Richard Feynman was an American theoretical physicist best known for his work in quantum mechanics’ path integral formulation, quantum electrodynamics theory, superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium physics, and particle physics, for which he devised the parton model. Feynman died on February 15, 1988 at age 69.
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Feynman created a popular pictorial representation technique for mathematical statements describing the behavior of subatomic particles, which became known as Feynman diagrams. During his lifetime, Feynman rose to become one of the world’s most well-known scientists.
Feynman was born on May 11, 1918, in Queens, New York City, to homemaker Lucille (née Phillips; 1895-1981) and sales manager Melville Arthur Feynman (1890-1946). He was a late talker and did not speak until after his third birthday.
As an adult, he talked with a heavy New York accent that was viewed as an affectation or exaggeration.
His father, who pushed him to ask questions to challenge conventional thinking and was always willing to teach Feynman something new, had a big influence on the young Feynman.
He inherited his mother’s sense of humor, which he retained throughout his life.
He showed an aptitude for engineering as a young boy, had an experimental laboratory in his home, and enjoyed repairing radios.
Feynman demonstrated early hints of an aptitude for his subsequent profession in theoretical physics, when he would study problems theoretically and arrive at solutions.
When he was in elementary school, he devised a home burglar alarm system while his parents were away running errands.
Richard Feynman Education
Feynman went to Far Rockaway High School, along did fellow Nobel laureates Burton Richter and Baruch Samuel Blumberg.
Feynman was rapidly promoted to a higher math class after starting high school. In high school, an IQ test evaluated his IQ to be 125.
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Feynman began teaching himself trigonometry, advanced algebra, infinite series, analytic geometry, and differential and integral calculus when he was 15 years old.
He was a member of the Arista Honor Society and won the New York University Arithmetic Championship in his senior year of high school.
Feynman applied to Columbia University but was denied admission due to a quota for the number of Jews allowed.
Instead, he enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he became a member of the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity.
Richard Feynman Quotes
Among the quotations ascribed to Richard Feynman are:
- “I think for lesson number one, to learn a mystic formula for answering questions is very bad.”
- “In this age of specialization men who thoroughly know one field are often incompetent to discuss another. The great problems of the relations between one and another aspect of human activity have for this reason been discussed less and less in public.”
- “There is one feature I notice that is generally missing in cargo cult science [pseudoscience]… It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty — a kind of leaning over backwards.”
- “The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to… No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.”
Richard Feynman Books
Feynman popularized physics through books and lectures, including a 1959 discussion on top-down nanotechnology titled There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom and the three-volume release of his undergraduate lectures, The Feynman Lectures on Physics.
Feynman also became known through his autobiographical books Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?
Richard Feynman Nobel Prize
Feynman shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 with Julian Schwinger and Shin’ichir Tomonaga for his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics.
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