“Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman”: Adventures of a Curious Character

When I was in Brazil I had struggled to learn the local language, and decided to give my physics lectures in Portuguese. Soon after I came to Caltech, I was invited to a party hosted by Professor Bacher. Before I arrived at the party, Bacher told the guests, “This guy Feynman thinks he’s smart because he learned a little Portuguese, so let’s fix him good: Mrs. Smith, here (she’s completely Caucasian), grew up in China. Let’s have her greet Feynman in Chinese.”

I walk into the party innocently, and Bacher introduces me to all these people: “Mr. Feynman, this is Mr. So-and-so.”

“Pleased to meet you, Mr. Feynman.”

“And this is Mr. Such-and-such.”

“My pleasure, Mr. Feynman.”

“And this is Mrs. Smith.”

“Ai, choong, ngong jia! ” she says, bowing.

This is such a surprise to me that I figure the only thing to do is to reply in the same spirit. I bow politely to her, and with complete confidence I say, “Ah ching, jong jien! ”

“Oh, my God!” she exclaims, losing her own composure. “I knew this would happen—I speak Mandarin and he speaks Cantonese!”

Certainly, Mr. Big!

I used to cross the United States in my automobile every summer, trying to make it to the Pacific Ocean. But, for various reasons, I would always get stuck somewhere-usually in Las Vegas.

I remember the first time, particularly, I liked it very much. Then, as now, Las Vegas made its money on the people who gamble, so the whole problem for the hotels was to get people to come there to gamble. So they had shows and dinners which were very inexpensive—almost free. You didn’t have to make any reservations for anything: you could walk in, sit down at one of the many empty tables, and enjoy the show. It was just wonderful for a man who didn’t gamble, because I was enjoying all the advantages—the rooms were inexpensive, the meals were next to nothing, the shows were good, and I liked the girls.

One day I was lying around the pool at my motel, and some guy came up and started to talk to me. I can’t remember how he got started, but his idea was that I presumably worked for a living, and it was really quite silly to do that. Look how easy it is for me,” he said. “I just hang around the pool all the time and enjoy life in Las Vegas.”

“How the hell do you do that without working?”

“Simple: I bet on the horses.”

“I don’t know anything about horses, but I don’t see how you can make a living betting on the horses,” I said, skeptically.

“Of course you can,” he said. “That’s how I live! I’ll tell you what: I’ll teach you how to do it. We’ll go down and I’ll guarantee that you’ll win a hundred dollars.”

“How can you do that?”

“I’ll bet you a hundred dollars that you’ll win,” he said. “So if you win it doesn’t cost you anything, and if you lose, you get a hundred dollars!”

So I think, “Gee! That’s right! If I win a hundred dollars on the horses and I have to pay him, I don’t lose anything; it’s just an exercise—it’s just proof that his system works. And if he fails, I win a hundred dollars. It’s quite wonderful!”

He takes me down to some betting place where they have a list of horses and racetracks all over the country. He introduces me to other people who say, “Geez, he’s great! I won a hundred dollars!”

I gradually realize that I have to put up some of my own money for the bets, and I begin to get a little nervous. “How much money do I have to bet?” I ask.

“Oh, three or four hundred dollars.”

I haven’t got that much. Besides, it begins to worry me: Suppose I lose all the bets?

So then he says, “I’ll tell you what: My advice will cost you only fifty dollars, and onlyifitworks. If it doesn’t work, I’ll give you the hundred dollars you would have won anyway.”

I figure, “Wow! Now I win both ways—either fifty or a hundred dollars! How the heck can he do that?” Then I realize that if you have a reasonably even game—forget the little losses from the take for the moment in order to understand it—the chance that you’ll win a hundred dollars versus losing your four hundred dollars is four to one. So out of five times that he tries this on somebody, four times they’re going to win a hundred dollars, he gets two hundred (and he points out to them how smart he is); the fifth time he has to pay a hundred dollars. So he receives two hundred, on the average, when he’s paying out one hundred! So I finally understood how he could do that.

This process went on for a few days. He would invent some scheme that sounded like a terrific deal at first, but after I thought about it for a while I’d slowly figure out how it worked. Finally, in some sort of desperation he says, “All right, I’ll tell you what: You pay me fifty dollars for the advice, and if you lose, I’ll pay you back all your money.”

Now I can’tlose on that! So I say, “All right, you’ve got a deal!”