“Who taught you physics?”
He solved it in twenty minutes. The examiners were silent. Then the oldest professor—a man who had once shared tea with Bukhovtsev in 1975—removed his glasses and said:
But one day, a yellow envelope arrived. Inside was a single sheet of paper, typewritten, dated 1962. bukhovtsev physics
“Do not solve the problem as given. Solve the principle the problem hides.”
“Dear Student, Your solution to Problem 467 (the rolling hoop on an incline) is incorrect. You assumed pure rolling, but you forgot the deformation of the surface. Recalculate with the hysteresis coefficient of 0.02. Then try Problem 468. Yours in inquiry, B. Bukhovtsev” “Who taught you physics
Dmitri’s father laughed. “What use is that? You know how to weld. That’s real physics.”
The entrance exam for the university was a single problem, written on the blackboard: Inside was a single sheet of paper, typewritten, dated 1962
He solved it. He wept. A year later, Dmitri had worked through half the book. He began writing letters to the address listed on the copyright page—Moscow State University, Department of General Physics. He never expected a reply.