Lettvin discussing frogs in Winston's 6.xxx class
Professor Patrick Henry Winston ’65, SM ’67, PhD ’70
Jerry Lettvin died just as the spring term was ending, so his friends gathered together today, when more could attend, in the big lecture hall in the Stata Center, near where Jerry did much of his work in Building 20.
Here is the cover page of the program:
Many stories were told, as Jerry was not only a great scientist, but also one of MIT’s great personalities, and a role model for many of us who were his students in the classroom or laboratory.
I especially like the one about the time when his wife, Maggie, left him at home to mind their three children. When she came home, the children were sitting motionless, staring off into the distance. “What have you done,” she said. It turned out that he had hypnotized them so he could get some work done.
Once, when I was an undergraduate, I screwed up my courage and went to ask him if he had anything I could do. His reply: “Have you read Helmholtz?” Not realizing that this was one of his standard tests of resolve, I dutifully bought the two volumes of Helmholtz and started to read. Because it was more than 1000 pages, I never finished and never became his student.
When I became a Professor, Jerry always called me Tom. I felt twice honored: first that he recognized me consistently; second that he seemed to be confusing me with Tom Knight,whom I much respect.
Years later, when I started teaching my boutique, seminar-style subject on computational accounts of human intelligence, I always invited Jerry in, not to lecture, but rather to answer questions and reminisce about his life as a scientist. The students had just read Jerry’s seminal, 1959 paper, “What the Frog’s Eye Tells the Frog’s Brain.”
One year he told the story of the German Scientists. To me, the story reflected what Jerry was all about: big ideas rather than incrementalism, blue-collar dress rather than sartorialism, meritocracy rather than pedigree.
Here is the story as Jerry told it: He got a call one day from a friend in California. The friend said, “I have some foreign visitors who have not been able to duplicate your frog experiment. They are planning to publish a paper that claims your work is a fraud. Will you come show them the technique?”
“Do they wear white lab coats?” Jerry asked.
“Yes.”
“Are they Germans?”
“Yes.”
“I’ll come.”
Jerry spent some time deciding what to wear. He finally settled on a thoroughly stained yellow dress shirt and grubby, well-worn work pants.
When he showed up, he was escorted into the experiment room. He reported that the place looked more like an operating room for open heart surgery on humans than a place to stick needles into the optic nerves of frogs.
“We have assembled some instruments for you,” said his friend, pointing to an immaculate tray of scalpels, clamps, and other paraphernalia.
“That’s ok,” said Jerry, “I brought my own.” Then, he reached into his pocket and pulled out a pair of needle-nose pliers and a pair of diagonal cutters.
A minute or two later, with the frog prepared, the German scientists were waiting skeptically to see if anything at all would come out of the speakers attached to the amplifier attached to the needle Jerry had stuck into the frog.
Then, Jerry passed black dot the size of a fly past the frog’s eye.
“Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrup.”
Editor’s Note: Read about Jerry Lettvin’s life in an MIT New Office article.
