Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character

Feynman views teaching as a cornerstone of his work. He finds that thinking in total isolation, without the give and take of a classroom, makes the brain stagnate; it produces fewer good ideas than having the “interruption” of teaching while thinking up good ideas (192). Even if students are not at the professor’s intellectual level, they force the professor to remember the fundamental ideas that are important to the field and innovation.

After the Manhattan Project, Feynman accepts a job as a professor at Cornell University. He enjoys being around the students and tries to interact with them in ways that will make him seem not like a professor but a “freshman” (197). His informality with students, particularly women, makes some of them “very upset” (197). He feels burned out after the war and does not realize how much time and effort it takes to be an excellent professor. Still, he turns down job offers that would take him away from teaching. One day, Feynman decides that he will rekindle his love for physics by seeing it as play rather than work. By observing plates being thrown in the air at the Cornell cafeteria, Feynman begins to work out a theory of the motion and acceleration of mass particles.