𝐑𝐢𝐜𝐡𝐚𝐫𝐝 𝐅𝐞𝐲𝐧𝐦𝐚𝐧, 𝐭𝐡𝐞 w𝐨𝐛𝐛𝐥𝐢𝐧𝐠 𝐩𝐥𝐚𝐭𝐞, 𝐚𝐧𝐝 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐍𝐨𝐛𝐥𝐞 𝐏𝐫𝐢𝐳𝐞: 𝐓𝐡𝐞 𝐬𝐭𝐨𝐫𝐲 𝐛𝐞𝐡𝐢𝐧𝐝 𝐅𝐞𝐲𝐧𝐦𝐚𝐧’𝐬 𝐐𝐄𝐃 𝐩𝐚𝐩𝐞𝐫𝐬!

During his days at Cornell as a Professor, just like all of us, Feynman was slipping into a dark phase. He started asking himself -

“Why was I loving Physics, and why is my love towards Physics in the state of declination now!"

He crossed his thoughts towards factors pertaining to his provoking thoughts.

Within a week after these disturbing thoughts, he noticed a student at Cornell who was freaking around by throwing 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," says Feynman.

I started to figure out the motion of the rotating plate, as I had nothing else to do. I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate.

Feynman reached out to Hans Bethe (another famous figure in the Physics circle) and said,

"Hey, Hans! I noticed something interesting. Here the plate goes around so, and the reason is - it’s two to one!"

Bethe nodded with the following question -

"Feynman, that’s pretty interesting, but what’s the importance of it? Why are you doing it?"

"There’s no importance whatsoever. I’m just doing it for the fun of it.’' Feynman responded.

Nevertheless, Bethe's reaction was not discouraging to Feynman, and he had made up his mind saying he'll enjoy the work and Physics behind it.

Feynman started working on it. There helped the Dirac's equation in Electrodynamics, and then the Quantum Electrodynamics.

"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." said Feynman.

Caltech Archives

He went on to win the Nobel Prize in Physics about the same research paper with this wobbling plate story.

Thanks for the read.