A highly visual overview of the life of Richard Feynman, Nobel prize physicist and skeptic.

1. Richard Feynman, 1918-1988
CHJ and SHJ Humanist of the Year
• The Man
• His career
• His ideas
By Dave Shafer CHJ

2. Richard Feynman was born in 1918 and grew up in Far Rockaway, Queens.

3. He had a sister, Joan, who – like him – grew up to be a professional physicist

4. Both were heavily influenced by their father Melville, a salesman with a
strong interest in science. They got their great sense of humor from their
mother Lucille. The parents came from Poland and Russia.

5. ―You can know the name of a
bird in all the languages of the
world, but when you’re finished
you’ll know absolutely nothing
whatever about the bird. So
let’s look at the bird and see
what it’s doing – that’s what
counts. I learned very early
the difference between knowing
the name of something and
knowing something.‖
- A lesson learned from his
father, on their many walks
together.
“Car tires grip the road because of friction” tells you nothing about tires, the road, or
friction. There is no information in that sentence. You may as well say that tires grip
the road because they grip the road. This is not a true explanation of anything.

6. This lesson from his father
in careful observation would
influence Feynman in several
ways. It made him self-
reliant and he did not like to
accept the math and physics
theories of others without first
deriving them himself, using
his own methods. This led to
some new and unusual
derivations by Feynman of
well-known physical laws.

7. Like Einstein and some other
great physicists, Feynman was a late
talker and did not utter a single
word until he was almost 3 years
old. His family, Ashkenazi
Jews, was not observant and he
declared himself an atheist early in
his youth. In high school Richard
was tested for IQ and came out at
―only‖ 125. That was probably
because of poor verbal skills or very
little interest in non-science topics.
In the year 1933, in which he turned 15, Feynman taught himself
trigonometry, advanced algebra, infinite series, analytic geometry
and differential and integral calculus.

8. Feynman was an
atheist in a religious
sense but had the
equivalent of another
religion, in his very
passionate devotion
to math and science,
especially math.

9. Feynman was a skeptic like this lady,
about any claims without hard evidence
to back it up.

10. Feynman could
see that science
and religion
have always
historically
been at odds.

11. He could also see
people’s chutzpah in
thinking that any
particular religion
was unique, and not
just the result of some
accidents of history,
real or imagined.

12. ―The first principle is
that you must not
fool yourself - and
you are the easiest
person to fool.‖
Richard Feynman,
Caltech
commencement
address, 1974

13. In his last year in high school, Feynman won
the N.Y.U. Math Championship; the large
difference between his score and those of his
closest competitors shocked the judges.
He applied to Columbia, but was not accepted.
Instead he attended M.I.T. where he received a
Bachelor’s degree in 1939, and in the same year
was named a Putnam Fellow. While there,
Feynman took every physics course offered,
including a graduate course on theoretical
physics while only in his second undergraduate
year.
He obtained a perfect score on the graduate
school entrance exams to Princeton in
mathematics and physics—an unprecedented
feat—but did rather poorly on the history and
English portions. Feynman was just starting to
show signs of becoming what some have called
the Elvis Presley of science.

14. Most of the surrounding medical schools (Cornell,
Columbia, Pennsylvania and Yale) had rigid quotas
in place. In 1935 Yale accepted 76 applicants from a
pool of 501. About 200 of those applicants were
Jewish and only five got in. "The dean's instructions
were remarkably precise: "Never admit more than
five Jews, take only two Italian Catholics, and take
no blacks at all.―‖ As a result Jonas Salk and
hundreds like him enrolled in N.Y.U. instead.
Jonas Salk’s experience
Feynman’s parents sent him to Sunday school to learn Hebrew, but the emphasis
was on prayer, which turned him off. The correspondence that preceded his
acceptance to Princeton University as a graduate student in 1939 is interesting.
Princeton at that time still operated according to the policy which limited the number
of Jews, and Feynman's professors at MIT, where he did his bachelors' degree, had to
work hard to convince the Princeton administration that this particular Jew ought to
be admitted. "He is not like other Jews," they wrote. Proceedings of the
appointment committee at the University of Zurich show that the same argument was
resorted to when Albert Einstein's professorship was being reviewed.

15. This was Richard Feynman nearing the
crest of his powers. At twenty-three … there
was no physicist on earth who could match
his exuberant command over the native
materials of theoretical science. It was not
just a facility at mathematics…Feynman
seemed to possess a frightening ease with
the substance behind the equations, like
Albert Einstein at the same age, like the
Soviet physicist Lev Landau -but few others.
— James Gleick, “Genius: The Life and Science of
Richard Feynman”
After leaving Princeton Feynman really hit his stride

16. Like many physicists,
Feynman was dismissive of
the level of intelligence
required for other disciplines.
But he was not dismissive
of the arts if you were a
creative artist.
―The theoretical broadening which comes from having many
humanities subjects on the campus is offset by the general
dopiness of the people who study these things...‖
(Feynman quote)

17. He studied
drawing and
painting for
very many
years.
Feynman drawing at easel

18. He started taking
art lessons at the
age of 44 and then
continued with art
the rest of his life.
Here are some of
his pictures.

19. Feynman was a real ham and loved to perform – on the bongo drums,
juggling, even on a unicycle. He went out of his way to cultivate a certain
public image of himself. A rather adolescent one. He also loved practical
jokes. There is a host of Feynman anecdotes from those who knew him.

20. ―Feynman was half
genius, half buffoon‖
- theoretical physicist
Freeman Dyson.
―…rather as though Groucho Marx was suddenly standing in for a great scientist.‖
- C.P. Snow
―He spent a great deal of time and energy generating anecdotes about himself‖
– Nobel prize physicist Murray Gell-Mann

21. Feynman kept an adolescent nature the rest of his life

22. Some people have personalities that are hard to discern. With
Feynman little was hidden and what you saw is what you got.

23. Feynman seemed to have a compulsion to share every detail
of his life with others, through his books, lectures, and endless
retelling of anecdotes about himself.

24. Arline
Greenbaum,
the love of his
life. She was
diagnosed with
TB just before
they got married.
His family tried
to dissuade him
but they did
marry and she
died after about 5
years together.
He was quite
devastated for
some years.
When she died he wrote her a letter that
remained sealed the rest of his life.

25. As his wife lay dying of TB
Feynman read extensively in
the medical literature. He
was appalled at how
unscientific much of
medicine is.
He would have been very
skeptical of something like
acupuncture, which has not
been rigorously tested and
seems to work better for
Asians than Westerners.

26. Bohr, Oppenheimer, Feynman, Von Neumann
After Princeton Feynman joined the Manhattan Project to work
on developing the atom bomb and moved to Los Alamos, New
Mexico.

27. Because of the top secret nature of the atomic bomb project, Los Alamos
was chosen because of its extreme remoteness – ideal for a secure facility. As
Dorothy Parker said, of another place, ―There’s no there there.‖ Even today it
is hard to get to, surrounded by national wilderness areas. The community of
scientists and engineers there lived in a hot house of intense activity, trying to
beat Hitler to an atomic bomb. Feynman’s amazing ability, before computers,
to calculate and estimate key numbers and his deep understanding of science
made him a central figure despite his very young age.

28. An enormous amount of incredibly
complex calculations had to be done at
Los Alamos as part of designing the first
atomic bomb. Before computers there
were only two alternatives to pencil and
paper calculations. The slide rule was
very fast but only gave 3 digit accuracy.
More complicated ones could handle
more advanced math than arithmetic, like
trig functions and exponents.

29. Much more accurate was the
Marchand mechanical calculator, with
very many motor driven gears. It
could add, subtract and multiply to 10
digit accuracy. Division was not so
simple and required several steps.
Very many of these were used at Los
Alamos.
Still to come was the first true
electronic calculator, called Eniac,
with no transistors but 18,000 vacuum
tubes. Every time it was turned on 2
tubes would blow out. It could not be
used for long before enough tubes
would fail and shut it down. Los
Alamos did not want to divert their
resources to this new and complicated
heavy maintenance gadget.

30. Here is a typical Feynman approach to a problem. Two row boats ½ mile apart
are approaching each other. The one on the left is moving at 1 miles/hour, while
the one on the right is moving at 2 miles/hour. A fly leaves the boat on the left, flies
to the one on the right at 12 miles/hour, instantly turns around and flies back to the
one on left, turns and goes back to the one on the right, back and forth as the boats
move closer and closer and eventually meet. What is the total distance the fly
travels? The hard way to solve this involves very many calculations, although
they are simple ones. Feynman would have said, instead, that the boats are ½
mile apart and are approach each other at 1 + 2 = 3 miles/hour. So they will meet
in 1/6 hour or 10 minutes. The fly is going at 12 miles an hour for 10 minutes so
it will travel exactly 2 miles. There is no need to calculate all the separate parts of
the fly’s path to get the right answer. Feynman had short cuts like this for very
complicated physics calculations and could do some in his head.

31. While at Los Alamos Feynman
figured out how to crack safes and
would do practical jokes like
opening top secret safes and leaving
anonymous messages like ―I was
here‖ – hilarious to Feynman but
gave near heart attacks to the
security people, who thought it was
a Soviet spy. Ironically an actual
Soviet spy at the labs sometimes
gave Feynman rides to the Los
Alamos hospital for him to see
Arline. Later he was caught
sending bomb secrets to Russia.

32. Feynman’s immature
liking for practical
jokes resulted in many
anecdotes about him,
which he would then
delight in endlessly
retelling.

33. A 1996 movie was made about that time at Los
Alamos when Arline was dying, and Feynman was
visiting her in the hospital every day, after working
all day on the atom bomb project. He told a story
that shows his atheism -
Next to her bed was an old clock. Arline told
Feynman that the clock was a symbol of the time that
they had together and that he should always
remember that. Always look at the clock to remember
the time we have together, she said. The day that
Arline died in the hospital, Feynman was given a note
from the nurse that indicated the time of death.
Feynman noted that the clock had stopped at exactly
that time. It was as if the clock, which had been a
symbol of their time together, had stopped at the
moment of her death. Did you make a connection? I
asked ―NO! NOT FOR A SECOND! I immediately
began to think how this could have happened. And I
realized that the clock was old and was always
breaking. That the clock probably stopped some time
before and the nurse coming in to the room to record
the time of death would have looked at the clock and
jotted down the time from that. I never made any
supernatural connection, not even for a second. I just
wanted to figure out how it happened‖.

34. After his wife Arline
died Feynman
overcame his shyness
around women and
became extremely
promiscuous. He got
at least two women
pregnant, who then
terminated the
pregnancy.

35. Feynman was put in charge at the age of
25 of the atom bomb computation group at
Los Alamos. He did many calculations in
his head and was very good at estimating
answers with few if any calculations, just
based on his incredible math intuition.
His Los Alamos ID badge
Feynman and Von
Neumann (on right). Von
Neumann was probably
the smartest person in
human history, IQ-wise

36. Despite the intense
pressure to solve the
problems involved in
designing and building
the first atom bomb and
the 15 hour work days,
Feynman thrived at Los
Alamos.

37. Feynman had an
intense work ethic
his whole life,
plus boundless
nervous energy.

38. Like most of the people at Los Alamos Feynman did not think
much about the implications of the bomb, until after the war.
After the war he went to Cornell and then Caltech.

39. Geniuses in physics come in
two basic flavors. Both are
extremely smart so that is a
given. Feynman was one
type. His profound
understanding of physics
allowed him to see how to
reorganize existing
knowledge and theories into
forms that would better
facilitate the search for new knowledge and suggest deep connections
between previously separate branches of physics. He developed new and
better ways of dealing with difficult computational problems and they
revolutionized atomic physics. But at the end of the day his role was
basically that of a type of midwife, although an extremely brilliant one.
He himself created very little new knowledge but created mathematical
tools and ideas that made it much easier to discover new knowledge.

40. Consider the sun and planets. If we assume that everything revolves around us then the motions
in the sky of the sun and planets are very complicated. If we assume that we all go around the sun
then the motions become very simple. But neither is right or wrong, it’s just that one gives a
much simpler explanation. This is not new knowledge about the universe, but about a better point
of view. Feynman was great at these simpler explanations. New knowledge about the universe
was that there are more planets – Uranus, Neptune, and Pluto that were not known before.

41. The other type of physics genius has as an
extreme example Albert Einstein. He did
not reorganize existing knowledge and
theories into a better structure. He created
new knowledge out of whole cloth, by pure
thought. A contemporary version of this is
the underappreciated genius Stephen
Wolfram, shown here with Feynman. He
explained much of the intricate structure of
life forms by a new and simple recursive
model. An out of nowhere new idea and a
very successful one.
Both types of genius contribute greatly to
the advance of science and we need a
Feynman as well as a Wolfram and an
Einstein.

42. The nature of genius is
poorly understood.
Where inspiration and
breakthrough ideas come
from is a real mystery.

43. Unlike some of his
brilliant physicist
colleagues, Feynman was
very practical and well
grounded in the real world.
He did not fit the ―absent
minded professor‖
stereotype.

44. “Feynman loved doing physics. I think what he loved most was the process of it. Of
calculating. Of figuring things out. It didn't seem to matter to him so much if what came
out was big and important. Or esoteric and weird. What mattered to him was the process
of finding it. And he was often quite competitive about it. Some scientists (myself
probably included) are driven by the ambition to build grand intellectual edifices. I think
Feynman--at least in the years I knew him--was much more driven by the pure pleasure of
actually doing the science. He seemed to like best to spend his time figuring things out,
and calculating.” - Wolfram talking about Feynman
Richard Feynman called Wolfram "astonishing.“ Wolfram had
his first scientific paper published in a physics journal when he
was 16 and still a schoolboy at Eton. He was the youngest of
the original recipients of the MacArthur Foundation "genius"
fellowships in 1981 and the only physicist in the group.
Stephen Wolfram

45. Feynman was
extremely competitive
and part of his pleasure
in ―working things out‖
was to show that he
was easily the smartest
person in the room.

46. Feynman had some brilliant physicist colleagues who were also
Nobel Prize material and there was intense rivalry.

47. ―When he was young he had hoped to
start a revolution in science, but
nature said no. Nature told him that
the existing jungle of scientific ideas,
with the classical world and the
quantum world described by very
different laws, was basically correct.
He tried to find new laws of nature,
but the result of his efforts was in the
end to consolidate the existing laws in
a new structure. He hoped to find
discrepancies that would prove the old
theories wrong, but nature stubbornly
persisted in proving them right. ―
- theoretical physicist Freeman
Dyson

48. Feynman was not particularly concerned with the usefulness of
science. He was mostly interested in simply understanding how the
physical world works and the pleasure that he got from it..

49. ―Science is like sex: sometimes something
useful comes out, but that is not the reason
we are doing it. ‖
― Richard P. Feynman

50. Feynman had a brief
2nd marriage in 1952.
―He begins working
calculus problems in
his head as soon as he
awakens. He did
calculus while driving
in his car, while sitting
in the living room, and
while lying in bed at
night.‖
—Mary Louise Bell
divorce complaint

51. Feynman had a
son and an adopted
daughter from his
third marriage,
which lasted until
his death.

52. Feynman was not interested in possessions and lived a pretty simple life

53. In 1959, in a much
simpler time than
now, technology-wise,
Feynman gave an amazing lecture in which he extrapolated existing technology
and ideas far into the future and correctly foresaw developments that we take
for granted today, 50 years later, like personal computers, swallowable medical
pill-cameras - and anything with extreme miniaturization, like cell phone
cameras. The field of nanotechnology was accurately predicted by Feynman.

54. Feynman talking to
his hero, physicist and
Nobel Prize winner
Paul Dirac, one of the
fathers of quantum
mechanics.
Dirac was a man of
extremely few words,
legendarily so, while
Feynman was quite the
opposite. They made a
real odd-couple.

55. ―In Nature’s infinite book of
secrecy a little I can read‖
- the soothsayer in Shakespeare’s
―Antony and Cleopatra‖
―I was born not knowing but have only had a little time to
change that here and there‖
- Richard Feynman

56. Let’s take a close look at
some of Feynman’s achievements
in physics. Our pledge to you –
This will be painless for those
who are not science oriented.
So let’s dive in!

57. Learning about quantum mechanics and atomic theory is a lot to
swallow in a short time so we will only briefly discuss some very
broad generalities, in layman’s terms.

58. Feynman
thought that much
of physics should
be explainable to
a person in
ordinary English

59. Feynman wanted to open the
door to the mysteries of the
physical universe. His quite
unparalled intuition and deep
understanding of physics led
him to see that the opening of
that door was needlessly
complicated.
He made major advances in
quantum mechanics in the form
of better organizing the existing
theories, simplifying them,
making new connections, and
developing simpler and better
ways to do calculations. Sort of
like a Nobel-Prize level closet
organizer of atomic physics.

60. When Feynman first
encountered quantum
mechanics he was quite
unhappy with the rickety
structure of the theories about
atomic level physics.
Some arbitrary assumptions
were needed to avoid certain
paradoxes and this offended
his sense of what a solid base
should be. He made major
advances in restructuring
quantum mechanics so that it
had a more solid foundation.

61. By getting rid of
some excess baggage
and also reorganizing
it Feynman helped
quantum mechanics
achieve its amazing
predictive success
and it is one of the
most experimentally
verified branches of
physics today.
It deals, however,
with some bizarre concepts that Einstein completely rejected. It
works perfectly but he thought that it can’t possibly be the correct
explanation for things. Feynman only cared that it works well and was
not looking for elegance the way that Einstein was.

62. ...while I am describing to you
how Nature works, you won't
understand why Nature works
that way. But you see, nobody
understands that.

63. The macro world,
that we are familiar
with, has many of
the cause and effect
relationships that
we know. The
micro world and
especially the
atomic level world
is governed by laws
of probability, not
rigid cause and
effect relationships.

64. To further complicate
things, the very act of
observing the atomic
level world automatically
changed its behavior.

65. One problem that
Feynman and others
struggled with is how
to best bridge the big
gap between the
bizarre microworld
and the macroworld
that we know so well.
Feynman understood
both physical worlds
extremely well.

66. ―If that's the world's
smartest man, God help
us.‖
His mother, Lucille
Feynman, after Omni
magazine named him
the world's smartest
man

67. Feynman’s highly
publicized key role
in the government
investigation of the
fatal Challenger
disaster was actually
a very tiny part of his
career and it used an
infinitesimal fraction
of his intelligence.

68. Receiving Nobel Prize in physics
Though raised Jewish and born to Ashkenazi parents, Feynman himself was
not only an atheist, but distanced himself from being labeled Jewish even on
ethnic grounds. He routinely refused to be included in lists or books that
classified people by race. He asked to not be included in Tina Levitan's The
Laureates: Jewish Winners of the Nobel Prize, writing, "To select, for
approbation the peculiar elements that come from some supposedly Jewish
heredity is to open the door to all kinds of nonsense on racial theory," and
adding "…at thirteen I stopped believing that the Jewish people are in any way
―the chosen people‖

69. Feynman, Gell-Mann and I had dinner together and the
subject of Israel and the Jews came up. "Why preserve this
fossil?" Feynman asked me at the table, referring to the
Jewish people. "Wouldn't it be better to speed up
assimilation?" As I tried to list the many contributions Jews
had made to humanity, including achievements in modern
science, he cut me off. "Jews in science? Compare that with
the Hungarians! Look what an impact they've had!" To
which Gell-Mann responded: "Don't you know that all
those Hungarians were Jews?" And apparently, he didn't.
Zsa-Zsa Gabor, The most famous of these Jewish Hungarian
physicist geniuses was John Von Neumann. At 6,
Jewish-Hungarian he could divide two 8-digit numbers in his head and
non-physicist. was fluent in Greek and Latin; by 8 he had mastered
calculus; by 12 he was at the graduate level in
mathematics. He had a photographic memory of
the highest order and was probably the smartest
man who ever lived. He invented the electronic
computer, game theory, and was key to developing
the atom bomb and many other branches of math
and physics.

70. Feynman did not
think that science
had anything to
offer as far as
guidance in ethical
affairs. Science is
about objective
facts and ethics is
about subjective
judgments.

71. God using the ―Smite‖ key
There is an interesting
theory about why there is
some goodness and beauty in
the world. It is that God is
100% evil but only 80%
competent. So some good
things slip through, as his
mistakes.
Feynman had little interest
in speculations like this. He
was very grounded in what he
considered reality to be.

72. ―I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific
problems is just as dumb as the next guy.‖
Richard P. Feynman
Nonetheless, he does have some thoughts on non-scientific
topics that are worth considering.

73. ―It doesn't seem to me that this fantastically marvelous universe, this
tremendous range of time and space and different kinds of animals, and all the
different planets, and all these atoms with all their motions, and so on, all this
complicated thing can merely be a stage so that God can watch human beings
struggle for good and evil - which is the view that religion has. The stage is too
big for the drama.‖

74. ―I don't feel frightened by not knowing things, by being lost in the
mysterious universe without having any purpose which is the way
it really is as far as I can tell possibly. It doesn't frighten me.‖
During an interview in BBC's Horizon program (1981).

75. Feynman is walking on
a mountain trail with his
friend Danny Hillis.
Change is good Hillis says, ―I’m sad
because you’re going to
die.‖ Feynman replies,
―Yeah, that bugs me
sometimes too. But not
as much as you think.
See, when you get as old
as I am, you start to
realize that you’ve told
most of the good stuff
you know to other
people anyway.‖

76. In the absence of
anything even close to
solid evidence, Feynman
concluded that religion is
based on hopes, fears,
and unverifiable
speculations. Feynman
had little patience for
religious statements that
claimed objective truth.

77. Anything that
claimed to be due
to supernatural
phenomena would
have to pass a
rigorous test with
Feynman, and of
course none did.

78. Feynman did not end up in his later years as a grumpy man. He was full of a
love of life up until his death. Feynman developed two rare forms of cancer,
Liposarcoma and Waldenström's macroglobulinemia, dying shortly after a final
attempt at surgery on February 15, 1988, aged 70. His last recorded words are
noted as ―I’d hate to die twice. It’s so boring.‖

79. Feynman remained fully engaged with life right up to the
very end, when he died at 70.