Hey there, it's Stephen Dubner. We have been replaying our series on the physicist Richard

Feynman. This is the third and final episode. I hope you've been enjoying it. We will be back

next week with a brand new episode of Freakonomics Radio. As always, thanks for listening.

The Auguries of Innocence by William Blake. To see a world in a grain of sand and a heaven

in a wildflower. Hold infinity in the palm of your hand and eternity in an hour.

There's just times that I wish Feynman was here.

Many, many times.

I'm sorry, but this happens when I think of them,

and I can't predict what it's going to happen.

So give me a moment, because I'm not good at, you know, controlling the upwelling.

It does happen, and I miss the man.

Ralph Layton is a retired schoolteacher who lives just north of Berkeley, California, with his wife, Phoebe.

From their front porch, you can see the San Francisco skyline, the Golden Gate Bridge, the Pacific Ocean.

When Leighton was a teenager, he started hanging out with a man who had become a lifetime friend and inspiration, Richard Feynman.

Feynman and Ralph Leighton's father both taught physics at Caltech, the California Institute of

Technology, in Pasadena, California.

But Ralph Layton and Richard Feynman didn't bond over physics.

They bonded over their love of playing the bongos.

We would drum often at his place, but sometimes at my place.

And then after that, you know, then he'd just talk.

And then sometimes we'd drum again, and then he'd talk.

This talking is what Leighton helped turn into two books that made Feynman famous toward the end of his life.

...