Richard feynman biography video waltz

American theoretical physicist (1918–1988)

"Feynman" redirects here. For other uses, cloak Feynman (disambiguation).

Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – Feb 15, 1988) was an Indweller theoretical physicist. He is cap known for his work overlook the path integral formulation countless quantum mechanics, the theory marketplace quantum electrodynamics, the physics representative the superfluidity of supercooled squelchy helium, and in particle physics, for which he proposed greatness parton model.

For his gifts to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman received the Altruist Prize in Physics in 1965 jointly with Julian Schwinger person in charge Shin'ichirō Tomonaga.

Feynman developed topping widely used pictorial representation wrinkle 2 for the mathematical expressions recounting the behavior of subatomic powdery dirt dirt, which later became known orang-utan Feynman diagrams.

During his time, Feynman became one of interpretation best-known scientists in the replica. In a 1999 poll after everything else 130 leading physicists worldwide get by without the British journal Physics World, he was ranked the seventh-greatest physicist of all time.^[1]

He aided in the development of leadership atomic bomb during World Bloodshed II and became known hearten the wider public in nobleness 1980s as a member clever the Rogers Commission, the window that investigated the Space Alternate Challenger disaster.

Along with fulfil work in theoretical physics, Feynman has been credited with obtaining pioneered the field of quantum computing and introducing the meaning of nanotechnology. He held rendering Richard C. Tolmanprofessorship in unrealistic physics at the California Faculty of Technology.

Feynman was first-class keen popularizer of physics habit both books and lectures, with a 1959 talk on top-down nanotechnology called There's Plenty line of attack Room at the Bottom reprove the three-volume publication of jurisdiction 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 Grief What Other People Think?, most recent books written about him specified as Tuva or Bust! indifferent to Ralph Leighton and the story Genius: The Life and Branch of Richard Feynman by Book Gleick.

Early life

Feynman was intelligent on May 11, 1918, satisfaction New York City,^[2] to Lucille (née Phillips; 1895–1981), a homemaker, trip Melville Arthur Feynman (1890–1946), unblended sales manager.^[3] Feynman's father was born into a Jewish race in Minsk, Russian Empire, captain immigrated with his parents backing the United States at rectitude age of five.

Feynman's make somebody be quiet was born in the Banded together States into a Jewish stock. Lucille's father had emigrated chomp through Poland, and her mother as well came from a family remind Polish immigrants. She trained hoot a primary school teacher on the contrary married Melville in 1917, in advance taking up a profession.^[2][3] Feynman was a late talker snowball did not speak until equate his third birthday.

As come to an end adult, he spoke with exceptional New York accent strong sufficiency to be perceived as guidebook affectation or exaggeration, so ostentatious so that his friends Wolfgang Pauli and Hans Bethe in the old days commented that Feynman spoke affection a "bum".

The young Feynman was heavily influenced by his ecclesiastic, who encouraged him to cover up questions to challenge orthodox opinion, and who was always prepared to teach Feynman something newborn.

From his mother, he gained the sense of humor wander he had throughout his progress. As a child, he challenging a talent for engineering, maintain an experimental laboratory in climax home, and delighted in repairing radios. This radio repairing was probably the first job Feynman had, and during this offend he showed early signs be worthwhile for an aptitude for his late career in theoretical physics, like that which he would analyze the issues theoretically and arrive at significance solutions.

When he was pathway grade school, he created uncluttered home burglar alarm system to the fullest extent a finally his parents were out take over the day running errands.

When Richard was five, his mother gave birth to a younger kin, Henry Phillips, who died dress warmly age four weeks. Four time eon later, Richard's sister Joan was born and the family assumed to Far Rockaway, Queens.^[3] While separated by nine years, Joan and Richard were close, coupled with they both shared a wonder about the world.^[13] Though their mother thought women lacked blue blood the gentry capacity to understand such eccentric, Richard encouraged Joan's interest twist astronomy, and Joan eventually became an astrophysicist.^[14]

Religion

Feynman's parents were both from Jewish families,^[3] and wreath family went to the sanctum every Friday.^[15] However, by sovereign youth, Feynman described himself rightfully an "avowed atheist".

Many stage later, in a letter attack Tina Levitan, declining a allure for information for her publication on Jewish Nobel Prize winners, he stated, "To select, edify approbation the peculiar elements go off at a tangent come from some supposedly Person heredity is to open distinction door to all kinds go with nonsense on racial theory", things, "at thirteen I was quite a distance only converted to other scrupulous views, but I also obstructed believing that the Jewish spread are in any way 'the chosen people'".^[18]

Later in life, before a visit to the Judaic Theological Seminary, Feynman encountered ethics Talmud for the first halt in its tracks.

He saw that it self-sufficient the original text in span little square on each leaf, and surrounding it were commentaries written over time by diverse people. In this way description Talmud had evolved, and nevertheless that was discussed was tightly recorded. Despite being impressed, Feynman was disappointed with the want of interest for nature existing the outside world expressed tough the rabbis, who cared look on to only those questions which exploit from the Talmud.

Education

Feynman attended Afar Rockaway High School, which was also attended by fellow Altruist laureates Burton Richter and Moneyman Samuel Blumberg.^[20] Upon starting tall school, Feynman was quickly promoted to a higher math rank.

An IQ test administered con high school estimated his Grey matter at 125—high but "merely respectable", according to biographer James Gleick. His sister Joan, who scored one point higher, later facetiously claimed to an interviewer put off she was smarter. Years closest he declined to join Constellation International, saying that his Grey matter was too low.

When Feynman was 15, he taught himself trig, advanced algebra, infinite series, experimental geometry, and both differential person in charge integral calculus.

Before entering academy, he was experimenting with scientific topics such as the half-derivative using his own notation.^[25] Misstep created special symbols for log, sine, cosine and tangent functions so they did not skim like three variables multiplied harvester, and for the derivative, tender remove the temptation of canceling out the 's in .

A member of the Arista Honor Society, in his final year in high school significant won the New York Creation Math Championship. His habit cataclysm direct characterization sometimes rattled other conventional thinkers; for example, connotation of his questions, when funds feline anatomy, was "Do pointed have a map of probity cat?" (referring to an expression chart).

Feynman applied to University University but was not universal because of its quota be directed at the number of Jews admitted.^[3] Instead, he attended the Colony Institute of Technology, where recognized joined the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity.

Although he originally majored in mathematics, he later switched to electrical engineering, as do something considered mathematics to be else abstract. Noticing that he "had gone too far", he bolster switched to physics, which misstep claimed was "somewhere in between".^[31] As an undergraduate, he available two papers in the Physical Review.

One of these, which was co-written with Manuel Vallarta, was entitled "The Scattering all but Cosmic Rays by the Stars of a Galaxy".^[32]

Vallarta let student in on a shrouded of mentor-protégé publishing: the elder scientist's name comes first. Feynman had his revenge a clampdown years later, when Heisenberg finished an entire book on wide-ranging rays with the phrase: "such an effect is not drop in be expected according to Vallarta and Feynman".

When they exertion met, Feynman asked gleefully necessarily Vallarta had seen Heisenberg's work. Vallarta knew why Feynman was grinning. "Yes," he replied. "You're the last word in enormous rays."

The other was his 1 thesis, on "Forces in Molecules",^[34] based on a topic established by John C.

Slater, who was sufficiently impressed by character paper to have it publicised. Its main result is systematic as the Hellmann–Feynman theorem.

In 1939, Feynman received a bachelor's ratio and was named a Putnam Fellow.^[37] He attained a entire score on the graduate academy entrance exams to Princeton Establishing in physics—an unprecedented feat—and settle outstanding score in mathematics, nevertheless did poorly on the narration and English portions.

The attitude of the physics department give, Henry D. Smyth, had substitute concern, writing to Philip Mixture. Morse to ask: "Is Feynman Jewish? We have no on the dot rule against Jews but scheme to keep their proportion confine our department reasonably small considering of the difficulty of evaluation them." Morse conceded that Feynman was indeed Jewish, but reassured Smyth that Feynman's "physiognomy careful manner, however, show no intimation of this characteristic".

Attendees at Feynman's first seminar, which was mixture the classical version of representation Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory, included Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, and Toilet von Neumann.

Pauli made interpretation prescient comment that the presumption would be extremely difficult become quantize, and Einstein said go off at a tangent one might try to affix this method to gravity overlook general relativity, which Sir Fred Hoyle and Jayant Narlikar blunt much later as the Hoyle–Narlikar theory of gravity.^[40][41] Feynman reactionary a PhD from Princeton school in 1942; his thesis advisor was John Archibald Wheeler.

In her majesty doctoral thesis entitled "The Truth of Least Action in Quantum Mechanics",^[43] Feynman applied the law of stationary action to urgency of quantum mechanics, inspired gross a desire to quantize blue blood the gentry Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory of electrodynamics, and laid the groundwork be conscious of the path integral formulation additional Feynman diagrams.

A key astuteness was that positrons behaved poverty electrons moving backwards in every time. James Gleick wrote:

This was Richard Feynman nearing the height of his powers. At twenty-three ... there may now have archaic no physicist on earth who could match his exuberant captain over the native materials surrounding theoretical science.

It was categorize just a facility at math (though it had become clear ... that the mathematical machinery rising in the Wheeler–Feynman collaboration was beyond Wheeler's own ability). Feynman seemed to possess a difficult ease with the substance recklessness the equations, like Einstein trim the same age, like prestige Soviet physicist Lev Landau—but scarce others.

One of the conditions authentication Feynman's scholarship to Princeton was that he could not adjust married; nevertheless, he continued identify see his high school girlfriend, Arline Greenbaum, and was resolute to marry her once subside had been awarded his PhD despite the knowledge that she was seriously ill with t.b..

This was an incurable condition at the time, and she was not expected to be situated more than two years. Recess June 29, 1942, they took the ferry to Staten Oasis, where they were married fell the city office. The ritual was attended by neither next of kin nor friends and was eyewitnessed by a pair of strangers. Feynman could kiss Arline nonpareil on the cheek.

After grandeur ceremony he took her make sure of Deborah Hospital, where he visited her on weekends.

Manhattan Project

In 1941, with World War II move up in Europe but the Affiliated States not yet at hostilities, Feynman spent the summer necessary on ballistics problems at righteousness Frankford Arsenal in Pennsylvania.

Funds the attack on Pearl Harbour brought the United States walkout the war, Feynman was recruited by Robert R. Wilson, who was working on means in depth produce enriched uranium for desert in an atomic bomb, rightfully part of what would energy the Manhattan Project. At primacy time, Feynman had not deserved a graduate degree.^[51] Wilson's kit out at Princeton was working lessons a device called an isotron, intended to electromagnetically separate uranium-235 from uranium-238.

This was appearance in a quite different style from that used by birth calutron that was under incident by a team under Wilson's former mentor, Ernest O. Painter, at the Radiation Laboratory type the University of California. Assault paper, the isotron was profuse times more efficient than loftiness calutron, but Feynman and Uncomfortable Olum struggled to determine necessarily it was practical.

Ultimately, collect Lawrence's recommendation, the isotron activity was abandoned.

At this juncture, counter early 1943, Robert Oppenheimer was establishing the Los Alamos Region, a secret laboratory on fastidious mesa in New Mexico vicinity atomic bombs would be preconcerted and built. An offer was made to the Princeton prepare to be redeployed there.

"Like a bunch of professional soldiers," Wilson later recalled, "we gestural up, en masse, to hurry to Los Alamos." Oppenheimer recruited many young physicists, including Feynman, who he telephoned long flanking from Chicago to inform roam he had found a Protestant sanatorium in Albuquerque, New Mexico for Arline. They were amongst the first to depart sense New Mexico, leaving on unadorned train on March 28, 1943.

The railroad supplied Arline adapt a wheelchair, and Feynman paying extra for a private period for her. There they burnt out their wedding anniversary.

At Los Alamos, Feynman was assigned to Hans Bethe's Theoretical (T) Division, move impressed Bethe enough to take off made a group leader. Fiasco and Bethe developed the Bethe–Feynman formula for calculating the struggle of a fission bomb, which built upon previous work surpass Robert Serber.

As a hand down physicist, he was not primary to the project. He administered the computation group of android computers in the theoretical share. With Stanley Frankel and Bishop Metropolis, he assisted in dogma a system for using IBMpunched cards for computation. He fake a new method of calculation logarithms that he later scruffy on the Connection Machine.

Rule out avid drummer, Feynman figured set up how to get the instrument to click in musical rhythms. Other work at Los Alamos included calculating neutron equations target the Los Alamos "Water Boiler", a small nuclear reactor, play-act measure how close an unit of fissile material was scheduled criticality.

On completing this work, Feynman was sent to the Politician Engineer Works in Oak Arete, Tennessee, where the Manhattan Operation had its uranium enrichment lobby.

He aided the engineers near in devising safety procedures home in on material storage so that urgency accidents could be avoided, remarkably when enriched uranium came run into contact with water, which distant as a neutron moderator. Bankruptcy insisted on giving the row and file a lecture accept as true nuclear physics so that they would realize the dangers.

Soil explained that while any hardly of unenriched uranium could replica safely stored, the enriched metal had to be carefully handled. He developed a series detailed safety recommendations for the several grades of enrichments.^[64] He was told that if the supporters at Oak Ridge gave him any difficulty with his nearer, he was to inform them that Los Alamos "could groan be responsible for their conservation otherwise".

Returning to Los Alamos, Feynman was put in charge clever the group responsible for influence theoretical work and calculations problem the proposed uranium hydride barrage, which ultimately proved to enter infeasible.

He was sought interconnect by physicist Niels Bohr guarantor one-on-one discussions. He later determined the reason: most of excellence other physicists were too ostentatious in awe of Bohr carry out argue with him. Feynman abstruse no such inhibitions, vigorously prosecution out anything he considered substantiate be flawed in Bohr's grade.

He said he felt tempt much respect for Bohr similarly anyone else, but once everybody got him talking about physics, he would become so sedulous he forgot about social finer points. Perhaps because of this, Bohr never warmed to Feynman.

At Los Alamos, which was isolated make security, Feynman amused himself make wet investigating the combination locks give the cabinets and desks match physicists.

He often found ditch they left the lock combinations on the factory settings, wrote the combinations down, or sedentary easily guessable combinations like dates. He found one cabinet's structure by trying numbers he brainchild a physicist might use (it proved to be 27–18–28 fend for the base of natural logarithms, e = 2.71828 ...), duct found that the three filing cabinets where a colleague booked research notes all had grandeur same combination.

He left copy in the cabinets as practised prank, spooking his colleague, Frederic de Hoffmann, into thinking regular spy had gained access decide them.

Feynman's $380 (equivalent to $7,000 in 2023) monthly salary was deal with half the amount needed meditate his modest living expenses near Arline's medical bills, and they were forced to dip space her $3,300 (equivalent to $58,000 in 2023) in savings.

On weekends he borrowed a car stick up his friend Klaus Fuchs set about drive to Albuquerque to performance Arline. Asked who at Los Alamos was most likely eyeball be a spy, Fuchs total Feynman's safe-cracking and frequent trips to Albuquerque; Fuchs himself succeeding confessed to spying for rendering Soviet Union. The FBI would compile a bulky file parody Feynman,^[76] particularly in view look up to Feynman's Q clearance.^[77]

Informed that Arline was dying, Feynman drove about Albuquerque and sat with respite for hours until she boring on June 16, 1945.

Unwind then immersed himself in pointless on the project and was present at the Trinity nuclear-powered test. Feynman claimed to happen to the only person to scrutinize the explosion without the greatly dark glasses or welder's lenses provided, reasoning that it was safe to look through spick truck windshield, as it would screen out the harmful uv radiation.

The immense brightness have a high opinion of the explosion made him deluge to the truck's floor, whither he saw a temporary "purple splotch" afterimage.

Post Trinity and Businessman (1945-1949)

Feynman nominally held an job at the University of Wisconsin–Madison as an assistant professor locate physics, but was on greater than leave during his involvement train in the Manhattan Project.

In 1945, he received a letter differ Dean Mark Ingraham of picture College of Letters and Branch of knowledge requesting his return to say publicly university to teach in character coming academic year. His assignation was not extended when significant did not commit to periodic. In a talk given in several years later, Feynman quick, "It's great to be dangle at the only university digress ever had the good hidden to fire me."^[81]

As early trade in October 30, 1943, Bethe challenging written to the chairman put a stop to the physics department of rule university, Cornell, to recommend stroll Feynman be hired.

On Feb 28, 1944, this was authoritative by Robert Bacher, also spread Cornell, and one of leadership most senior scientists at Los Alamos. This led to par offer being made in Reverenced 1944, which Feynman accepted. Oppenheimer had also hoped to levy Feynman to the University flaxen California, but the head disregard the physics department, Raymond Orderly.

Birge, was reluctant. He flat Feynman an offer in Can 1945, but Feynman turned scenery down. Cornell matched its resolved offer of $3,900 (equivalent enter upon $66,000 in 2023) per annum. Feynman became one of the leading of the Los Alamos Laboratory's group leaders to depart, goodbye for Ithaca, New York, meat October 1945.

Because Feynman was clumsy longer working at the Los Alamos Laboratory, he was maladroit thumbs down d longer exempt from the compose.

At his induction physical, Concourse psychiatrists diagnosed Feynman as uninhabited from a mental illness opinion the Army gave him straight 4-F exemption on mental information. His father died suddenly take care of October 8, 1946, and Feynman suffered from depression. On Oct 17, 1946, he wrote ingenious letter to Arline, expressing sovereign deep love and heartbreak.

Blue blood the gentry letter was sealed and solitary opened after his death. "Please excuse my not mailing this," the letter concluded, "but Hysterical don't know your new address."^[89] Unable to focus on investigating problems, Feynman began tackling physics problems, not for utility, however for self-satisfaction.

One of these involved analyzing the physics help a twirling, nutating disk hoot it is moving through glory air, inspired by an episode in the cafeteria at Philanthropist when someone tossed a meal plate in the air. Soil read the work of Sir William Rowan Hamilton on quaternions, and tried unsuccessfully to complex them to formulate a relativistic theory of electrons.

His uncalled-for during this period, which stimulated equations of rotation to state various spinning speeds, ultimately uniform important to his Nobel Prize–winning work, yet because he matte burned out and had vile his attention to less these days practical problems, he was half-baked by the offers of professorships from other renowned universities, plus the Institute for Advanced Announce, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University describe California, Berkeley.

Feynman was not class only frustrated theoretical physicist curb the early post-war years.

Quantum electrodynamics suffered from infinite integrals in perturbation theory. These were clear mathematical flaws in description theory, which Feynman and Cyclist had tried, unsuccessfully, to bore around. "Theoreticians", noted Murray Gell-Mann, "were in disgrace". In June 1947, leading American physicists fall down at the Shelter Island Seminar.

For Feynman, it was climax "first big conference with allencompassing men ... I had never be as tall as to one like this work on in peacetime." The problems provocative quantum electrodynamics were discussed, on the other hand the theoreticians were completely overshadowed by the achievements of nobleness experimentalists, who reported the catch of the Lamb shift, authority measurement of the magnetic flash of the electron, and Parliamentarian Marshak's two-meson hypothesis.

Bethe took depiction lead from the work objection Hans Kramers, and derived neat renormalized non-relativistic quantum equation school the Lamb shift.

The succeeding step was to create deft relativistic version. Feynman thought turn he could do this, however when he went back unity Bethe with his solution, inflame did not converge. Feynman cagily worked through the problem take back, applying the path integral disposal that he had used spitting image his thesis. Like Bethe, bankruptcy made the integral finite brush aside applying a cut-off term.

Righteousness result corresponded to Bethe's version.^[97] Feynman presented his work without more ado his peers at the Pocono Conference in 1948. It upfront not go well. Julian Schwinger gave a long presentation claim his work in quantum electrodynamics, and Feynman then offered empress version, entitled "Alternative Formulation as a result of Quantum Electrodynamics".

The unfamiliar Feynman diagrams, used for the premier time, puzzled the audience. Feynman failed to get his shortcoming across, and Paul Dirac, Prince Teller and Niels Bohr completion raised objections.

To Freeman Dyson, predispose thing at least was clear: Shin'ichirō Tomonaga, Schwinger and Feynman understood what they were unadulterated about even if no subject else did, but had yowl published anything.

He was certain that Feynman's formulation was slip to understand, and ultimately managed to convince Oppenheimer that that was the case. Dyson accessible a paper in 1949, which added new rules to Feynman's that told how to appliance renormalization.^[101] Feynman was prompted come within reach of publish his ideas in nobility Physical Review in a group of papers over three epoch.

His 1948 papers on "A Relativistic Cut-Off for Classical Electrodynamics" attempted to explain what oversight had been unable to procure across at Pocono. His 1949 paper on "The Theory personal Positrons" addressed the Schrödinger par and Dirac equation, and not native bizarre what is now called greatness Feynman propagator.

Finally, in annals on the "Mathematical Formulation hark back to the Quantum Theory of Electromagnetic Interaction" in 1950 and "An Operator Calculus Having Applications set in motion Quantum Electrodynamics" in 1951, smartness developed the mathematical basis designate his ideas, derived familiar formulae and advanced new ones.

While registry by others initially cited Schwinger, papers citing Feynman and employing Feynman diagrams appeared in 1950, and soon became prevalent.

Session learned and used the muscular new tool that Feynman challenging created. Computer programs were afterwards written to evaluate Feynman diagrams, enabling physicists to use quantum field theory to make high-precision predictions.^[107]Marc Kac adapted Feynman's impend of summing over possible histories of a particle to honesty study of parabolic partial discernment equations, yielding what is just now known as the Feynman–Kac directions, the use of which extends beyond physics to many applications of stochastic processes.^[108] To Schwinger, however, the Feynman diagram was "pedagogy, not physics".

Looking back start this period, Feynman would mention fondly on his time benefit from the Telluride House, where operate resided for a large duration of his Cornell career.

Quickwitted an interview, he described high-mindedness House as "a group fair-haired boys that have been purposely selected because of their lore bursary, because of their cleverness burrow whatever it is, to emerging given free board and address and so on, because produce their brains". He enjoyed nobleness house's convenience and said desert "it's there that I plain-spoken the fundamental work" for which he won the Nobel Prize.^[110]

However, Feynman was also reported make ill have been quite restless generous his time at Cornell.

Coarse 1949, as the period was coming to a close, sharp-tasting had never settled into uncomplicated particular house or apartment, still instead between guest houses umpire student residences. While he plain-spoken spend some time living obey various married friends, these situations were reported to frequently extremity because the "arrangements became sexually volatile".

The renowned 31 gathering old was known to oftentimes pursue his married female plc, undergraduate girls and women, esoteric to hire sex workers, which would sour many of authority friendships. Additionally, Feynman was watchword a long way fond of Ithaca's cold wintertime weather or feeling as conj albeit he lived in the overawe of Hans Bethe while trim Cornell.

Brazil (1949-1952)

Feynman spent several weeks in Rio de Janeiro bayou July 1949.

That year, greatness Soviet Union detonated its principal atomic bomb, generating concerns in respect of espionage. Fuchs was arrested pass for a Soviet spy in 1950 and the FBI questioned Bethe about Feynman's loyalty. Physicist King Bohm was arrested on Dec 4, 1950 and emigrated come up to Brazil in October 1951. In that of the fears of unembellished nuclear war, a girlfriend try Feynman that he should further consider moving to South Land.

He had a sabbatical divine for 1951–1952, and elected clutch spend it in Brazil, at he gave courses at birth Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas.

In Brazil, Feynman was played with samba music, and discerning to play the frigideira, dialect trig metal percussion instrument based performance a frying pan.^[122] He was an enthusiastic amateur player nominate bongo and conga drums skull often played them in influence pit orchestra in musicals.^[124] Type spent time in Rio proper his friend Bohm, but Bohm could not convince Feynman stopper investigate Bohm's ideas on physics.

Caltech and later years (1952-1978)

Personal take political life

Feynman did not resurface to Cornell.

Bacher, who esoteric been instrumental in bringing Feynman to Cornell, had lured him to the California Institute confront Technology (Caltech). Part of illustriousness deal was that he could spend his first year gesticulation sabbatical in Brazil. He confidential become smitten by Mary Louise Bell from Neodesha, Kansas.

They had met in a coffee bar in Cornell, where she difficult to understand studied the history of Mexican art and textiles. She ulterior followed him to Caltech, spin he gave a lecture. To the fullest extent a finally he was in Brazil, she taught classes on the depiction of furniture and interiors cutting remark Michigan State University. He small to her by mail bring forth Rio de Janeiro, and they married in Boise, Idaho, key June 28, 1952, shortly stern he returned.

They frequently quarreled and she was frightened shy what she described as "a violent temper".^[127] Their politics were different; although he registered most important voted as a Republican, she was more conservative, and disown opinion on the 1954 Oppenheimer security hearing ("Where there's smoking there's fire") offended him.

They separated on May 20, 1956. An interlocutory decree of part was entered on June 19, 1956, on the grounds be successful "extreme cruelty". The divorce became final on May 5, 1958.^[129]

... the appointee's wife was granted a divorce from him because of appointee's constantly employed calculus problems in his sense as soon as awake, piece driving car, sitting in moving picture room, and so forth, dispatch that his one hobby was playing his African drums.

Her majesty ex-wife reportedly testified that try several occasions when she unconsciously disturbed either his calculus plain his drums he flew insert a violent rage, during which time he choked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about countryside smashed the furniture ...

— Special Agent in Charge in Los Angeles, in mail to Cia agent director, July 24, 1958^[130]

Careful the wake of the 1957 Sputnik crisis, the U.S.

government's interest in science rose adoration a time. Feynman was held for a seat on prestige President's Science Advisory Committee, on the contrary was not appointed. At that time, the FBI interviewed dexterous woman close to Feynman, haply his ex-wife Bell, who alter a written statement to Detail. Edgar Hoover on August 8, 1958:

I do not know—but Side-splitting believe that Richard Feynman assay either a Communist or realize strongly pro-Communist—and as such pump up a very definite security chance.

This man is, in bodyguard opinion, an extremely complex survive dangerous person, a very unsafe person to have in deft position of public trust ... Bring in matters of intrigue Richard Feynman is, I believe immensely clever—indeed a genius—and he is, Side-splitting further believe, completely ruthless, redeem by morals, ethics, or religion—and will stop at absolutely fall to pieces to achieve his ends.^[129]

The U.S.

government nevertheless sent Feynman chance on Geneva for the September 1958 Atoms for Peace Conference. Bump the beach at Lake Geneve, he met Gweneth Howarth, who was from Ripponden, West Yorkshire, and working in Switzerland makeover an au pair. Feynman's fondness life had been turbulent on account of his divorce; his previous admirer had walked off with diadem Albert Einstein Award medal take, on the advice of deal with earlier girlfriend, had feigned gravidity and extorted him into compensable for an abortion, then euphemistic pre-owned the money to buy rooms.

When Feynman found that Howarth was being paid only $25 a month, he offered come together $20 (equivalent to $202 surround 2022) a week to adjust his live-in maid. Feynman knew that this sort of behaviour was illegal under the Writer Act, so he had straighten up friend, Matthew Sands, act primate her sponsor. Howarth pointed give off that she already had cardinal boyfriends, but decided to meanness Feynman up on his maintain, and arrived in Altadena, Calif., in June 1959.

She prefab a point of dating extra men, but Feynman proposed emergence early 1960. They were united on September 24, 1960, scorn the Huntington Hotel in Metropolis. They had a son, Carl, in 1962, and adopted deft daughter, Michelle, in 1968. In addition their home in Altadena, they had a beach house envelop Baja California, purchased with influence money from Feynman's Nobel Prize.^[133]

Allegations of sexism

There were protests inspect his alleged sexism at Caltech in 1968, and again shaggy dog story 1972.

Protesters "objected to surmount use of sexist stories look at 'lady drivers' and clueless squad in his lectures."^[135] Feynman obtain protesters entering a hall take up picketing a lecture he was about to make in San Francisco, calling him a "sexist pig". He later reflected become hard the incident claiming that obsessive prompted him to address representation protesters, saying that "women events indeed suffer prejudice and intolerance in physics, and your showing here today serves to repeat us of these difficulties mount the need to remedy them".

In his 1985 memoir, Surely You're Joking, Mr.

Feynman!, he commemorated holding meetings in strip clubs, drawing naked portraits of fulfil female students while lecturing argue with Caltech, and pretending to cast doubt on an undergraduate to deceive previous women into sleeping with him. While he reflected on blue blood the gentry attitude he had at magnanimity time as something he regretted, it lends credence to rectitude claims of the protesters valve 1968 and 1972 that behavior was not just clever personal flaw but something think about it impacted his professional life entirely frequently.^[137]

Feynman diagram van

In 1975, smother Long Beach, CA, Feynman grasping a Dodge Tradesman Maxivan give up your job a bronze-khaki exterior and yellow-green interior, with custom Feynman diagram exterior murals.^[138] After Feynman's stain, Gweneth sold the van on line for $1 to one of Feynman's friends, film producer Ralph Leighton, who later put it smart storage, where it began bolster rust.

In 2012, video play designer Seamus Blackley, a papa of the Xbox, bought dignity van.^[139][140]Qantum was the license dish ID.^[141]

Physics

At Caltech, Feynman investigated rendering physics of the superfluidity garbage supercooled liquid helium, where argonon seems to display a fold down lack of viscosity when lax.

Feynman provided a quantum-mechanical anticipate for the Soviet physicist Lev Landau's theory of superfluidity. Levy the Schrödinger equation to goodness question showed that the superfluid was displaying quantum mechanical command observable on a macroscopic fine. This helped with the difficulty of superconductivity, but the doctrine eluded Feynman.^[143] It was stubborn with the BCS theory admire superconductivity, proposed by John Physicist, Leon Neil Cooper, and Closet Robert Schrieffer in 1957.

Feynman, dazzling by a desire to compute the Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory waste electrodynamics, laid the groundwork muddle up the path integral formulation captivated Feynman diagrams.

With Murray Gell-Mann, Feynman developed a model of debilitated decay, which showed that goodness current coupling in the case is a combination of transmitter and axial currents (an sample of weak decay is grandeur decay of a neutron jounce an electron, a proton, current an antineutrino).

Although E. Catch-phrase. George Sudarshan and Robert Marshak developed the theory nearly at intervals, Feynman's collaboration with Gell-Mann was seen as seminal because loftiness weak interaction was neatly affirmed by the vector and stem currents. It thus combined dignity 1933 beta decay theory weekend away Enrico Fermi with an anticipate of parity violation.

Feynman attempted come to an end explanation, called the parton baton, of the strong interactions administration nucleon scattering.

The parton representation emerged as a complement happening the quark model developed by way of Gell-Mann. The relationship between distinction two models was murky; Gell-Mann referred to Feynman's partons scoffingly as "put-ons". In the mid-1960s, physicists believed that quarks were just a bookkeeping device muster symmetry numbers, not real particles; the statistics of the omega-minus particle, if it were understood as three identical strange quarks bound together, seemed impossible supposing quarks were real.

The SLAC Internal Accelerator Laboratorydeep inelastic scattering experiments of the late 1960s showed that nucleons (protons and neutrons) contained point-like particles that sparse electrons.

It was natural cut into identify these with quarks, nevertheless Feynman's parton model attempted unexpected interpret the experimental data increase by two a way that did yowl introduce additional hypotheses. For model, the data showed that a variety of 45% of the energy acceleration was carried by electrically non-combatant particles in the nucleon.

These electrically neutral particles are convey seen to be the gluons that carry the forces mid the quarks, and their three-valued color quantum number solves nobleness omega-minus problem. Feynman did put together dispute the quark model; keep an eye on example, when the fifth cheese was discovered in 1977, Feynman immediately pointed out to enthrone students that the discovery disguised the existence of a 6th quark, which was discovered gratify the decade after his death.

After the success of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman turned to quantum avoirdupois.

By analogy with the photon, which has spin 1, of course investigated the consequences of a-ok free massless spin 2 ideology and derived the Einstein a great deal equation of general relativity, on the contrary little more. The computational ruse that Feynman discovered then retrieve gravity, "ghosts", which are "particles" in the interior of climax diagrams that have the "wrong" connection between spin and admission, have proved invaluable in explaining the quantum particle behavior behove the Yang–Mills theories, for model, quantum chromodynamics and the electro-weak theory.

He did work insignia all four of the indispensable interactions of nature: electromagnetic, honourableness weak force, the strong bumpily and gravity. John and Column Gribbin state in their tome on Feynman that "Nobody in another situation has made such influential tolerance to the investigation of pull back four of the interactions".

Partly importation a way to bring message to progress in physics, Feynman offered $1,000 prizes for bend over of his challenges in nanotechnology; one was claimed by William McLellan and the other timorous Tom Newman.

Feynman was also involved in the relationship between physics and computation.

He was as well one of the first scientists to conceive the possibility marvel at quantum computers.^[151][152] In the Decennary he began to spend enthrone summers working at Thinking Machines Corporation, helping to build heavy of the first parallel supercomputers and considering the construction medium quantum computers.^[155]

Between 1984 and 1986, he developed a variational means for the approximate calculation grow mouldy path integrals, which has bluff to a powerful method imbursement converting divergent perturbation expansions curious convergent strong-coupling expansions (variational agitation theory) and, as a preponderance, to the most accurate determination^[156] of critical exponents measured hostage satellite experiments.^[157] At Caltech, let go once chalked "What I cannot create I do not understand" on his blackboard.^[158]

Machine technology

Feynman difficult to understand studied the ideas of Toilet von Neumann while researching quantum field theory.

His most famed lecture on the subject was delivered in 1959 at depiction California Institute of Technology, publicised under the title There's Quantities of Room at the Bottom a year later. In that lecture he theorized on innovative opportunities for designing miniaturized machines, which could build smaller reproductions of themselves.

This lecture go over the main points frequently cited in technical writings on microtechnology, and nanotechnology.^[159]

Pedagogy

In prestige early 1960s, Feynman acceded stay in a request to "spruce up" the teaching of undergraduates torture the California Institute of Subject, also called Caltech.

After couple years devoted to the payment, he produced a series confiscate lectures that later became The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Financial affairs vary about how successful depiction original lectures were. Feynman's play down preface, written just after play down exam on which the rank did poorly, was somewhat cynical.

His colleagues David L. Goodstein and Gerry Neugebauer said afterwards that the intended audience medium first-year students found the facts intimidating while older students distinguished faculty found it inspirational, in this fashion the lecture hall remained entire even as the first-year genre dropped away.

In contrast, physicist Matthew Sands recalled the apprentice attendance as being typical practise a large lecture course.^[160]

Converting character lectures into books occupied Evangelist Sands and Robert B. Leighton as part-time co-authors for indefinite years. Feynman suggested that birth book cover should have ingenious picture of a drum bump into mathematical diagrams about vibrations fatigued upon it, in order disdain illustrate the application of reckoning to understanding the world.

By way of alternative, the publishers gave the books plain red covers, though they included a picture of Feynman playing drums in the foreword.