Trivial problems can have surprising depth. http://worldandi.misto.cz/_MAIL_/feynman.html http://worldandi.misto.cz/_MAIL_/feynman.html "Feynman finally broke

Trivial problems can have surprising depth. http://worldandi.misto.cz/_MAIL_/feynman.html http://worldandi.misto.cz/_MAIL_/feynman.html "Feynman finally broke the depression cycle in a typically Feynmanesque way. He challenged himself to describe in equations the wobbling movement of a spinning plate being tossed in the air by a student in a Cornell cafeteria. After much effort, he was able to show that, consistent with his observations, for a small degree of wobble, a one-to-two ratio between the wobble and spin was indeed valid. When Feynman excitedly described his results to Bethe, the other scientist listened with interest but wanted to know their practical value. Feynman had to admit that they had no practical value. He had solved the problem because he had fun doing it. This recognition was an epiphany for Feynman. He decided that from then on, he was going to do physics just for the fun of it. Energised by his decision, he went back to problems in quantum electrodynamics that he had started working on while still at Princeton-the work that eventually brought him the Nobel Prize. Ironically, he found that the spinning-plate movement he had studied just for fun also had application to the electron-spin problem."