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The Nobel Prize
"I had a certain psychological difficulty all the way through this period. You see, I had been brought up by my father against royalty and pomp (he was in the uniforms business, so he knew the difference between a man with a uniform on, and with the uniform--it's the same man). I had actually learned to ridicule this stuff all my life, and it was so strong and deeply cut into me that I couldn't go up to a king without some strain. It was childish, I know, but I was brought up that way, so it was a problem.
While I had a lot of fun, I did still have this psychological difficulty all the way through. My greatest problem was the Thank-You speech that you give at the King's Dinner. When they give you the Prize they give you some nicely bound books about the years before, and they have all the Thank-You speeches written out as if they're some big deal. So you begin to think it's of some importance what you say in this Thank-You speech, because it's going to be published. What I didn't realize was that hardly anyone was going to read it! I had lost my sense of proportion: I couldn't just say thank you very much, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah; it would have been so easy to do that, but no, I have to make it honest. And the truth was, I didn't really want this Prize, so how do I say thank you when I really don't want it?
While I had a lot of fun, I did still have this psychological difficulty all the way through. My greatest problem was the Thank-You speech that you give at the King's Dinner. When they give you the Prize they give you some nicely bound books about the years before, and they have all the Thank-You speeches written out as if they're some big deal. So you begin to think it's of some importance what you say in this Thank-You speech, because it's going to be published. What I didn't realize was that hardly anyone was going to read it! I had lost my sense of proportion: I couldn't just say thank you very much, blah-blah-blah-blah-blah; it would have been so easy to do that, but no, I have to make it honest. And the truth was, I didn't really want this Prize, so how do I say thank you when I really don't want it?