无意间看到这则算趣事？
来源是传记作家 拉夫．雷顿（Ralph Leighton） （注1）
为《费曼物理学诀窍》Feynman's Tips on Physics 一书所写的序言
https://www.books.com.tw/products/0010843981 博客来
1962年，偏远的喜马拉雅山区的中印未定边界上发生了纠纷，闹到双方互相开火射击
，之后形成对峙，双方一触即发的紧张情势持续了多年。有座孤零零设立在高坡顶上的印
度军队前哨站，站内有一名被征召入伍的士兵，叫做伯拉苏不拉曼宁（Ramaswamy
Balasubramanian），透过一具双筒望远镜观察对面驻守在西藏境内的人民解放军的动静
，他看到对方也在用望远镜朝着这边观望。出乎伯拉苏不拉曼宁跟他同袍们的意外，那些
解放军居然拿着红色封面的袖珍版《毛语录》，西方人多称之为“毛泽东的小红书”，高
高举在手中，面向着印度前哨站挥舞示威。
伯拉苏不拉曼宁当时常趁著闲暇自修物理学，他很快的就对解放军的嘲弄觉得很厌烦
，于是有一天，他有备而来的到前哨站服勤，在解放军循例拿起小红书挥舞时，他跟另两
位袍泽马上各自抓起一本他带去的三大册，同样是大红封面的《费曼物理学讲义》，高举
过头，向对方挥舞。 （注2）
有一天，我收到当事人伯拉苏不拉曼宁先生寄来的一封信。过去许多年里面，我收到
数百封类似的信件，都是描述费曼对人们的生命所产生的长远冲击。他在描述了于中印边
界所发生的“红皮书”事件之后，写道：“二十年之后，究竟是谁的红皮书，仍然还有人
在阅读呢？”
他说得真是一针见血。《费曼物理学讲义》从发行以来，已经超过了四十寒暑，现在
仍然有许多人在读，并且继续启发全球各地的读者，我相信甚至连西藏地区也不例外。
这儿我得特别记上一笔：数年前我在一个派对上遇到麦可．高利伯，当天派对主人利
用电脑萤幕，展示了图瓦喉音歌手于现场表演所唱歌声的谐泛音（harmonic overtone）
，这类活动让旧金山附近的生活有趣了起来。高利伯原本是数学科班出身，并对物理学非
常有兴趣，于是我建议他阅读《费曼物理学讲义》。大约一年后，他特地腾出了六个月的
时间，专心一志的把这套讲义从头到尾仔细的读过一遍。正如高利伯所写的本书〈初版序
〉中所描述，他那一读，最后促成了本书，跟《费曼物理学讲义》新千禧年版的诞生。
所以我很高兴现在全世界对于物理有兴趣的人，可以研读一套更正确、更完整的《费
曼物理学讲义》，而且还有本册书做为补充读本。看来《费曼物理学讲义》这套不朽巨著
在未来数十年，仍将继续教导与启发学生，无论他们是在纽约曼哈坦闹区或是在喜马拉雅
高山上。
拉夫．雷顿（Ralph Leighton）
注1：拉夫．雷顿 Ralph Leighton（1949～）
美国传记作家，也是《费曼物理学讲义》作者之一
罗伯．雷顿（Robert Leighton）的儿子。
注2：《费曼物理学讲义》The Feynman Lectures on Physics
由物理学家 理察．费曼（Richard Feynman 1918～1988）
罗伯．雷顿（Robert Leighton 1919～1997）
玛修．桑兹（Matthew Sands 1919～2014）
三人合著的物理学教科书，广为世人所知。
https://i.imgur.com/6C2RvWD.jpg
原文：
https://www.feynmanlectures.caltech.edu/TIPS_90.html
At a lonely border post high on the Himalayan frontier, Ramaswamy
Balasubramanian peered through his binoculars at the People's Liberation
Army soldiers stationed in Tibet—who were peering through their scopes back
at him. Tensions between India and China had been high for several years
since 1962, when the two countries traded shots across their disputed border.
The PLA soldiers, knowing they were being watched, taunted Balasubramanian
and his fellow Indian soldiers by shaking, defiantly, high in the air, their
pocket-sized, bright-red copies of Quotations from Chairman Mao—better known
in the West as “Mao's Little Red Book.”
Balasubramanian, then a conscript studying physics in his spare time, soon
grew tired of these taunts. So one day, he came to his observation post
prepared with a suitable rejoinder. As soon as the PLA soldiers started
waving Mao's Little Red Book in the air again, he and two fellow Indian
soldiers picked up and held aloft the three big, bright-red volumes of The
Feynman Lectures on Physics.
One day I received a letter from Mr. Balasubramanian. His was among hundreds
of letters I have received over the years that describe the lasting impact
Richard Feynman has had on people's lives. After recounting the“red-books”
incident on the Sino-Indian frontier, he wrote:“Now, twenty years later,
whose red books are still being read?”
Indeed. Today, more than forty years after they were delivered, The Feynman
Lectures on Physics are still being read—and still inspire—even in Tibet, I
suspect.
A special case in point: several years ago I met Michael Gottlieb at a party
where the host was displaying on a computer screen the harmonic overtones of
a live Tuvan throat-singer—the kind of event that makes living in San
Francisco such fun. Gottlieb had studied math and was very interested in
physics, so I suggested he read The Feynman Lectures on Physics—and about a
year later, he devoted six months of his life to reading The Lectures very
carefully from beginning to end. As Gottlieb describes in his introduction,
this led, eventually, to the book you are reading now, as well as to a new,
“Definitive Edition”of The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
Thus I am pleased that people interested in physics all over the world can
now study, with the addition of this supplemental volume, a more correct and
complete edition of The Feynman Lectures on Physics—a monumental work that
will continue to inform and inspire students for decades to come, whether in
midtown Manhattan or high in the Himalayas.
Ralph Leighton
May 11, 2005