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{{Infobox_Biography |
  subject_name   = Richard Feynman |
  image_name     = richard_feynman.jpg |
  image_caption  = "... I think I can safely say that nobody understands Quantum Mechanics" - Richard P. Feynman |
  date_of_birth  = [[May 11]], [[1918]] |
  place_of_birth = [[Queens, New York]] |
  date_of_death  = [[February 15]], [[1988]] |
  place_of_death = [[Los Angeles, California]]
}}
'''Richard Phillips Feynman''' ([[May 11]], [[1918]]–[[February 15]], [[1988]]) ([[surname]] pronounced "FINE-man") was one of the most influential [[United States|American]] [[physics|physicists]] of the [[20th century]], expanding greatly the theory of [[quantum electrodynamics]]. As well as being an inspiring lecturer and amateur [[music]]ian, he helped in the development of the [[atomic bomb]] and was later a member of the panel which investigated the [[STS-51-L|Space Shuttle Challenger disaster]]. For his work on quantum electrodynamics, Feynman was one of the recipients of the [[Nobel Prize in Physics]] for [[1965]], along with [[Julian Schwinger]] and [[Sin-Itiro Tomonaga]].

He is also famous for his many adventures, detailed in the books ''[[Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!]]'', ''[[What Do You Care What Other People Think?]]'' and ''Tuva Or Bust!''. Richard Feynman was, in many respects, an [[eccentricity (behavior)|eccentric]] and a [[free spirit]].

==Biography==
[[Image:Nobel_feynman.jpg|frame|Richard Feynman]] Feynman was born in [[Rockaway|Far Rockaway]], [[Queens, New York|Queens]], [[City of New York|New York]]; his parents were [[Jewish]], although they did not practice [[Judaism]] as a religion. The young Feynman was heavily influenced by his father who encouraged him to ask questions in order to challenge orthodox thinking. His mother instilled in him a powerful sense of humor which he kept all his life. As a child, he delighted in repairing radios and had a talent for engineering. He kept experimenting on and re-creating mathematical topics, such as the ''[[half-derivative]]'' (a mathematical ''[[operator]]'', which when applied twice in succession, resulted in the [[derivative]] of a [[function_(mathematics)|function]]), utilizing his own notation, before entering college. (Thus, even while in high school, he was developing the mathematical intuition behind his [[Taylor series]] of [[mathematical operator]]s.) His habit of direct characterization would sometimes disconcert more conventional thinkers; one of his questions when learning feline anatomy was: "Do you have a map of the cat?" When he spoke, it was with clarity.
===Education===
Feynman received a [[bachelor's degree]] from the [[Massachusetts Institute of Technology]] in [[1939]], and was named [[Putnam Fellow]] that same year.  He received a [[Doctor of Philosophy|Ph.D.]] from [[Princeton University]] in [[1942]]; his thesis advisor was [[John Archibald Wheeler]]. After Feynman completed his thesis on quantum mechanics, Wheeler showed it to [[Albert Einstein]], but Einstein was unconvinced. While researching his Ph.D, Feynman married his first wife, Arline<!--not Arlene--> Greenbaum, who had been diagnosed with [[tuberculosis]], a terminal illness at that time; they were careful, and Feynman never contracted TB.

===The Manhattan Project===
[[Image:Feynman and Oppenheimer at Los Alamos.gif|thumb|Feynman (center) with [[Robert Oppenheimer]] (right) relaxing at a [[Los Alamos National Laboratory|Los Alamos]] social function during the top-secret [[Manhattan Project]].]] 
At Princeton, the physicist [[Robert R. Wilson]] encouraged Feynman to participate in the [[Manhattan Project]]&mdash;the wartime [[United States Army|U.S. Army]] project at [[Los Alamos National Laboratory|Los Alamos]] developing the atomic bomb. He visited his wife in a sanitarium in [[Santa Fe, New Mexico|Santa Fe]] on weekends, right up until her death in July [[1945]]. He immersed himself in work on the project, and was present at the [[Trinity site|Trinity]] bomb test. Feynman claimed to be the only person to see the explosion without the dark glasses provided, looking through a truck windshield to screen out harmful [[ultraviolet]] frequencies. 

As a junior physicist, his work on the project was relatively removed from the major action, consisting mostly of administering the [[computation]] group of human [[computer]]s in the Theoretical division, and then, with [[Nicholas Metropolis]], setting up the system for using IBM [[punch card]]s for computation. Feynman actually succeeded in solving one of the equations for the project which were posted on the blackboards. <!--  These were the equations that terrified [[Stanislaw Ulam]] when he first arrived, until Ulam noticed they never changed. --> However, they didn't "do the physics right" and Feynman's solution <!--to one of those equations--> was not used in the project. 

Los Alamos was isolated; in his own words, "There wasn't anything to ''do'' there". Bored, Feynman found pastimes such as [[lock picking|picking locks]], breaking into safes and leaving mischievous notes to prove that the security at the lab was not as good as people would like to believe; as a drummer, he would find an isolated section of the [[mesa]] to drum Indian-style; "and maybe I would dance and chant, a little". These antics did not go unnoticed, but no one knew that "Injun Joe" was actually Feynman. He became a friend of laboratory head [[Robert Oppenheimer|J. Robert Oppenheimer]], who unsuccessfully tried to court him away from his other commitments to work at the [[University of California, Berkeley]] after the war.

=== Early career: Cornell University===
After the project, Feynman started working as a [[professor]] at [[Cornell University]], where [[Hans Bethe]], who proved that the Sun's source of energy was [[nuclear fusion]], worked. However he felt uninspired there; despairing that he had burned out, he turned to less useful, but fun problems, such as analyzing the physics of a twirling, [[Nutation|nutating]] dish, as it is being balanced by a juggler. As it turned out, this work served him in future researches. He was therefore surprised to be offered professorships from competing universities, eventually choosing to work at the [[California Institute of Technology]] at [[Pasadena, California]], despite being offered a position near [[Princeton University|Princeton]], at the [[Institute for Advanced Study]] (which included, at that time, such distinguished faculty as [[Albert Einstein]]).

Feynman rejected the Institute on the grounds that there were no teaching duties. Feynman found his students to be a source of inspiration and also, during uncreative times, comfort. He felt that if he could not be creative, at least he could teach.

[[Image:FeynmanLecturesOnPhysics.jpg|thumb|250px| Feynman the "Great Explainer": ''[[The Feynman Lectures on Physics]]'' found an appreciative audience beyond the undergraduate community. ]]

Feynman is sometimes called the "Great Explainer"; he took great care when explaining topics to his students, making it a moral point ''not'' to make a topic arcane, but accessible to others. He opposed the [[rote learning]] and other teaching methods that emphasised form over function everywhere, from a conference on education in Brazil to state commission on school textbook selection. ''Clear thinking'' and ''clear presentation'' were fundamental prerequisites for his attention. It could be perilous to even approach him when unprepared, and he did not forget who the fools or pretenders were. On one sabbatical year, he returned to Newton's ''Principia'' to study it anew; what he learned from Newton, he also passed along to his students, such as Newton's attempted explanation of [[diffraction]].

===The Caltech years===
Feynman did much of his best work while at [[California Institute of Technology|Caltech]], including research in:

* [[Quantum electrodynamics]]. The problem for which Feynman won his [[Nobel Prize]] involved the probability of quantum states changing. He helped develop a [[path integral formulation|functional integral formulation]] of quantum mechanics, in which every possible path from one state to the next is considered, the final path being a ''sum'' over the possibilities.

* Physics of the [[superfluid]]ity of supercooled liquid [[helium]], where helium seems to display a lack of [[viscosity]] when flowing. Applying the [[Schrödinger equation]] to the question showed that the superfluid was displaying quantum mechanical behavior observable on a macroscopic scale. This helped enormously with the problem of [[superconductivity]].

* A model of [[weak decay]], which showed that the current coupling in the process is a combination of vector and axial. (An example of weak decay is the decay of a [[neutron]] into an [[electron]], a [[proton]], and an anti-[[neutrino]].)  Although [[E.C. George Sudharsan]] and [[Robert Marshak]] developed the theory nearly simultaneously, Feynman's collaboration with [[Murray Gell-Mann]] was seen as the seminal one, the theory was of massive importance, and the [[weak interaction]] was neatly described.

He also developed [[Feynman diagram]]s, a ''bookkeeping device'' which helps in conceptualising and calculating interactions between [[particle]]s in [[spacetime]]. This device allowed him, and now others, to work with concepts which would have been less approachable without it, such as time reversibility and other fundamental processes. These diagrams are now fundamental for [[string theory]] and [[M-theory]], and have even been extended topologically. Feynman's mental picture for these diagrams started with the ''hard sphere'' approximation, and the interactions could be thought of as ''collisions'' at first. It was not until decades later that physicists thought of analyzing the nodes of the Feynman diagrams more closely. The ''world-lines'' of the diagrams have become ''tubes'' to better model the more complicated objects such as ''strings'' and ''M-branes''.

From his diagrams of a small number of particles interacting in [[spacetime]], Feynman could then [[model]] ''all of physics'' in terms of those particles' [[spin]]s and the range of coupling of the [[fundamental force]]s. The [[quark]] model, however, was a rival to Feynman's [[parton]] formulation. Feynman did not dispute the quark model; for example, when the 5th quark was discovered, Feynman immediately pointed out to his students that the discovery implied the existence of a 6th quark, which was duly discovered in the decade after his death.

After the success of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman turned to quantum gravity. By analogy with the photon, which has spin 1, he investigated the consequences of a free massless spin 2 field, and was able to derive the [[Einstein field equation]] of general relativity, but little more. Unfortunately, at this time he became exhausted by working on multiple major projects at the same time, including his ''Lectures in Physics''. 

While at Caltech, Feynman was asked to "spruce up" the teaching of undergraduates. After three years devoted to the task, a series of lectures was produced, eventually becoming the famous ''[[The Feynman Lectures on Physics|Feynman Lectures on Physics]]'', which are a major reason that Feynman is still regarded by most physicists as one of the greatest ''teachers'' of physics ever. Feynman later won the [[Oersted Medal]] for teaching, of which he seemed especially proud. His students competed keenly for his attention; once he was awakened when a student solved a problem and dropped it in his mailbox at home; glimpsing the student sneaking across his lawn, he could not go back to sleep, and he read the student's solution. That morning his breakfast was interrupted by another triumphant student, but Feynman informed this student that he was too late.

Feynman was a keen and influential popularizer of physics in both his books and lectures, notably a seminal [[1959]] talk on [[nanotechnology]] called ''[[There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom]]''. Feynman offered $1000 prizes for two of his challenges in nanotechnology. He was also one of the first scientists to realise the possibility of [[quantum computer]]s. Many of his lectures and other miscellaneous talks were turned into books such as ''The Character of Physical Law'' and ''QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter''. He would give lectures which his students would annotate into books, such as ''Statistical Mechanics'' and ''Lectures on Gravity''. ''[[The Feynman Lectures on Physics]]'' took a physicist, [[Robert B. Leighton (physicist)|Robert B. Leighton]], as full-time editor a number of years.

===Personal life===
Feynman's first wife died while he was working on the Manhattan project. He married a second time, to Mary Louise Bell of Neodesha, Kansas in June, 1952; this marriage was brief and unsuccessful. 

Feynman later married Gweneth Howarth from the United Kingdom, who shared his enthusiasm for life. Besides their home in [[Altadena, California]], they had a beach house in [[Baja California]]. They remained married for life, and had a child of their own, [[Carl Feynman|Carl]], and adopted a daughter, Michelle. 

Feynman had a great deal of success teaching Carl using discussions about ''ants'' and ''Martians'' as a device for gaining perspective on problems and issues; he was surprised to learn that the same teaching devices did not apply for Michelle. Mathematics was a common interest for father and son; they both entered the [[computer]] field as  consultants. 

The [[Jet Propulsion Laboratory]] retained Feynman as a computational consultant during critical missions. One coworker characterized Feynman as akin to ''Don Quixote'' at his desk, rather than at a computer workstation, ready to do battle with the windmills. 

According to Professor Steven Frautschi, a colleague of Feynman, Feynman was the only person in the Altadena region to buy flood insurance after the massive 1978 fire, predicting correctly that the fire's destruction would lead to land erosion, causing mudslides and flooding.  The flood occurred in 1979 after winter rains and destroyed multiple houses in the neighborhood.
 
Feynman traveled a great deal, notably to [[Brazil]], and near the end of his life schemed to visit the obscure [[Russia]]n land of [[Tuva]], a dream that, due to [[Cold War]] bureaucratic problems, never succeeded. During this period he discovered that he had a form of [[cancer]], but, thanks to surgery, he managed to hold it off.


Feynman did not work only on physics, and had a large circle of friends from all walks of life, including the arts. He took up [[painting]] at one time and enjoyed some success under a [[pseudonym]], culminating in an exhibition dedicated to his work. He learned to play [[drums]] (''frigideira'') in acceptable [[samba]] style in Brazil by persistence and practice, and participated in a samba "school". Such actions earned him a reputation of [[eccentricity (behaviour)|eccentricity]].

Feynman had very liberal views on [[sexuality]] and was not ashamed of admitting it. In ''Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!'', he explains that he enjoyed [[hostess bar]]s and [[topless dancing]], and drew a decoration for a [[massage parlor]].  In addition, he admitted to being a [[cannabis]] user as well as having experimented with [[LSD]]. Feynman also enjoyed bike riding and being interviewed.

===Feynman's later years===

[[Image:STS-51-L-T 75.jpg|thumb|150px|Feynman served on the commission investigating the [[1986]] [[Space Shuttle Challenger|Challenger disaster]]. "''For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.''" ]]
Feynman was requested to serve on the presidential [[Rogers Commission]] which investigated the [[Space Shuttle Challenger|Challenger]] disaster of [[1986]]. Fed clues from a source with inside information, Feynman famously showed on television the crucial role in the disaster played by the [[booster rocket|booster]]'s [[O-ring]] flexible gas seals with a simple demonstration using a glass of ice water and a sample of o-ring material.  His opinion of the cause of the accident differed from the official findings, and were considerably more critical of the role of management in sidelining the concerns of engineers.  After much petitioning, Feynman's minority report was included as an appendix to the official document. The book ''What Do You Care What Other People Think?'' includes stories from Feynman's work on the commission. His engineering skill is reflected in his estimate of the reliability of the Space Shuttle (98%), which is unhappily reflected in the two failures over the 100-odd flights of the Space Shuttle as of [[2003]]. 

The cancer returned in [[1987]], with Feynman entering hospital a year later. Complications with surgery worsened his condition, whereupon Feynman decided to die with dignity and not accept any more treatment. He died on [[February 15]], [[1988]].

It has been announced that Feynman will be honored on a U.S. postage stamp in 2005.

==Works by Feynman==
''[[The Feynman Lectures on Physics]]'' are perhaps his most accessible work for anyone with an interest in physics. He produced it lecturing to undergraduates in 1962. As the news of the lectures' accessibility grew, a large number of professional physicists began to drop in on them. A professional physicist, Robert B. Leighton, then edited them into book form. The work has endured, and is useful to this day. 

===Books on physics===
<!-- <sup id="fn_1_back">[[#fn_1|Fey86]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_1">[[#fn_1_back|Fey86:]]</cite>-->
* ''Elementary Particles and the Laws of Physics : The 1986 Dirac Memorial Lectures''
<!-- <sup id="fn_2_back">[[#fn_2|Fey6E]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_2">[[#fn_2_back|Fey6E:]]</cite>-->
* ''Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics Explained by Its Most Brilliant Teacher''
<!-- <sup id="fn_3_back">[[#fn_3|Fey6NSE]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_3">[[#fn_3_back|Fey6NSE:]]</cite>-->
* ''Six Not So Easy Pieces: Einstein's Relativity, Symmetry and Space-Time''
<!-- <sup id="fn_4_back">[[#fn_4|Fey64a]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_4">[[#fn_4_back|Fey64a:]]</cite>-->
* ''[[The Feynman Lectures on Physics]]'' (with Leighton and Sands). 3 volumes [[1964]], [[1966]]. Library of Congress Catalog Card No. 63-20717
<!-- <sup id="fn_5_back">[[#fn_5|FeyPL]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_5">[[#fn_5_back|FeyPL:]]</cite>-->
* ''The Character of Physical Law'' ISBN 0-262-56003-8
<!-- <sup id="fn_6_back">[[#fn_6|FeyQE]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_6">[[#fn_6_back|FeyQE:]]</cite>-->
* ''Quantum Electrodynamics'' ISBN 0-8053-2501-8
<!-- <sup id="fn_7_back">[[#fn_7|FeyLM]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_7">[[#fn_7_back|FeyLM:]]</cite>-->
* [[QED (book)|''QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter'']]
<!-- <sup id="fn_8_back">[[#fn_8|FeySM]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_8">[[#fn_8_back|FeySM:]]</cite>-->
* ''Statistical Mechanics'' ISBN 0-8053-2509-3
<!-- <sup id="fn_9_back">[[#fn_9|FeyFP]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_9">[[#fn_9_back|FeyFP:]]</cite>-->
* ''Theory of Fundamental Processes'' ISBN 0-8053-2507-7
<!-- <sup id="fn_10_back">[[#fn_10|FeyQM]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_10">[[#fn_10_back|FeyQM:]]</cite>-->
* ''Quantum Mechanics and Path Integrals'' (with Albert Hibbs) ISBN 0-070-20650-3
<!-- <sup id="fn_11_back">[[#fn_11|FeyG]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_11">[[#fn_11_back|FeyG:]]</cite>-->
* ''Lectures on Gravitation'' [[1995]] ISBN 0-201-62734-5
<!-- <sup id="fn_12_back">[[#fn_12|FeyC]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_12">[[#fn_12_back|FeyC:]]</cite>-->
* ''Lectures on Computation'' ISBN 0201489910 
<!-- <sup id="fn_13_back">[[#fn_13|FeyLL]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_13">[[#fn_13_back|FeyLL:]]</cite>-->* ''Feynman's Lost Lecture: The Motion of Planets Around the Sun''
<!-- <sup id="fn_14_back">[[#fn_14|FeyQC]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_14">[[#fn_14_back|FeyQC:]]</cite>-->
* ''The Feynman Processor : Quantum Entanglement and the Computing Revolution'' ISBN 0-7382-0173-1

===Popular works by and about Feynman===

<!-- <sup id="fn_15_back">[[#fn_15|Fey99a]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_15">[[#fn_15_back|Fey99a:]]</cite>-->
* Feynman, Richard Phillips. (1999). ''The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist''. Perseus Publishing. (Paperback Edition ISBN 0738201669)
<!-- <sup id="fn_16_back">[[#fn_16|FeyPF]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_16">[[#fn_16_back|FeyPF:]]</cite>-->
* ''The Pleasure of Finding Things Out''
<!-- <sup id="fn_17_back">[[#fn_17|Fey85]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_17">[[#fn_17_back|Fey85:]]</cite>-->
* [[Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!]] ISBN 0-393-01921-7
<!-- <sup id="fn_18_back">[[#fn_18|Fey86]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_18">[[#fn_18_back|Fey86:]]</cite>-->
* [[What Do You Care What Other People Think?]]
<!-- <sup id="fn_19_back">[[#fn_19|Gle89]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_19">[[#fn_19_back|Gle89:]]</cite>-->
* ''Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman'' (by James Gleick)
<!-- <sup id="fn_20_back">[[#fn_20|Bro]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_20">[[#fn_20_back|Bro:]]</cite>-->
* ''Most of the Good Stuff: Memories of Richard Feynman'' (edited by Laurie M. Brown and John S. Rigden)
<!-- <sup id="fn_21_back">[[#fn_21|Syk]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_21">[[#fn_21_back|Syk:]]</cite>-->
* ''No Ordinary Genius: The Illustrated Richard Feynman'' (edited by Christopher Sykes)
<!-- <sup id="fn_22_back">[[#fn_22|Lei89]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_22">[[#fn_22_back|Lei89:]]</cite>-->
* ''Tuva Or Bust!'' (by Ralph Leighton)
<!-- <sup id="fn_23_back">[[#fn_23|Sch]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_23">[[#fn_23_back|Sch:]]</cite>-->
* ''QED and the Men Who Made It: Dyson, Feynman, Schwinger, and Tomonaga (Princeton Series in Physics)'' (by Silvan S. Schweber)
<!-- <sup id="fn_24_back">[[#fn_24|Fer]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_24">[[#fn_24_back|Fer:]]</cite>-->
* ''Selected Papers on Quantum Electrodynamics (Fermi, Jordan, Heisenberg, Dyson, Weisskopf, Lamb, Dirac, Oppenheimer, Retherford, Pauli, Bethe, Bloch, Klein, Schwinger, Tomonaga, Feynman, Wigner, and many others)'' (by Julian Schwinger (Editor))
<!-- <sup id="fn_25_back">[[#fn_25|Gri]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_25">[[#fn_25_back|Gri:]]</cite>-->
* ''Richard Feynman: A Life in Science'' (by John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin)
<!-- <sup id="fn_26_back">[[#fn_26|Meh]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_26">[[#fn_26_back|Meh:]]</cite>-->
* ''The Beat of a Different Drum: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman'' (by Jagdish Mehra)
<!-- <sup id="fn_27_back">[[#fn_27|Mlo]]</sup> 
<cite id="fn_27">[[#fn_27_back|Mlo:]]</cite>-->
* ''Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life'' (by Leonard Mlodinow) ISBN 0-446-69251-4
* ''Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman'' - Edited by Michelle Feynman (Basic Books, ISBN 0-7382-0636-9, April 2005).

===Audio recordings===

* "Six Easy Pieces" (original lectures upon which the book is based)
* "Six Not So Easy Pieces" (original lectures upon which the book is based)
* The Feynman Lectures on Physics: The Complete Audio Collection
** Quantum Mechanics, Volume 1
** Advanced Quantum Mechanics, Volume 2
** From Crystal Structure to Magnetism, Volume 3
** Electrical and Magnetic Behavior, Volume 4
** Feynman on Fundamentals: Energy and Motion, Volume 5
** Feynman on Fundamentals: Kinetics and Heat, Volume 6
** Feynman on Science and Vision, Volume 7
** Feynman on Gravity, Relativity and Electromagnetism, Volume 8
** Basic Concepts in Classical Physics, Volume 9
** Basic Concepts in Quantum Physics, Volume 10

==Works about Feynman==

There are several documentaries with and about Feynman, all made in Britain for the [[British Broadcasting Corporation|BBC]]'s ''[[Horizon]]'' programme, and shown in the United states by [[Public Broadcasting Service|PBS]]'s ''[[Nova (series)|Nova]]'':
*"The Pleasure of Finding Things Out"
*"The Quest for Tannu Tuva" (re-titled 'Last Journey of a Genius' on ''Nova'')
*"No Ordinary Genius", Parts 1 and 2 (one-hour version re-titled "The Best Mind Since Einstein" on ''Nova'')

A movie was made about Feynman's life in [[1996]].  Called ''Infinity'' and starring [[Matthew Broderick]], the movie focused on Feynman's relationship with his first wife, Arline<!--not Arlene-->, with his work on the [[Manhattan Project]] serving as a backdrop for what was essentially a love story.  The film received mixed reviews, however, and did poorly at the box office.

Finally, the character of Feynman was portrayed by [[Alan Alda]] in a play called ''QED'' in [[2001]].  The play was essentially a one-man show, with only brief appearances by other characters, portraying Feynman in his office at Caltech and covering many of the stories and anecdotes included in ''Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!'' and ''What Do You Care What Other People Think?''

==Quotations==
{{wikiquote}}
* "Dear Mrs. Chown, Ignore your son's attempts to teach you physics. Physics isn't the most important thing. Love is.  Best wishes, Richard Feynman."
* "Physics is to math what sex is to masturbation."
* "Physics is like sex: sure, it may give some practical results, but that's not why we do it."
* "Mathematics is not real, but it ''feels'' real. Where is this place?"
* "The same equations have the same solutions." (Thus when you have solved a mathematical problem, you can re-use the solution in another physical situation. Feynman was skilled in transforming a problem into one that he could solve.)
* "When you are solving a problem, ''don't worry''. Now, ''after'' you have solved the problem, then ''that's the time to worry''."
* "The wonderful thing about [[science]] is that it's ''alive''."
* "All [[fundamental]] [[process]]es are reversible."
* "What does it mean, to [[understanding|understand]]? ... I don't know."
* "What I cannot create, I do not understand."
* "But I don't ''have'' to know an answer.  I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the mysterious universe without having any purpose&mdash;which is the way it really is, as far as I can tell, possibly.  It doesn't frighten me."
* "To those who do not know mathematics it is difficult to get across a real feeling as to the beauty, the deepest beauty, of nature ... If you want to learn about nature, to appreciate nature, it is necessary to understand the language that she speaks in"

==See also==
*[[Physics]]

==External links==
*[http://nobelprize.org/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-lecture.html Richard P. Feynman - Nobel Lecture]
*[http://www.321books.co.uk/reviews/physics/feynman-lectures.htm Lectures: Physics, Nanotechnology, Essays: On High School Math Textbooks, On Teaching]
*[http://www.feynman.com Feynman Online!]
*[http://www.vega.org.uk/series/lectures/feynman/ Unique freeview videos of Feynman's lectures on QED courtesy of The Vega Science Trust and The University of Auckland]
*[http://lib-www.lanl.gov/infores/history/feynman.htm Los Alamos National Laboratory Richard Feynman page]
*[http://www.nobel.se/physics/laureates/1965/ The Nobel Prize Winners in Physics 1965]
*[http://www.nobel-winners.com/Physics/richard_phillips_feynman.html About Richard Feynman]
*[http://www.zyvex.com/nanotech/feynman.html  Feynman's classic 1959 talk:''There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom'']
*[http://www.longnow.org/about/articles/ArtFeynman.html Richard Feynman and The Connection Machine]
*{{imdb title|id=0116635|title=Infinity}}
*[http://physicsweb.org/article/review/14/5/3 PhysicsWeb review of the play ''QED'']
*[http://www.sykes.easynet.co.uk/pofto.html BBC Horizon: The Pleasure of Finding Things Out &mdash; with Richard Feynman. A 50-minute documentary interview with Feynman recorded in 1981]
*[http://www.nobelprizes.com/nobel/physics/1965c.html Richard Feynman, Winner of the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics]
*[http://www.physik.fu-berlin.de/~kleinert/feynman/feynmanpub.htm Feynman's Scientific Publications]

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[[Category:1918 births|Feynman, Richard]]
[[Category:1988 deaths|Feynman, Richard]]
[[Category:Jewish American scientists|Feynman, Richard]]
[[Category:Manhattan Project|Feynman, Richard]]
[[Category:Nobel Prize in Physics winners|Feynman, Richard]]
[[Category:Physicists|Feynman, Richard]]