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Interestingly, Richard Feynman tells a similar story. I think it's in "Why do you care what other people think?" It also is depicted in Matthew Broderick's movi
by raganwald 16y ago
Interestingly, Richard Feynman tells a similar story. I think it's in "Why do you care what other people think?" It also is depicted in Matthew Broderick's movie "Infinity."
He was working at Los Alamos on the bomb, and his wife was dying in hospital. He had to make long drives back and forth to visit his wife. He picks up a hitchhiker, a Mexican who speaks no English. IIRC, he rambles on and tells the Mexican about his wife and how she's sick, but the Mexican can't understand him. The crux of the story is when they break down. They aren't in danger of dying in the desert, they get to a gas station, where the Mexican suddenly speaks perfect English and explains how to fix the car so that Feynman can make it to see his wife in time.
Feynman deduces that the Mexican pretending to speak no English is actually a spy, and asks him why he broke his cover. The Mexican answers that he was moved by Richard's plight.
- bemmu 16y agoMy wife, Arlene, was ill with tuberculosis--very ill indeed. It looked as if something might happen at any minute, so I arranged ahead of time with a friend of mine in the dormitory to borrow his car in an emergency so I could get to Albuquerque quickly. His name was Klaus Fuchs. He was the spy, and he used his automobile to take the atomic secrets away from Los Alamos down to Santa Fe. But nobody knew that. The emergency arrived. I borrowed Fuchs's car and picked up a couple of hitchhikers, in case something happened with the car on the way to Albuquerque. Sure enough, just as we were driving into Santa Fe, we got a flat tire. The two guys helped me change the tire, and just as we were leaving Santa Fe, another tire went flat. We pushed the car into a nearby gas station. The gas station guy was repairing somebody else's car, and it was going to take a while before he could help us. I didn't even think to say anything, but the two hitchhikers went over to the gas station man and told him the situation. Soon we had a new tire (but no spare--tires were hard to get during the war). About thirty miles outside Albuquerque a third tire went flat, so I left the car on the road and we hitchhiked the rest of the way. I phoned a garage to go out and get the car while I went to the hospital to see my wife. Arlene died a few hours after I got there.
- raganwald 16y agoMan, that's not even close to how I remembered the story. I need to watch Infinity again, maybe that version took liberties with the original by merging the hitchhikers with Fuchs, and that's what I remembered...