I mumbled something about how it was easy to calculate e to any power using that series (you just substitute the power for x). “Oh yeah?” they said, … - Richard Feynman

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I mumbled something about how it was easy to calculate e to any power using that series (you just substitute the power for x). “Oh yeah?” they said, “Well, then, what’s e to the 3.3?” said some joker — I think it was Tukey. I say, “That’s easy. It’s 27.11.” Tukey knows it isn’t so easy to compute all that in your head. “Hey! How’d you do that?” Another guy says, “You know Feynman, he’s just faking it. It’s not really right.” They go to get a table, and while they’re doing that, I put on a few more figures: “27.1126,” I say. They find it in the table. “It’s right! But how’d you do it!” “I just summed the series.” “Nobody can sum the series that fast. You must just happen to know that one. How about e to the 3?” “Look,” I say. “It’s hard work! Only one a day!” “Hah! It’s a fake!” they say, happily. “All right,” I say, “It’s 20.085.

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About Richard Feynman

Richard Phillips Feynman (May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American theoretical physicist. He is known for the work he did in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, and in particle physics, for which he proposed the parton model. For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 jointly with Julian Schwinger and Shin'ichirō Tomonaga. Feynman developed a widely used pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions describing the behavior of subatomic particles, which later became known as Feynman diagrams. During his lifetime, Feynman became one of the best-known scientists in the world.

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Native Name: Richard Phillips Feynman
Alternative Names: Ofey Feynman Dick Feynman Richard P. Feynman
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Additional quotes by Richard Feynman

The acceptance and success of these flights is taken as evidence of safety. But erosion and blow-by are not what the design expected. They are warnings that something is wrong. The equipment is not operating as expected, and therefore there is a danger that it can operate with even wider deviations in this unexpected and not thoroughly understood way. The fact that this danger did not lead to a catastrophe before is no guarantee that it will not the next time, unless it is completely understood. When playing Russian roulette the fact that the first shot got off safely is little comfort for the next. The origin and consequences of the erosion and blow-by were not understood. They did not occur equally on all flights and all joints; sometimes more, and sometimes less. Why not sometime, when whatever conditions determined it were right, still more leading to catastrophe? In spite of these variations from case to case, officials behaved as if they understood it, giving apparently logical arguments to each other often depending on the "success" of previous flights.

Science is like sex: sometimes something useful comes out, but that is not the reason we are doing it.

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[John] von Neumann gave me an interesting idea: that you don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in. So I have developed a very powerful sense of social irresponsibility as a result of von Neumann's advice. It's made me a very happy man ever since. But it was von Neumann who put the seed in that grew into my active irresponsibility!

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