Concerning young love, there's the perception that the world practically begins and ends with your partner. Given that she was assigned a tragic and uncommon fate, would it be surprising to think that Feynman, or anyone, might be more vulnerable to accepting the "magical" explanation, that the energy/soul of this unique being left a telekinetic sign?
Its not just that you wouldn't, on average, consider a supernatural explanation. It's that the stopping of a clock at any particular moment is rare and the death of your first true love...is, well, also extremely rare. A scientific mind, under some stress, might cede to the supernatural comfort by framing it as: "well, the probability of those two events happening at once"...and this framing would be made even easier given the overwhelming acceptance of such an event being supernatural by a 1940s-era society
Its not just that you wouldn't, on average, consider a supernatural explanation. It's that the stopping of a clock at any particular moment is rare and the death of your first true love...is, well, also extremely rare. A scientific mind, under some stress, might cede to the supernatural comfort by framing it as: "well, the probability of those two events happening at once"...and this framing would be made even easier given the overwhelming acceptance of such an event being supernatural by a 1940s-era society