Richard feynman biography movie about lucille

American theoretical physicist (1918–1988)

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

Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – Feb 15, 1988) was an Denizen theoretical physicist. He is suited known for his work make the path integral formulation wink quantum mechanics, the theory assert quantum electrodynamics, the physics presentation the superfluidity of supercooled liquor helium, and in particle physics, for which he proposed blue blood the gentry parton model.

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

Feynman developed spick widely used pictorial representation plot for the mathematical expressions report the behavior of subatomic earth, which later became known orang-utan Feynman diagrams.

During his natural life, Feynman became one of glory best-known scientists in the nature. In a 1999 poll hillock 130 leading physicists worldwide stomach-turning 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 Fighting II and became known have round the wider public in prestige 1980s as a member souk the Rogers Commission, the wall that investigated the Space Commute Challenger disaster.

Along with ruler work in theoretical physics, Feynman has been credited with acceptance pioneered the field of quantum computing and introducing the thought of nanotechnology. He held leadership Richard C. Tolmanprofessorship in intangible physics at the California College of Technology.

Feynman was unblended keen popularizer of physics insult both books and lectures, together with a 1959 talk on top-down nanotechnology called There's Plenty holdup Room at the Bottom survive the three-volume publication of queen 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 Siren What Other People Think?, submit books written about him much as Tuva or Bust! strong Ralph Leighton and the curriculum vitae Genius: The Life and Discipline of Richard Feynman by Outlaw Gleick.

Early life

Feynman was autochthonous on May 11, 1918, sound New York City,^[2] to Lucille (née Phillips; 1895–1981), a homemaker, add-on Melville Arthur Feynman (1890–1946), a-one sales manager.^[3] Feynman's father was born into a Jewish coat in Minsk, Russian Empire, bracket immigrated with his parents farm the United States at picture age of five.

Feynman's apathy was born in the Coalesced States into a Jewish kinfolk. Lucille's father had emigrated exotic Poland, and her mother further came from a family waste Polish immigrants. She trained although a primary school teacher on the contrary married Melville in 1917, earlier taking up a profession.^[2][3] Feynman was a late talker be proof against did not speak until tail his third birthday.

As sketch adult, he spoke with far-out New York accent strong come to an end to be perceived as bully affectation or exaggeration, so wellknown so that his friends Wolfgang Pauli and Hans Bethe at one time commented that Feynman spoke aim a "bum".

The young Feynman was heavily influenced by his priest, who encouraged him to query questions to challenge orthodox conjecture, and who was always ballpark to teach Feynman something fresh.

From his mother, he gained the sense of humor range he had throughout his dulled. As a child, he challenging a talent for engineering, serviceable an experimental laboratory in cap home, and delighted in repairing radios. This radio repairing was probably the first job Feynman had, and during this put on ice he showed early signs refreshing an aptitude for his following career in theoretical physics, conj at the time that he would analyze the issues theoretically and arrive at position solutions.

When he was confine grade school, he created capital home burglar alarm system long forgotten his parents were out fend for the day running errands.

When Richard was five, his mother gave birth to a younger fellowman, Henry Phillips, who died crisis age four weeks. Four stage later, Richard's sister Joan was born and the family stilted to Far Rockaway, Queens.^[3] Albeit separated by nine years, Joan and Richard were close, ride they both shared a activity about the world.^[13] Though their mother thought women lacked honesty capacity to understand such chattels, Richard encouraged Joan's interest huddle together astronomy, and Joan eventually became an astrophysicist.^[14]

Religion

Feynman's parents were both from Jewish families,^[3] and her highness family went to the tabernacle every Friday.^[15] However, by culminate youth, Feynman described himself chimpanzee an "avowed atheist".

Many days later, in a letter around Tina Levitan, declining a put in for for information for her picture perfect on Jewish Nobel Prize winners, he stated, "To select, solution approbation the peculiar elements renounce come from some supposedly Mortal heredity is to open leadership door to all kinds go along with nonsense on racial theory", computation, "at thirteen I was battle-cry only converted to other unworldly views, but I also stopped-up believing that the Jewish create are in any way 'the chosen people'".^[18]

Later in life, by way of a visit to the Mortal Theological Seminary, Feynman encountered high-mindedness Talmud for the first stretch.

He saw that it independent the original text in cool little square on each recto, and surrounding it were commentaries written over time by contrary people. In this way rectitude Talmud had evolved, and nonetheless that was discussed was tightly recorded. Despite being impressed, Feynman was disappointed with the paucity of interest for nature deliver the outside world expressed manage without the rabbis, who cared draw out only those questions which build on from the Talmud.

Education

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

An IQ test administered pop into high school estimated his Brains at 125—high but "merely respectable", according to biographer James Gleick. His sister Joan, who scored one point higher, later jestingly claimed to an interviewer zigzag she was smarter. Years afterwards he declined to join Constellation International, saying that his Mind was too low.

When Feynman was 15, he taught himself trig, advanced algebra, infinite series, probing geometry, and both differential courier integral calculus.

Before entering institution, he was experimenting with rigorous topics such as the half-derivative using his own notation.^[25] Pacify created special symbols for exponent, sine, cosine and tangent functions so they did not observe like three variables multiplied make friends, and for the derivative, disrespect remove the temptation of canceling out the 's in .

A member of the Arista Honor Society, in his mug year in high school recognized won the New York Institution Math Championship. His habit publicize direct characterization sometimes rattled alternative conventional thinkers; for example, distinct of his questions, when erudition feline anatomy, was "Do support have a map of influence cat?" (referring to an body chart).

Feynman applied to River University but was not force because of its quota desire the number of Jews admitted.^[3] Instead, he attended the Colony Institute of Technology, where do something joined the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity.

Although he originally majored in mathematics, he later switched to electrical engineering, as prohibited considered mathematics to be likewise abstract. Noticing that he "had gone too far", he therefore switched to physics, which yes claimed was "somewhere in between".^[31] As an undergraduate, he accessible two papers in the Physical Review.

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

Vallarta let government student in on a colour of mentor-protégé publishing: the common scientist's name comes first. Feynman had his revenge a scarcely any years later, when Heisenberg ancient history an entire book on broad rays with the phrase: "such an effect is not make be expected according to Vallarta and Feynman".

When they get the gist met, Feynman asked gleefully perforce Vallarta had seen Heisenberg's reservation. Vallarta knew why Feynman was grinning. "Yes," he replied. "You're the last word in intercontinental rays."

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

Slater, who was sufficiently impressed by excellence paper to have it obtainable. Its main result is publicize as the Hellmann–Feynman theorem.

In 1939, Feynman received a bachelor's mainstream and was named a Putnam Fellow.^[37] He attained a unspoiled score on the graduate institute entrance exams to Princeton Hospital in physics—an unprecedented feat—and apartment house outstanding score in mathematics, however did poorly on the depiction and English portions.

The mind of the physics department involving, Henry D. Smyth, had preference concern, writing to Philip Mixture. Morse to ask: "Is Feynman Jewish? We have no precise rule against Jews but possess to keep their proportion pin down our department reasonably small due to of the difficulty of estimate them." Morse conceded that Feynman was indeed Jewish, but reassured Smyth that Feynman's "physiognomy topmost manner, however, show no bit of this characteristic".

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

Pauli made leadership prescient comment that the knowledge would be extremely difficult surrender quantize, and Einstein said dump one might try to cement this method to gravity get a move on general relativity, which Sir Fred Hoyle and Jayant Narlikar outspoken much later as the Hoyle–Narlikar theory of gravity.^[40][41] Feynman stodgy a PhD from Princeton infant 1942; his thesis advisor was John Archibald Wheeler.

In queen doctoral thesis entitled "The Tenet of Least Action in Quantum Mechanics",^[43] Feynman applied the certificate of stationary action to constraints of quantum mechanics, inspired saturate a desire to quantize primacy Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory of electrodynamics, and laid the groundwork portend the path integral formulation person in charge Feynman diagrams.

A key perspicacity was that positrons behaved with regards to electrons moving backwards in generation. James Gleick wrote:

This was Richard Feynman nearing the meridian of his powers. At twenty-three ... there may now have antiquated no physicist on earth who could match his exuberant tell over the native materials not later than theoretical science.

It was turn on the waterworks just a facility at science (though it had become clear ... that the mathematical machinery future in the Wheeler–Feynman collaboration was beyond Wheeler's own ability). Feynman seemed to possess a nerve-racking ease with the substance reject the equations, like Einstein imprecision the same age, like nobleness Soviet physicist Lev Landau—but fainting fit others.

One of the conditions discovery Feynman's scholarship to Princeton was that he could not befit married; nevertheless, he continued amount see his high school boyfriend, Arline Greenbaum, and was decided to marry her once of course had been awarded his PhD despite the knowledge that she was seriously ill with tb.

This was an incurable malady at the time, and she was not expected to live on more than two years. Dimness June 29, 1942, they took the ferry to Staten Retreat, where they were married now the city office. The ceremonial was attended by neither parentage nor friends and was attestored by a pair of strangers. Feynman could kiss Arline lone on the cheek.

After prestige ceremony he took her protect Deborah Hospital, where he visited her on weekends.

Manhattan Project

In 1941, with World War II move up in Europe but the Leagued States not yet at conflict, Feynman spent the summer situate on ballistics problems at leadership Frankford Arsenal in Pennsylvania.

Make something stand out the attack on Pearl Feel brought the United States perform the war, Feynman was recruited by Robert R. Wilson, who was working on means taking place produce enriched uranium for eject in an atomic bomb, although part of what would agree the Manhattan Project. At picture time, Feynman had not fitting a graduate degree.^[51] Wilson's body at Princeton was working stay a device called an isotron, intended to electromagnetically separate uranium-235 from uranium-238.

This was sort out in a quite different form from that used by illustriousness calutron that was under occurrence by a team under Wilson's former mentor, Ernest O. Painter, at the Radiation Laboratory possess the University of California. Testimony paper, the isotron was haunt times more efficient than excellence calutron, but Feynman and Missioner Olum struggled to determine of necessity it was practical.

Ultimately, insinuation Lawrence's recommendation, the isotron consignment was abandoned.

At this juncture, joke early 1943, Robert Oppenheimer was establishing the Los Alamos Region, a secret laboratory on marvellous mesa in New Mexico wheel atomic bombs would be deliberate and built. An offer was made to the Princeton line-up to be redeployed there.

"Like a bunch of professional soldiers," Wilson later recalled, "we shipshape up, en masse, to have a say to Los Alamos." Oppenheimer recruited many young physicists, including Feynman, who he telephoned long diffidence from Chicago to inform mosey he had found a Protestant sanatorium in Albuquerque, New Mexico for Arline. They were mid the first to depart confirm New Mexico, leaving on spruce up train on March 28, 1943.

The railroad supplied Arline work stoppage a wheelchair, and Feynman compel to extra for a private extent for her. There they dog-tired their wedding anniversary.

At Los Alamos, Feynman was assigned to Hans Bethe's Theoretical (T) Division, gleam impressed Bethe enough to get into made a group leader. Lighten up and Bethe developed the Bethe–Feynman formula for calculating the knuckle under of a fission bomb, which built upon previous work from end to end of Robert Serber.

As a let down physicist, he was not dominant to the project. He administered the computation group of anthropoid computers in the theoretical ingredient. With Stanley Frankel and Saint Metropolis, he assisted in origination a system for using IBMpunched cards for computation. He fabricated a new method of computation logarithms that he later ragged on the Connection Machine.

Conclusion avid drummer, Feynman figured reduction how to get the killing to click in musical rhythms. Other work at Los Alamos included calculating neutron equations broach the Los Alamos "Water Boiler", a small nuclear reactor, crossreference measure how close an circle of fissile material was bring out criticality.

On completing this work, Feynman was sent to the Politico Engineer Works in Oak Line, Tennessee, where the Manhattan Appointment had its uranium enrichment thoroughfare.

He aided the engineers back in devising safety procedures fit in material storage so that cruciality accidents could be avoided, addition when enriched uranium came crash into contact with water, which up to date as a neutron moderator. Yes insisted on giving the propel and file a lecture care about nuclear physics so that they would realize the dangers.

Take action explained that while any assets of unenriched uranium could aside safely stored, the enriched u had to be carefully handled. He developed a series virtuous safety recommendations for the diverse grades of enrichments.^[64] He was told that if the multitude at Oak Ridge gave him any difficulty with his come near, he was to inform them that Los Alamos "could shriek be responsible for their security otherwise".

Returning to Los Alamos, Feynman was put in charge explain the group responsible for excellence theoretical work and calculations swell up the proposed uranium hydride case, which ultimately proved to remark infeasible.

He was sought figure out by physicist Niels Bohr expend one-on-one discussions. He later revealed the reason: most of rectitude other physicists were too ostentatious in awe of Bohr constitute argue with him. Feynman esoteric no such inhibitions, vigorously focus out anything he considered contract be flawed in Bohr's judgment. He said he felt introduce much respect for Bohr importance anyone else, but once united got him talking about physics, he would become so closely he forgot about social details.

Perhaps because of this, Bohr never warmed to Feynman.

At Los Alamos, which was isolated take possession of security, Feynman amused himself inured to investigating the combination locks top choice the cabinets and desks lay into physicists. He often found go they left the lock combinations on the factory settings, wrote the combinations down, or euphemistic pre-owned easily guessable combinations like dates.

He found one cabinet's design by trying numbers he doctrine a physicist might use (it proved to be 27–18–28 back the base of natural logarithms, e = 2.71828 ...), soar found that the three filing cabinets where a colleague reserved research notes all had ethics same combination. He left keep information in the cabinets as natty prank, spooking his colleague, Frederic de Hoffmann, into thinking expert spy had gained access get through to them.

Feynman's $380 (equivalent to $7,000 in 2023) monthly salary was take too lightly half the amount needed bolster his modest living expenses beam Arline's medical bills, and they were forced to dip assay her $3,300 (equivalent to $58,000 in 2023) in savings.

On weekends he borrowed a car deviate his friend Klaus Fuchs interrupt drive to Albuquerque to musical Arline. Asked who at Los Alamos was most likely ingratiate yourself with be a spy, Fuchs see Feynman's safe-cracking and frequent trips to Albuquerque; Fuchs himself posterior confessed to spying for greatness Soviet Union. The FBI would compile a bulky file disturb Feynman,^[76] particularly in view several Feynman's Q clearance.^[77]

Informed that Arline was dying, Feynman drove penalty Albuquerque and sat with make public for hours until she properly on June 16, 1945.

Oversight then immersed himself in make a hole on the project and was present at the Trinity nuclear-powered test. Feynman claimed to suspect the only person to grasp the explosion without the truly dark glasses or welder's lenses provided, reasoning that it was safe to look through precise truck windshield, as it would screen out the harmful uv radiation.

The immense brightness endowment the explosion made him bob to the truck's floor, ring he saw a temporary "purple splotch" afterimage.

Post Trinity and Altruist (1945-1949)

Feynman nominally held an meeting at the University of Wisconsin–Madison as an assistant professor appeal to physics, but was on clear leave during his involvement burden the Manhattan Project.

In 1945, he received a letter strange Dean Mark Ingraham of illustriousness College of Letters and Branch of knowledge requesting his return to authority university to teach in nobleness coming academic year. His see was not extended when blooper did not commit to frequent. In a talk given concerning several years later, Feynman prompt, "It's great to be impede at the only university think about it ever had the good reliability to fire me."^[81]

As early although October 30, 1943, Bethe challenging written to the chairman admit the physics department of crown university, Cornell, to recommend dump Feynman be hired.

On Feb 28, 1944, this was authorized by Robert Bacher, also strange Cornell, and one of prestige most senior scientists at Los Alamos. This led to finish offer being made in Respected 1944, which Feynman accepted. Oppenheimer had also hoped to induct Feynman to the University manipulate California, but the head have a high regard for the physics department, Raymond Systematic.

Birge, was reluctant. He feeling Feynman an offer in Can 1945, but Feynman turned parade down. Cornell matched its fervent offer of $3,900 (equivalent take $66,000 in 2023) per annum. Feynman became one of the leading of the Los Alamos Laboratory's group leaders to depart, leave-taking for Ithaca, New York, bear hug October 1945.

Because Feynman was pollex all thumbs butte longer working at the Los Alamos Laboratory, he was negation longer exempt from the outline.

At his induction physical, Swarm psychiatrists diagnosed Feynman as uninhabited from a mental illness current the Army gave him top-notch 4-F exemption on mental sediment. His father died suddenly govern October 8, 1946, and Feynman suffered from depression. On Oct 17, 1946, he wrote regular letter to Arline, expressing consummate deep love and heartbreak.

Representation letter was sealed and lone opened after his death. "Please excuse my not mailing this," the letter concluded, "but Wild don't know your new address."^[89] Unable to focus on evaluation problems, Feynman began tackling physics problems, not for utility, on the other hand for self-satisfaction.

One of these involved analyzing the physics out-and-out a twirling, nutating disk makeover it is moving through interpretation air, inspired by an snap in the cafeteria at Altruist when someone tossed a entertainment plate in the air. Of course read the work of Sir William Rowan Hamilton on quaternions, and tried unsuccessfully to taken them to formulate a relativistic theory of electrons.

His profession during this period, which secondhand equations of rotation to articulate various spinning speeds, ultimately tried important to his Nobel Prize–winning work, yet because he change burned out and had bad his attention to less at once practical problems, he was astonied by the offers of professorships from other renowned universities, as well as the Institute for Advanced Learn about, the University of California, Los Angeles, and the University rule California, Berkeley.

Feynman was not glory only frustrated theoretical physicist impossible to tell apart the early post-war years.

Quantum electrodynamics suffered from infinite integrals in perturbation theory. These were clear mathematical flaws in say publicly theory, which Feynman and Wheelwright had tried, unsuccessfully, to out of a job around. "Theoreticians", noted Murray Gell-Mann, "were in disgrace". In June 1947, leading American physicists decrease at the Shelter Island Talk.

For Feynman, it was rulership "first big conference with copious men ... I had never elsewhere to one like this companionship in peacetime." The problems suggestive quantum electrodynamics were discussed, on the contrary the theoreticians were completely overshadowed by the achievements of position experimentalists, who reported the communication of the Lamb shift, integrity measurement of the magnetic minute of the electron, and Parliamentarian Marshak's two-meson hypothesis.

Bethe took integrity lead from the work read Hans Kramers, and derived unadulterated renormalized non-relativistic quantum equation lead to the Lamb shift.

The close step was to create clever relativistic version. Feynman thought delay he could do this, nevertheless when he went back resolve Bethe with his solution, smash into did not converge. Feynman to the letter worked through the problem swot up, applying the path integral direction that he had used spiky his thesis.

Like Bethe, dirt made the integral finite overtake applying a cut-off term. Rendering result corresponded to Bethe's version.^[97] Feynman presented his work advance his peers at the Pocono Conference in 1948. It plain-spoken not go well. Julian Schwinger gave a long presentation penalty his work in quantum electrodynamics, and Feynman then offered diadem version, entitled "Alternative Formulation systematic Quantum Electrodynamics".

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

To Freeman Dyson, twin thing at least was clear: Shin'ichirō Tomonaga, Schwinger and Feynman understood what they were lawabiding about even if no round off else did, but had distant published anything.

He was certain that Feynman's formulation was help to understand, and ultimately managed to convince Oppenheimer that that was the case. Dyson in print a paper in 1949, which added new rules to Feynman's that told how to appliance renormalization.^[101] Feynman was prompted join publish his ideas in loftiness Physical Review in a sequence of papers over three stage.

His 1948 papers on "A Relativistic Cut-Off for Classical Electrodynamics" attempted to explain what forbidden had been unable to goal across at Pocono. His 1949 paper on "The Theory a range of Positrons" addressed the Schrödinger equalisation and Dirac equation, and extraneous what is now called loftiness Feynman propagator. Finally, in identification on the "Mathematical Formulation pageant the Quantum Theory of Electromagnetic Interaction" in 1950 and "An Operator Calculus Having Applications get a move on Quantum Electrodynamics" in 1951, significant developed the mathematical basis win his ideas, derived familiar formulae and advanced new ones.

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

Group of pupils learned and used the vigorous new tool that Feynman difficult to understand 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 fashion of summing over possible histories of a particle to integrity study of parabolic partial calculation equations, yielding what is advise known as the Feynman–Kac pedestal, 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 heftiness this period, Feynman would throw back fondly on his time disrespect the Telluride House, where powder resided for a large soothe of his Cornell career.

Make out an interview, he described character House as "a group tip off boys that have been ultra selected because of their adjustment, because of their cleverness contraction whatever it is, to amend given free board and address and so on, because be defeated their brains". He enjoyed rectitude house's convenience and said ditch "it's there that I plain-spoken the fundamental work" for which he won the Nobel Prize.^[110]

However, Feynman was also reported interrupt have been quite restless amid his time at Cornell.

Offspring 1949, as the period was coming to a close, agreed had never settled into unadulterated particular house or apartment, stirring instead between guest houses accomplish student residences. While he sincere spend some time living sustain various married friends, these situations were reported to frequently side because the "arrangements became sexually volatile".

The renowned 31 harvest old was known to again pursue his married female society, undergraduate girls and women, increase in intensity to hire sex workers, which would sour many of top friendships. Additionally, Feynman was plead for fond of Ithaca's cold iciness weather or feeling as scour through he lived in the overawe of Hans Bethe while luck Cornell.

Brazil (1949-1952)

Feynman spent several weeks in Rio de Janeiro make known July 1949.

That year, interpretation Soviet Union detonated its chief atomic bomb, generating concerns put espionage. Fuchs was arrested because 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 to hand Brazil in October 1951. For of the fears of neat nuclear war, a girlfriend low Feynman that he should extremely consider moving to South U.s..

He had a sabbatical nascent for 1951–1952, and elected make somebody's acquaintance spend it in Brazil, in he gave courses at character Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas.

In Brazil, Feynman was niminy-piminy with samba music, and wellinformed to play the frigideira, a-okay metal percussion instrument based bit a frying pan.^[122] He was an enthusiastic amateur player conjure bongo and conga drums playing field often played them in dignity pit orchestra in musicals.^[124] Unquestionable spent time in Rio form a junction with his friend Bohm, but Bohm could not convince Feynman stay at investigate Bohm's ideas on physics.

Caltech and later years (1952-1978)

Personal person in charge political life

Feynman did not transmit to Cornell.

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

They had met in a lunchroom in Cornell, where she difficult to understand studied the history of Mexican art and textiles. She closest followed him to Caltech, locale he gave a lecture. Deeprooted he was in Brazil, she taught classes on the novel of furniture and interiors oral cavity Michigan State University. He puppet to her by mail make the first move Rio de Janeiro, and they married in Boise, Idaho, concerning June 28, 1952, shortly puzzle out he returned.

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

They separated on May 20, 1956. An interlocutory decree of split was entered on June 19, 1956, on the grounds director "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 excavations calculus problems in his sense as soon as awake, long-standing driving car, sitting in maintenance room, and so forth, gain that his one hobby was playing his African drums.

Dominion ex-wife reportedly testified that organization several occasions when she by accident disturbed either his calculus express his drums he flew jerk a violent rage, during which time he choked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about viewpoint smashed the furniture ...

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

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

government's interest in science rose be a symbol of a time. Feynman was deemed for a seat on decency President's Science Advisory Committee, however was not appointed. At that time, the FBI interviewed shipshape and bristol fashion woman close to Feynman, perchance his ex-wife Bell, who drive a written statement to Particularize. Edgar Hoover on August 8, 1958:

I do not know—but Comical believe that Richard Feynman pump up either a Communist or observe strongly pro-Communist—and as such enquiry a very definite security jeopardy.

This man is, in nutty opinion, an extremely complex put forward dangerous person, a very unsafe person to have in topping position of public trust ... Call matters of intrigue Richard Feynman is, I believe immensely clever—indeed a genius—and he is, Hilarious further believe, completely ruthless, voluntary by morals, ethics, or religion—and will stop at absolutely ornament to achieve his ends.^[129]

The U.S.

government nevertheless sent Feynman hinder Geneva for the September 1958 Atoms for Peace Conference. On the beach at Lake Geneve, he met Gweneth Howarth, who was from Ripponden, West Yorkshire, and working in Switzerland chimp an au pair. Feynman's prize life had been turbulent owing to his divorce; his previous woman had walked off with ruler Albert Einstein Award medal at an earlier time, on the advice of unadorned earlier girlfriend, had feigned gestation and extorted him into recompensing for an abortion, then submissive the money to buy effects.

When Feynman found that Howarth was being paid only $25 a month, he offered penetrate $20 (equivalent to $202 take 2022) a week to aptitude his live-in maid. Feynman knew that this sort of manners was illegal under the Educator Act, so he had unadorned friend, Matthew Sands, act primate her sponsor. Howarth pointed switch that she already had a handful of boyfriends, but decided to perception Feynman up on his need no invitation, and arrived in Altadena, Calif., in June 1959.

She enthusiastic a point of dating different men, but Feynman proposed tier early 1960. They were joined on September 24, 1960, distill the Huntington Hotel in Metropolis. They had a son, Carl, in 1962, and adopted unadulterated daughter, Michelle, in 1968. Also their home in Altadena, they had a beach house thwart Baja California, purchased with primacy money from Feynman's Nobel Prize.^[133]

Allegations of sexism

There were protests sign over his alleged sexism at Caltech in 1968, and again blessed 1972.

Protesters "objected to crown use of sexist stories stare at 'lady drivers' and clueless division in his lectures."^[135] Feynman pass on protesters entering a hall subject picketing a lecture he was about to make in San Francisco, calling him a "sexist pig". He later reflected divergence the incident claiming that bill prompted him to address honesty protesters, saying that "women transpose indeed suffer prejudice and discernment in physics, and your presentation here today serves to put in mind us of these difficulties ride the need to remedy them".

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

Feynman!, he over holding meetings in strip clubs, drawing naked portraits of fulfil female students while lecturing simulated Caltech, and pretending to put in writing an undergraduate to deceive other women into sleeping with him. While he reflected on picture attitude he had at illustriousness time as something he regretted, it lends credence to say publicly claims of the protesters direction 1968 and 1972 that culminate behavior was not just dinky personal flaw but something turn impacted his professional life absolutely frequently.^[137]

Feynman diagram van

In 1975, overfull Long Beach, CA, Feynman greedy a Dodge Tradesman Maxivan get together a bronze-khaki exterior and yellow-green interior, with custom Feynman diagram exterior murals.^[138] After Feynman's destruction, Gweneth sold the van convoy $1 to one of Feynman's friends, film producer Ralph Leighton, who later put it test storage, where it began sure of yourself rust.

In 2012, video project designer Seamus Blackley, a clergyman of the Xbox, bought say publicly van.^[139][140]Qantum was the license serving ID.^[141]

Physics

At Caltech, Feynman investigated significance physics of the superfluidity give a miss supercooled liquid helium, where element seems to display a uncut lack of viscosity when light.

Feynman provided a quantum-mechanical wait for for the Soviet physicist Lev Landau's theory of superfluidity. Promulgation the Schrödinger equation to decency question showed that the superfluid was displaying quantum mechanical conduct observable on a macroscopic compass. This helped with the occupation of superconductivity, but the honour eluded Feynman.^[143] It was rigid with the BCS theory infer superconductivity, proposed by John Physicist, Leon Neil Cooper, and Ablutions Robert Schrieffer in 1957.

Feynman, impassioned by a desire to reckon the Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory worry about electrodynamics, laid the groundwork get on to the path integral formulation gift Feynman diagrams.

With Murray Gell-Mann, Feynman developed a model of decrepit decay, which showed that rendering current coupling in the enter is a combination of transmitter and axial currents (an give of weak decay is integrity decay of a neutron bounce an electron, a proton, abide an antineutrino).

Although E. Proverb. George Sudarshan and Robert Marshak developed the theory nearly in days of yore, Feynman's collaboration with Gell-Mann was seen as seminal because ethics weak interaction was neatly declared by the vector and axile currents. It thus combined glory 1933 beta decay theory commandeer Enrico Fermi with an statement of parity violation.

Feynman attempted public housing explanation, called the parton representation, of the strong interactions leading nucleon scattering.

The parton scale model emerged as a complement suggest the quark model developed chunk Gell-Mann. The relationship between say publicly 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 care for 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 granting quarks were real.

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

It was natural interrupt identify these with quarks, nevertheless Feynman's parton model attempted pressurize somebody into interpret the experimental data wonderful a way that did clump introduce additional hypotheses. For case, the data showed that trying 45% of the energy celerity was carried by electrically apathetic particles in the nucleon.

These electrically neutral particles are evocative seen to be the gluons that carry the forces amidst the quarks, and their three-valued color quantum number solves prestige omega-minus problem. Feynman did pule dispute the quark model; dispense example, when the fifth cheese was discovered in 1977, Feynman immediately pointed out to fillet students that the discovery suppressed the existence of a ordinal quark, which was discovered hold up the decade after his death.

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

By analogy with the photon, which has spin 1, filth investigated the consequences of marvellous free massless spin 2 environment and derived the Einstein attitude equation of general relativity, on the other hand little more. The computational niggle that Feynman discovered then send off for gravity, "ghosts", which are "particles" in the interior of realm diagrams that have the "wrong" connection between spin and information, have proved invaluable in explaining the quantum particle behavior brake the Yang–Mills theories, for illustrate, quantum chromodynamics and the electro-weak theory.

He did work false move all four of the pioneer interactions of nature: electromagnetic, say publicly weak force, the strong coarsely and gravity. John and Established Gribbin state in their manual on Feynman that "Nobody on the other hand has made such influential donations to the investigation of detachment four of the interactions".

Partly rightfully a way to bring press 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 soak Tom Newman.

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

He was further one of the first scientists to conceive the possibility stare quantum computers.^[151][152] In the Decennium he began to spend monarch summers working at Thinking Machines Corporation, helping to build set on of the first parallel supercomputers and considering the construction allowance quantum computers.^[155]

Between 1984 and 1986, he developed a variational road for the approximate calculation attack path integrals, which has heavy to a powerful method cut into converting divergent perturbation expansions hurt convergent strong-coupling expansions (variational agitation theory) and, as a common, to the most accurate determination^[156] of critical exponents measured cattle satellite experiments.^[157] At Caltech, subside once chalked "What I cannot create I do not understand" on his blackboard.^[158]

Machine technology

Feynman esoteric studied the ideas of Lav von Neumann while researching quantum field theory.

His most well-known lecture on the subject was delivered in 1959 at prestige California Institute of Technology, publicized under the title There's Parcel of Room at the Bottom a year later. In that lecture he theorized on forward-looking opportunities for designing miniaturized machines, which could build smaller reproductions of themselves.

This lecture evaluation frequently cited in technical letters on microtechnology, and nanotechnology.^[159]

Pedagogy

In loftiness early 1960s, Feynman acceded give somebody no option but to a request to "spruce up" the teaching of undergraduates put behind you the California Institute of Discipline, also called Caltech.

After match up years devoted to the charge, he produced a series tip off lectures that later became The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Economics vary about how successful dignity original lectures were. Feynman's try to win preface, written just after block off exam on which the genre did poorly, was somewhat distrustful.

His colleagues David L. Goodstein and Gerry Neugebauer said after that the intended audience make merry first-year students found the cloth intimidating while older students ahead faculty found it inspirational, good the lecture hall remained filled even as the first-year lesson dropped away. In contrast, physicist Matthew Sands recalled the pupil attendance as being typical present a large lecture course.^[160]

Converting position lectures into books occupied Evangelist Sands and Robert B.

Leighton as part-time co-authors for diverse years. Feynman suggested that integrity book cover should have well-organized picture of a drum concluded mathematical diagrams about vibrations ragged upon it, in order show accidentally illustrate the application of calculation to understanding the world. Otherwise, the publishers gave the books plain red covers, though they included a picture of Feynman playing drums in the foreword.