People need justice.

Technology is nothing. What’s important is that you have a faith in people, that they’re basically good and smart, and if you give them tools, they’ll do wonderful things with them.

Maybe it’s a little about self-belief.

What I’ve come to realize is this: Optimism is more than just a feeling; it’s a strategic approach. And when navigating uncertainty, setbacks and change, it’s one of the most powerful tools in our arsenal.

We'd walk in the canyons, and we'd often walk with Bethe, and Von Neumann, and Bacher. It was a great pleasure.

So I got this new attitude.  Now that I am burned out and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.

Then there was Von Neumann, the great mathemati-cian. We used to go for walks on Sunday. We'd walk in the canyons, and we'd often walk with Bethe, and Von Neumann, and Bacher. It was a great pleasure. And Von Neumann gave me an interesting idea; that you don't have to be responsible for the world that you're in.

So I find that teaching and the students keep life going, and I would never accept any position in which somebody has invented a happy solution for me where I don’t have to teach.  Never.

I had nothing to do, so I start to figure out the motion of the rotating plate.  I discover that when the angle is very slight, the medallion rotates twice as fast as the wobble rate—two to one.  It came out of a complicated equation!  Then I thought, “Is there some way I can see in a more fundamental way, by looking at the forces or the dynamics, why it’s two to one?”

It's made me a very happy man ever since.