American Scientist

May 11 marks what would have been the 97th birthday of Richard Feynman, the legendary physicist who helped to found the field of quantum electrodynamics, for which he won the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. Feynman’s brilliance is well documented, and his humor has made him one of the better-known communicators of physics to a popular audience. His quirky nature and perhaps less socially acceptable habits are also commonly discussed.

Feynman’s name has often graced the pages of American Scientist. Here we collect a dozen links as a jumping-off point for those looking to know more about this fascinating scientist.

A review of The Scientific Life: A Moral History of a Late Modern Vocation, by Steven Shapin. Reviewed by Theodore M. Porter, Nov–Dec 2008.
“We are encouraged to think of the scientist as holding on to an unconventional, childlike curiosity into adulthood. … Richard Feynman and James Watson are the poster boys for this kind of scientist, who bathes in the fountain of perpetual fun. … The legend of Feynman originated during his time at Los Alamos, which he described as a delightful time of cracking safes and seducing girls in bars.”

Slideshow from Feynman, a graphic novel biography by Jim Ottaviani, Leland Myrick, and Hilary Sycamore. Jul–Aug 2011.
An excerpt from this book shows the artists’ recreation of the series of lectures Feynman gave on quantum electrodynamics in 1983.

Richard Feynman’s Diagrams, by Felice Frankel. Sep–Oct 2003.
This Sightings column looks at the diagrams Feynman created to simplify the representations of calculations in quantum electrodynamics. As David Kaiser of MIT explains in the article, “To Feynman, the diagrams showed what really happened in the quantum-mechanical world. Beyond a mere calculating trick, he came to see in the lines of his diagrams a patchwork of comings and goings on the micro level, particles careening to and fro as they marched through space and time.”

Physics and Feynman’s Diagrams, by David Kaiser. Mar–Apr 2005.
Following on the previous post, David Kaiser of MIT explains how Feynman’s diagrams have jumped out of quantum electrodynamics and helped to transform other areas of physics.

Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman. Edited by Michelle Feynman, foreword by Timothy Ferris. Reviewed by Richard Crease, Jul–Aug 2005.
Crease writes, “Most scientists … do not reply to [crackpot] letters…. Not Feynman. … A crackpot claimed to have discovered a new source of energy, exhibited by the apparently unmotivated spinning of a washer when suspended by a thread. Feynman experimented with washers and threads before replying, observed the effect in question, admitted to surprise at its strength, did the calculations—which nevertheless suggested an utterly conventional if counterintuitive explanation (lengthening threads and unnoticed hand motions)—and wrote back suggesting further experiments.”

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard Feynman, by Richard Feynman. Reviewed by Robert Root-Bernstein, Sept–Oct 1999.
Root-Bernstein writes, “With so many Feynman books readily available, the real interest of the volume resides in ready access to classic Feynman lectures, such as ‘Computing Machines in the Future,’ which predicted the invention of quantum computing, ‘There’s Plenty of Room at the Bottom,’ in which Feynman kicked off the micro-miniaturizing revolution, and ‘Minority Report to the Space Shuttle Challenger Inquiry.’ Also of interest are Feynman’s thoughts on the social value of science, its philosophy and its relation to religion.”

Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science, by Lawrence M. Krauss. Reviewed by Silvan S. Schweber, May–Jun 2011.
Schweber writes, “Krauss rightly stresses that Feynman always had his own way of looking at problems and his own way of solving them, and he notes that Feynman might have been able to contribute more had he not insisted on solving problems in his own way.”

The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen Scientist, by Richard P. Feynman. Reviewed by David Goodstein, Jul–Aug 1998.
Goodstein, who worked with Feynman for more than 20 years, describes a lecture included in this collection: “Addison-Wesley has now published Feynman’s Danz Lectures under the inappropriate title The Meaning of It All. I read through the review copy that was sent to me, anxious to find those vivid moments that, even after 35 years, stand out in cherished memory. One was the point at which, much to the delight of Feynman and the rest of his audience, the entire psychology department stood as one and marched out in a huff. (Of course it may not have happened that way. This is a 35-year-old memory we’re talking about.) I found it in the third lecture when Feynman referred to psychoanalysts and psychiatrists as ‘witch doctors,’ because all their complicated ideas about ids and egos and so on, accumulated in almost no time at all, couldn’t possibly be right. He also said that, if he were a member of a tribe and he were sick he would go to the witch doctor, because the witch doctor knows more about illness than anyone else, but, if memory serves, that was after the psychologists were already gone. In the next few pages he also savages professors of English pretty thoroughly, but probably there were none of those present in the first place.”

Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life, by Leonard Mlodinow. Reviewed by Linda Schmalbeck, Jan–Feb 2004.
Schmalbeck writes, “[Mlodinow] managed to strike up a relationship with the grumpy, cancer-stricken and yet still-magical Feynman. Mlodinow, groping for direction in his life and work, quizzed Feynman about the process of discovery, taping many of their conversations, and eventually arrived at a new understanding of what’s important in life.”

Excerpt from A Sense of the Mysterious: Science and the Human Spirit, by Alan Lightman. May–Jun 2005.
“Feynman rarely read the scientific literature. When he did, he would read only far enough into an article to see what the problem was, fold up the journal, and then derive the results on his own.”

Science, Truth, and Democracy, by Philip Kitcher. Reviewed by David Goodstein, Mar–Apr 2002.
Goodstein writes, “Physicist Richard Feynman was disdainful of philosophers of science, but he was nevertheless capable of deep insights. Many years ago, he and I had long discussions of … what makes something important in science. … Some scientists consistently made important discoveries, while others with equal technical skills were relatively unproductive. Why? The key, Feynman decided, lay in choosing important problems to work on. An important problem, he believed, is one for which the solution turns out not only to solve the problem at hand but also to shed unexpected new light on the solutions to other problems as well. Feynman’s formulation is both enigmatic and elegant. The ability to choose such problems is what we call scientific good taste. Some people have it and others don’t. Democracy has nothing to do with it.”

Quantum Identity, by Peter Pesic. May–Jun 2002.
Pesic delves into quantum mechanics, attempting to describe something that Feynman helped established but found difficult to explain. As Pesic writes, “Quantum theory remains enigmatic, for its basic assumptions seem bewildering: Everything is both wave and particle; uncertainty and probability rule. Even after a hundred years, both experts and the general public remain baffled. …Richard Feynman, a master of finding simple ways to understand complex ideas, also threw up his hands. After summing up the basic rules of quantum theory, he confessed that ‘one might still like to ask: ”How does it work? What is the machinery behind the law?” No one has found any machinery behind the law. No one can “explain” any more than we have just ”explained.” No one will give you any deeper representation of the situation. We have no ideas about a more basic mechanism from which these results can be deduced.’”