobleman insisted on paying for his share of food. He placed 8 gold coins into Ram’s palm.

“There are two of us, and 8 gold coins, so we should take 4 each,” suggested Ram.

“But that’s not fair,” argued Shyam, “I had 5 chapatis and you had only 3, so I should get 5 coins and you should get only 3.”

Ram did not want to quarrel, but he also did not want to give 5 of the coins to Shyam. “Let us go to the Maulvi [an expert in law],” suggested Ram, “he is always just.”

So Ram and Shyam went to the Maulvi’s house together. They told the Maulvi everything that had happened. The Maulvi thought for a long time. “The fair way to divide these 8 gold coins is to give 7 coins to Shyam and only 1 coin to Ram.”

“Huh? Why do I deserve only 1 gold coin,” argued Ram.

“And why do I deserve 7!?” said Shyam.

But when Maulvi explained his reasoning, both Ram and Shyam were satisfied that justice had been done.

Why was this a fair division?

Now, let’s see what the Maulvi’s explanation was.

How many chapatis were there in total? There were 8 in total.

If they were cut into 3 equal parts, how many pieces were there? There were 24 pieces.

Now how many chapati’s did Ram have? He had 3. If they were cut into 3 equal parts, then there were 9 pieces.

Now how many chapatis did Shyam have? He had 5, cut into 3 equal parts, making 15 pieces.

Now if there were 24 pieces in total, eaten equally, then each person had 8 pieces (24 divided by 3).

Out of the 9 pieces that Ram had, he ate 8 pieces himself, thus only 1 was for the guest.

Out of the 15 pieces Shyam had, he ate 8 pieces, and 7 pieces for the guest.

Thus Shyam deserves 7 gold coins (1 for each he gave the nobleman) and Ram deserves just 1 (for the 1 piece he gave the nobleman).

If Ram had been wiser and done the math himself, he might have accepted the generous offer of 3 gold coins and never suggested to visit the Maulvi.

How it works: The period of one complete cycle of the dance is 60 seconds. The length of the longest pendulum has been adjusted so that it executes 51 oscillations in this 60 second period. The length of each successive shorter pendulum is carefully adjusted so that it executes one additional oscillation in this period. Thus, the 15th pendulum (shortest) undergoes 65 oscillations. When all 15 pendulums are started together, they quickly fall out of sync—their relative phases continuously change because of their different periods of oscillation. However, after 60 seconds they will all have executed an integral number of oscillations and be back in sync again at that instant, ready to repeat the dance.