"Was Feynman's license plate ARW 357 a subtle physicist joke?

[bill nye scienceguy!]

"You know, the most amazing thing happened to me tonight. I was coming here, on the way to the lecture, and I came in through the parking lot. And you won't believe what happened. I saw a car with the license plate ARW 357. Can you imagine? Of all the millions of license plates in the state, what was the chance that I would see that particular one tonight? Amazing!"

I was looking through Richard Feynman's page on Wikiquotes and found this but it didn't list a source. Does anyone know what he might have been talking about? I was thinking the anthropic principle...

 

[LowlyPion]

I was thinking the anthropic principle...

I don't think that so much as talking about the pitfalls of retrospectively finding in data things that may have no relevance other than happenstance.

 

[humanino]

I was looking through Richard Feynman's page on Wikiquotes and found this but it didn't list a source. Does anyone know what he might have been talking about? I was thinking the anthropic principle...

It applies in the context of the (misuse of the) anthropic principle but is more general. The book says

one must not verify an idea using the same data that suggested the idea in the first place

seems trivial but it's a good principle to remember...

 

[LowlyPion]

Getting ARW 357 as a vanity plate would be a very subtle inside joke for a physicist.

One might wonder if it was Feynman's plate number even.

 

[BobG]

Getting ARW 357 as a vanity plate would be a very subtle inside joke for a physicist.

One might wonder if it was Feynman's plate number even.

That would be an interesting example of observation affecting a phenomenon. He'd see ARW 357 plates in the parking lots of every lecture he gave.