This reminds me of the story of Feynman beating the abacist http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/feynman.html http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/feynman.html

This reminds me of the story of Feynman beating the abacist http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/feynman.html http://www.ee.ryerson.ca/~elf/abacus/feynman.html However, the correct Portuguese for "cube roots" is "raízes cúbicas", not "raios cubicos"(—edited with thanks to JetSpiegel for the correction!). I've thought that Feynman may have been better at speaking Portuguese than at spelling it, or that most of Surely You're Joking may have been transcribed from tapes by Ralph Leighton, who probably didn't speak Portuguese.) Edit: Also, I was partly inspired to learn Portuguese by Richard Feynman. I didn't imagine that that would lead to complaining about his spelling. :-)