Reference
- Feynman, Richard (1918–1988)Raised in an assimilationist Jewish household in Far Rockaway, New York, Richard Phillips Feynman attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology for his undergraduate studies before beginning doctoral work in physics at Princeton University. His graduate work was interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Feynman was recruited to work at the top-secret Los Alamos Laboratory in New Mexico, one of the central sites of the sprawling wartime Manhattan Project, whose aim was to design and build nuclear weapons. Early on, Feynman emerged as a young leader at the laboratory, working alongside senior physicists like Hans Bethe in the theoretical physics (or T) division. In fact, Feynman was promoted to group leader within T Division early in 1944, making him the youngest group leader at Los Alamos. His research during the war focused on ways to calculate how neutrons—tiny, electrically neutral constituents of atomic nuclei—would behave inside a slab of fissionable material like uranium.
Immediately after the war, Bethe recruited Feynman to teach at Cornell University. While there, Feynman returned to a challenge that had stymied the world's theoretical physicists for decades: how to rectify quantum theory (which treated matter at the scale of atoms and parts of atoms) with special relativity (which treated matter at speeds comparable to the speed of light). For years, every effort to unite the two main pillars of modern physics had led to mathematical nonsense: infinities spoiled every calculation, rather than yielding finite numbers. Feynman invented an idiosyncratic means of breaking down the calculations and representing them, piecemeal, by simple line drawings (now known as “Feynman diagrams”). With the aid of the diagrams, Feynman demonstrated how to isolate and ultimately remove the infinities. His solution was formally quite distinct from other efforts, pursued independently by Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, although Freeman Dyson ultimately demonstrated their mathematical equivalence. Feynman shared the Nobel Prize in Physics with Schwinger and Tomonaga for this work in 1965...
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Perspectives
The Quantum Labyrinth
The story of the unlikely friendship between the two physicists who fundamentally recast the notion of time and history In 1939, Richard Feynman, a brilliant graduate of MIT, arrived in John Wheeler's Princeton office to report for duty as his teaching assistant. A lifelong friendship and enormously productive collaboration was born, despite sharp differences in personality. The soft-spoken Wheeler, though conservative in appearance, was a raging nonconformist full of wild ideas about the universe. The boisterous Feynman was a cautious physicist who believed only what could be tested. Yet they were complementary spirits. Their collaboration led to a complete rethinking of the nature of time and reality. It enabled Feynman to show how quantum reality is a combination of alternative, contradictory possibilities, and inspired Wheeler to develop his landmark concept of wormholes, portals to the future and past. Together, Feynman and Wheeler made sure that quantum physics would never be the same again.
Selected Papers of Richard Feynman
These scientific papers of Richard Feynman are renowned for their brilliant content and the author's striking original style. They are grouped by topic: path integral approach to the foundations of quantum mechanics and quantum field theory, renormalized quantum electrodynamics, theory of superfluid liquid helium, theory of the Fermi interaction, polarons, gravitation, partons, computer theory, etc. Comments on Feynman's topics are provided by the editor, together with biographical notes and a complete bibliography of Feynman's publications.
Most of the Good Stuff
Demonstrates the impact that Richard Feynman made on the world of physics through his work, his teaching, and his personality. This portrait of Feynman is conveyed through essays by his colleagues, including John Wheeler, Freeman Dyson, Murray Gell-Mann and Hans Bethe.
In Awe of a Flower
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Richard Feynman explains his perspective on a flower, how he sees both the surface-level beauty and also the many levels of awe and mystery which scientific knowledge adds.
The Myth of "Algebra"
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowAs a child, Feynman learned algebra by sitting in on his older cousin's tutoring session. He criticizes the creation of algebraic processes which disguise the true purpose of algebra.
The Pleasure of Finding Things Out
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowRichard Feynman (1918–1988) was an outstanding scientist, Nobel laureate, and legendary teacher. A graduate of M.I.T. with a doctorate from Princeton University, Dr. Feynman soon acquired a reputation as a theoretical physicist and sought-after lecturer in leading universities. During World War II he worked on the development of the atomic bomb and became head of the theoretical division at Los Alamos. In this program, he talks about his lifelong obsession with finding out how the world works—a passion for knowledge and understanding that began on childhood walks with his father. He was a remarkable man who speaks about science and scientists with a rare degree of honesty, insight, humor, and irreverence
Online Resources
- Individuality in science:Richard FeynmanArt is regarded as largely individual while science, at least contemporary science, is increasingly the work of large groups. And yet, from time to time a scientist appears who makes an individual mark on the entire enterprise, much like exceptional artists do. One such person was Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988) (1-3).
- Richard Phillips Feynman: Physicist and Teacher ExtraordinaryThe article features physicist Richard Phillips Feynman and his contributions to physics. It states that Feynman contributed to the extension and consolidation of the quantum theory. It says that Feynman has shared the Physics Nobel Prize in 1965 with Sin-Ichiro Tomonaga from Japan for developing the renormalization theory. It adds that Feynman did a pioneering work in the quantum theory of gravitation and elementary particle physics.
- Snapshots of Childhood Creativity in Science, Music, and Art: Richard Feynman, Clara Schumann, and René MagritteThis essay is prompted, in part, by a spate of alarmist articles in the media over the past several years concerning what journalists have called "the creativity crisis," (2) articles claiming, in other words, that American creativity is in decline. A corresponding call has arisen to seek remedies and determine how creativity might be fostered in the lives of children so as to stem the tide of this (alleged) decline. While taking these dramatic concerns and pronouncements cum grano salis, this article responds, nevertheless, by extracting a set of themes drawn from the childhoods of three individuals whose remarkable contributions to the disparate fields of science, classical music, and visual art are beyond question: Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88), virtuoso pianist and composer Clara Schumann (1819-96), and the surrealist painter Rene Magritte (1898-1967). Highly variable and not always salubrious, the diverse milieus in which these individuals' childhood creativity flourished demonstrates by default how the topic itself has had an unfortunate tendency to bog down in sentimental rhetoric...
Quantum Physics Showman
- Films on Demand This link opens in a new windowHoyle refused to accept the Big Bang theory and left Cambridge, befriending mathematician Richard Feynman. Feynman's charisma, humor, and enthusiasm for quantum mechanics made him popular.