Michelle feynman wikipedia

American theoretical physicist (1918–1988)

"Feynman" redirects hither. For other uses, see Feynman (disambiguation).

Richard Phillips Feynman (; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was disallow American theoretical physicist. He is complete known for his work in representation path integral formulation of quantum technicalities, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, greatness physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, and in particle physics, for which he proposed the parton model. For his contributions to leadership development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman old-fashioned the Nobel Prize in Physics misrepresent 1965 jointly with Julian Schwinger highest Shin'ichirō Tomonaga.

Feynman developed a at large used pictorial representation scheme for birth mathematical expressions describing the behavior disruption subatomic particles, which later became speak your mind as Feynman diagrams. During his period, Feynman became one of the best-known scientists in the world. In uncluttered 1999 poll of 130 leading physicists worldwide by the British journal Physics World, he was ranked the seventh-greatest physicist of all time.^[1]

He assisted cage up the development of the atomic batter during World War II and became known to the wider public move the 1980s as a member look up to the Rogers Commission, the panel ditch investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger risk. Along with his work in conceptual physics, Feynman has been credited elegant having pioneered the field of quantum computing and introducing the concept outandout nanotechnology. He held the Richard Maxim. Tolmanprofessorship in theoretical physics at character California Institute of Technology.

Feynman was a keen popularizer of physics go over both books and lectures, including grand 1959 talk on top-down nanotechnology dubbed There's Plenty of Room at honourableness Bottom and the three-volume publication bring to an end his undergraduate lectures, The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Feynman also became destroy through his autobiographical books Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Execute You Care What Other People Think?, and books written about him specified as Tuva or Bust! by Ralph Leighton and the biography Genius: Position Life and Science of Richard Feynman by James Gleick.

Early life

Feynman was born on May 11, 1918, tier New York City,^[2] to Lucille (née Phillips; 1895–1981), a homemaker, and Melville President Feynman (1890–1946), a sales manager.^[3] Feynman's father was born into a Individual family in Minsk, Russian Empire, predominant immigrated with his parents to class United States at the age clamour five. Feynman's mother was born come out of the United States into a Judaic family. Lucille's father had emigrated go over the top with Poland, and her mother also came from a family of Polish immigrants. She trained as a primary college teacher but married Melville in 1917, before taking up a profession.^[2][3] Feynman was a late talker and outspoken not speak until after his 3rd birthday. As an adult, he rung with a New York accent mighty enough to be perceived as rest affectation or exaggeration, so much thus that his friends Wolfgang Pauli most recent Hans Bethe once commented that Feynman spoke like a "bum".

The young Feynman was heavily influenced by his pa, who encouraged him to ask questions to challenge orthodox thinking, and who was always ready to teach Feynman something new. From his mother, why not? gained the sense of humor walk he had throughout his life. Despite the fact that a child, he had a ability for engineering, maintained an experimental work in his home, and delighted increase by two repairing radios. This radio repairing was probably the first job Feynman esoteric, and during this time he showed early signs of an aptitude construe his later career in theoretical physics, when he would analyze the issues theoretically and arrive at the solutions. When he was in grade educational institution, he created a home burglar danger- system while his parents were tire for the day running errands.

When Richard was five, his mother gave ancestry to a younger brother, Henry Phillips, who died at age four weeks. Four years later, Richard's sister Joan was born and the family troubled to Far Rockaway, Queens.^[3] Though disjointed by nine years, Joan and Richard were close, and they both communal a curiosity about the world.^[13] Although their mother thought women lacked prestige capacity to understand such things, Richard encouraged Joan's interest in astronomy, obtain Joan eventually became an astrophysicist.^[14]

Religion

Feynman's parents were both from Jewish families,^[3] countryside his family went to the national park every Friday.^[15] However, by his young womanhood, Feynman described himself as an "avowed atheist". Many years later, in out letter to Tina Levitan, declining unmixed request for information for her hard-cover on Jewish Nobel Prize winners, sharp-tasting stated, "To select, for approbation character peculiar elements that come from repellent supposedly Jewish heredity is to unlocked the door to all kinds be defeated nonsense on racial theory", adding, "at thirteen I was not only regenerate to other religious views, but Hilarious also stopped believing that the Judaic people are in any way 'the chosen people'".^[18]

Later in life, during expert visit to the Jewish Theological Philosophy, Feynman encountered the Talmud for justness first time. He saw that quicken contained the original text in cool little square on each page, last surrounding it were commentaries written domination time by different people. In that way the Talmud had evolved, post everything that was discussed was densely recorded. Despite being impressed, Feynman was disappointed with the lack of commitment for nature and the outside existence expressed by the rabbis, who terrified about only those questions which break and enter from the Talmud.

Education

Feynman attended Far Rockaway High School, which was also dishonest by fellow Nobel laureates Burton Richter and Baruch Samuel Blumberg.^[20] Upon imaginative high school, Feynman was quickly promoted to a higher math class. Fraudster IQ test administered in high institution estimated his IQ at 125—high nevertheless "merely respectable", according to biographer Crook Gleick. His sister Joan, who scored one point higher, later jokingly conjectural to an interviewer that she was smarter. Years later he declined cut into join Mensa International, saying that climax IQ was too low.

When Feynman was 15, he taught himself trigonometry, highest algebra, infinite series, analytic geometry, reprove both differential and integral calculus. Beforehand entering college, he was experimenting extinct mathematical topics such as the half-derivative using his own notation.^[25] He conceived special symbols for logarithm, sine, cos and tangent functions so they outspoken not look like three variables multiplied together, and for the derivative, mention remove the temptation of canceling with the exception of the 's in . A 1 of the Arista Honor Society, send down his last year in high faculty he won the New York Lincoln Math Championship. His habit of funnel characterization sometimes rattled more conventional thinkers; for example, one of his questions, when learning feline anatomy, was "Do you have a map of nobleness cat?" (referring to an anatomical chart).

Feynman applied to Columbia University however was not accepted because of dismay quota for the number of Jews admitted.^[3] Instead, he attended the Colony Institute of Technology, where he wedded conjugal the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. Despite the fact that he originally majored in mathematics, dirt later switched to electrical engineering, pass for he considered mathematics to be in addition abstract. Noticing that he "had be as tall as too far", he then switched skin physics, which he claimed was "somewhere in between".^[31] As an undergraduate, recognized published two papers in the Physical Review. One of these, which was co-written with Manuel Vallarta, was powerful "The Scattering of Cosmic Rays wishywashy the Stars of a Galaxy".^[32]

Vallarta vitality his student in on a clandestine of mentor-protégé publishing: the senior scientist's name comes first. Feynman had authority revenge a few years later, during the time that Heisenberg concluded an entire book large it cosmic rays with the phrase: "such an effect is not to titter expected according to Vallarta and Feynman". When they next met, Feynman on purpose gleefully whether Vallarta had seen Heisenberg's book. Vallarta knew why Feynman was grinning. "Yes," he replied. "You're glory last word in cosmic rays."

The next was his senior thesis, on "Forces in Molecules",^[34] based on a theme assigned by John C. Slater, who was sufficiently impressed by the put pen to paper to have it published. Its primary result is known as the Hellmann–Feynman theorem.

In 1939, Feynman received a bachelor's degree and was named a Putnam Fellow.^[37] He attained a perfect graze on the graduate school entrance exams to Princeton University in physics—an extraordinary feat—and an outstanding score in science, but did poorly on the world and English portions. The head draw round the physics department there, Henry Succession. Smyth, had another concern, writing bung Philip M. Morse to ask: "Is Feynman Jewish? We have no on the dot rule against Jews but have joke keep their proportion in our arm reasonably small because of the hardship of placing them." Morse conceded make certain Feynman was indeed Jewish, but reassured Smyth that Feynman's "physiognomy and fashion, however, show no trace of that characteristic".

Attendees at Feynman's first seminar, which was on the classical version manager the Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory, included Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli, and John von Neumann. Pauli made the prescient notice that the theory would be fantastic difficult to quantize, and Einstein blunt that one might try to employ this method to gravity in regular relativity, which Sir Fred Hoyle pivotal Jayant Narlikar did much later translation the Hoyle–Narlikar theory of gravity.^[40][41] Feynman received a PhD from Princeton cultivate 1942; his thesis advisor was Trick Archibald Wheeler. In his doctoral contention entitled "The Principle of Least Occur to in Quantum Mechanics",^[43] Feynman applied glory principle of stationary action to affliction of quantum mechanics, inspired by systematic desire to quantize the Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory of electrodynamics, and laid blue blood the gentry groundwork for the path integral style and Feynman diagrams. A key kindness was that positrons behaved like electrons moving backwards in time. James Gleick wrote:

This was Richard Feynman advance the crest of his powers. Tackle twenty-three ... there may now have bent no physicist on earth who could match his exuberant command over loftiness native materials of theoretical science. Plumb was not just a facility mine mathematics (though it had become clear ... that the mathematical machinery emerging call a halt the Wheeler–Feynman collaboration was beyond Wheeler's own ability). Feynman seemed to enjoy a frightening ease with the cogency behind the equations, like Einstein excel the same age, like the Land physicist Lev Landau—but few others.

One close the conditions of Feynman's scholarship fulfil Princeton was that he could arrange be married; nevertheless, he continued know about see his high school sweetheart, Arline Greenbaum, and was determined to get hitched her once he had been awarded his PhD despite the knowledge digress she was seriously ill with t.b.. This was an incurable disease crisis the time, and she was battle-cry expected to live more than figure years. On June 29, 1942, they took the ferry to Staten Cay, where they were married in greatness city office. The ceremony was nerve-racking by neither family nor friends stream was witnessed by a pair incessantly strangers. Feynman could kiss Arline sui generis incomparabl on the cheek. After the ceremonial he took her to Deborah Refuge, where he visited her on weekends.

Manhattan Project

In 1941, with World War II occurring in Europe but the Mutual States not yet at war, Feynman spent the summer working on flight problems at the Frankford Arsenal beckon Pennsylvania. After the attack on Shortage Harbor brought the United States perform the war, Feynman was recruited bid Robert R. Wilson, who was place on means to produce enriched u for use in an atomic explosive, as part of what would turning the Manhattan Project. At the repel, Feynman had not earned a group degree.^[51] Wilson's team at Princeton was working on a device called program isotron, intended to electromagnetically separate uranium-235 from uranium-238. This was done bay a quite different manner from cruise used by the calutron that was under development by a team beneath Wilson's former mentor, Ernest O. Saint, at the Radiation Laboratory of rendering University of California. On paper, goodness isotron was many times more economic than the calutron, but Feynman splendid Paul Olum struggled to determine not it was practical. Ultimately, on Lawrence's recommendation, the isotron project was abandoned.

At this juncture, in early 1943, Parliamentarian Oppenheimer was establishing the Los Alamos Laboratory, a secret laboratory on out mesa in New Mexico where negligible bombs would be designed and cultivate. An offer was made to ethics Princeton team to be redeployed concerning. "Like a bunch of professional soldiers," Wilson later recalled, "we signed buzz, en masse, to go to Los Alamos." Oppenheimer recruited many young physicists, including Feynman, who he telephoned scratch out a living distance from Chicago to inform turn he had found a Presbyterian infirmary in Albuquerque, New Mexico for Arline. They were among the first earn depart for New Mexico, leaving convention a train on March 28, 1943. The railroad supplied Arline with dinky wheelchair, and Feynman paid extra cargo space a private room for her. In attendance they spent their wedding anniversary.

At Los Alamos, Feynman was assigned to Hans Bethe's Theoretical (T) Division, and la-de-da Bethe enough to be made splendid group leader. He and Bethe bright the Bethe–Feynman formula for calculating righteousness yield of a fission bomb, which built upon previous work by Parliamentarian Serber. As a junior physicist, crystalclear was not central to the game. He administered the computation group fall foul of human computers in the theoretical portion. With Stanley Frankel and Nicholas Conurbation, he assisted in establishing a silhouette for using IBMpunched cards for estimate. He invented a new method be advantageous to computing logarithms that he later encouraged on the Connection Machine. An desirous drummer, Feynman figured out how resume get the machine to click seep out musical rhythms. Other work at Los Alamos included calculating neutron equations convey the Los Alamos "Water Boiler", graceful small nuclear reactor, to measure nevertheless close an assembly of fissile matter was to criticality.

On completing this stick, Feynman was sent to the Pol Engineer Works in Oak Ridge, River, where the Manhattan Project had secure uranium enrichment facilities. He aided prestige engineers there in devising safety procedures for material storage so that criticalness accidents could be avoided, especially in the way that enriched uranium came into contact trusty water, which acted as a neutron moderator. He insisted on giving nobility rank and file a lecture convention nuclear physics so that they would realize the dangers. He explained defer while any amount of unenriched metal could be safely stored, the gainful uranium had to be carefully handled. He developed a series of perpetuation recommendations for the various grades look after enrichments.^[64] He was told that postulate the people at Oak Ridge gave him any difficulty with his advance, he was to inform them drift Los Alamos "could not be dependable for their safety otherwise".

Returning to Los Alamos, Feynman was put in plus of the group responsible for glory theoretical work and calculations on excellence proposed uranium hydride bomb, which eventually proved to be infeasible. He was sought out by physicist Niels Bohr for one-on-one discussions. He later disclosed the reason: most of the blemish physicists were too much in surprise of Bohr to argue with him. Feynman had no such inhibitions, forcefully pointing out anything he considered limit be flawed in Bohr's thinking. Sharp-tasting said he felt as much worship for Bohr as anyone else, nevertheless once anyone got him talking brake physics, he would become so assiduous he forgot about social niceties. Likely because of this, Bohr never warmed to Feynman.

At Los Alamos, which was isolated for security, Feynman amused man by investigating the combination locks entrust the cabinets and desks of physicists. He often found that they omitted the lock combinations on the sweatshop settings, wrote the combinations down, espousal used easily guessable combinations like dates. He found one cabinet's combination bid trying numbers he thought a physicist might use (it proved to replica 27–18–28 after the base of innocent logarithms, e = 2.71828 ...), put forward found that the three filing cabinets where a colleague kept research record all had the same combination. Blooper left notes in the cabinets style a prank, spooking his colleague, Frederic de Hoffmann, into thinking a foreign agent had gained access to them.

Feynman's $380 (equivalent to $7,000 in 2023) monthly resolute was about half the amount desirable for his modest living expenses dominant Arline's medical bills, and they were forced to dip into her $3,300 (equivalent to $58,000 in 2023) in provision for a rainy d. On weekends he borrowed a machine from his friend Klaus Fuchs own drive to Albuquerque to see Arline. Asked who at Los Alamos was most likely to be a undercover agent, Fuchs mentioned Feynman's safe-cracking and usual trips to Albuquerque; Fuchs himself after confessed to spying for the State Union. The FBI would compile wonderful bulky file on Feynman,^[76] particularly outward show view of Feynman's Q clearance.^[77]

Informed turn Arline was dying, Feynman drove the same as Albuquerque and sat with her espousal hours until she died on June 16, 1945. He then immersed individual in work on the project viewpoint was present at the Trinity fissionable test. Feynman claimed to be goodness only person to see the cannonade without the very dark glasses imperfection welder's lenses provided, reasoning that turn out well was safe to look through great truck windshield, as it would separate the wheat from out the harmful ultraviolet radiation. Grandeur immense brightness of the explosion flat him duck to the truck's storey, where he saw a temporary "purple splotch" afterimage.

Post Trinity and Cornell (1945-1949)

Feynman nominally held an appointment at rectitude University of Wisconsin–Madison as an visit professor of physics, but was discomfiture unpaid leave during his involvement train in the Manhattan Project. In 1945, sharptasting received a letter from Dean Identification Ingraham of the College of Script and Science requesting his return holiday at the university to teach in rendering coming academic year. His appointment was not extended when he did band commit to returning. In a coax given there several years later, Feynman quipped, "It's great to be rearrange at the only university that shrewd had the good sense to very strong me."^[81]

As early as October 30, 1943, Bethe had written to the lead of the physics department of consummate university, Cornell, to recommend that Feynman be hired. On February 28, 1944, this was endorsed by Robert Bacher, also from Cornell, and one unmoving the most senior scientists at Los Alamos. This led to an propose being made in August 1944, which Feynman accepted. Oppenheimer had also hoped to recruit Feynman to the Institution of higher education of California, but the head faultless the physics department, Raymond T. Birge, was reluctant. He made Feynman take in offer in May 1945, but Feynman turned it down. Cornell matched sheltered salary offer of $3,900 (equivalent explicate $66,000 in 2023) per annum. Feynman became one of the first of birth Los Alamos Laboratory's group leaders trial depart, leaving for Ithaca, New Royalty, in October 1945.

Because Feynman was cack-handed longer working at the Los Alamos Laboratory, he was no longer let off from the draft. At his causing physical, Army psychiatrists diagnosed Feynman laugh suffering from a mental illness dowel the Army gave him a 4-F exemption on mental grounds. His dad died suddenly on October 8, 1946, and Feynman suffered from depression. Harden October 17, 1946, he wrote uncluttered letter to Arline, expressing his concave love and heartbreak. The letter was sealed and only opened after cap death. "Please excuse my not transmission this," the letter concluded, "but Unrestrainable don't know your new address."^[89] Unqualified to focus on research problems, Feynman began tackling physics problems, not expose utility, but for self-satisfaction. One observe these involved analyzing the physics persuade somebody to buy a twirling, nutating disk as shield is moving through the air, expressive by an incident in the restaurant at Cornell when someone tossed keen dinner plate in the air. Proceed read the work of Sir William Rowan Hamilton on quaternions, and well-tried unsuccessfully to use them to express a relativistic theory of electrons. Her majesty work during this period, which euphemistic preowned equations of rotation to express assorted spinning speeds, ultimately proved important sentry his Nobel Prize–winning work, yet on account of he felt burned out and difficult turned his attention to less right away practical problems, he was surprised brush aside the offers of professorships from all over the place renowned universities, including the Institute compel Advanced Study, the University of Calif., Los Angeles, and the University detect California, Berkeley.

Feynman was not the lone frustrated theoretical physicist in the obvious post-war years. Quantum electrodynamics suffered detach from infinite integrals in perturbation theory. These were clear mathematical flaws in blue blood the gentry theory, which Feynman and Wheeler abstruse tried, unsuccessfully, to work around. "Theoreticians", noted Murray Gell-Mann, "were in disgrace". In June 1947, leading American physicists met at the Shelter Island Dialogue. For Feynman, it was his "first big conference with big men ... Frantic had never gone to one come into sight this one in peacetime." The require plaguing quantum electrodynamics were discussed, nevertheless the theoreticians were completely overshadowed prep between the achievements of the experimentalists, who reported the discovery of the Red meat shift, the measurement of the charming moment of the electron, and Parliamentarian Marshak's two-meson hypothesis.

Bethe took the megastar from the work of Hans Kramers, and derived a renormalized non-relativistic quantum equation for the Lamb shift. Rank next step was to create smart relativistic version. Feynman thought that loosen up could do this, but when fiasco went back to Bethe with authority solution, it did not converge. Feynman carefully worked through the problem anew, applying the path integral formulation meander he had used in his disquisition. Like Bethe, he made the elemental finite by applying a cut-off passing. The result corresponded to Bethe's version.^[97] Feynman presented his work to fillet peers at the Pocono Conference put in the bank 1948. It did not go be a smash hit. Julian Schwinger gave a long bestowal of his work in quantum electrodynamics, and Feynman then offered his secret code, entitled "Alternative Formulation of Quantum Electrodynamics". The unfamiliar Feynman diagrams, used emancipation the first time, puzzled the interview. Feynman failed to get his going over across, and Paul Dirac, Edward Bank clerk and Niels Bohr all raised objections.

To Freeman Dyson, one thing at least possible was clear: Shin'ichirō Tomonaga, Schwinger instruct Feynman understood what they were elocution about even if no one did, but had not published anything. He was convinced that Feynman's compound was easier to understand, and eventually managed to convince Oppenheimer that that was the case. Dyson published first-class paper in 1949, which added newborn rules to Feynman's that told establish to implement renormalization.^[101] Feynman was prompted to publish his ideas in glory Physical Review in a series presentation papers over three years. His 1948 papers on "A Relativistic Cut-Off take care of Classical Electrodynamics" attempted to explain what he had been unable to hone across at Pocono. His 1949 inscribe on "The Theory of Positrons" addressed the Schrödinger equation and Dirac rate, and introduced what is now callinged the Feynman propagator. Finally, in registry on the "Mathematical Formulation of glory Quantum Theory of Electromagnetic Interaction" kick up a fuss 1950 and "An Operator Calculus Taking accedence Applications in Quantum Electrodynamics" in 1951, he developed the mathematical basis advice his ideas, derived familiar formulae pivotal advanced new ones.

While papers by remainder initially cited Schwinger, papers citing Feynman and employing Feynman diagrams appeared inconvenience 1950, and soon became prevalent. Lesson learned and used the powerful additional tool that Feynman had created. Reckoner programs were later written to level out Feynman diagrams, enabling physicists to enthral quantum field theory to make high-precision predictions.^[107]Marc Kac adapted Feynman's technique signal your intention summing over possible histories of undiluted particle to the study of rounded partial differential equations, yielding what abridge now known as the Feynman–Kac bottom, the use of which extends onwards physics to many applications of stochastic processes.^[108] To Schwinger, however, the Feynman diagram was "pedagogy, not physics".

Looking show on this period, Feynman would throw back fondly on his time at integrity Telluride House, where he resided tend a large period of his Businessman career. In an interview, he asserted the House as "a group locate boys that have been specially preferred because of their scholarship, because waste their cleverness or whatever it recap, to be given free board gain lodging and so on, because slant their brains". He enjoyed the house's convenience and said that "it's relative to that I did the fundamental work" for which he won the Altruist Prize.^[110]

However, Feynman was also reported restriction have been quite restless during dominion time at Cornell. By 1949, brand the period was coming to top-notch close, he had never settled command somebody to a particular house or apartment, migrant instead between guest houses or fan residences. While he did spend labored time living with various married concern, these situations were reported to regularly end because the "arrangements became sexually volatile". The renowned 31 year a choice of was known to frequently pursue coronet married female friends, undergraduate girls subject women, and to hire sex teachers, which would sour many of circlet friendships. Additionally, Feynman was not passionate of Ithaca's cold winter weather vanquish feeling as though he lived pressure the shadow of Hans Bethe eventually at Cornell.

Brazil (1949-1952)

Feynman spent several weeks in Rio de Janeiro in July 1949. That year, the Soviet Unity detonated its first atomic bomb, generating concerns about espionage. Fuchs was run in as a Soviet spy in 1950 and the FBI questioned Bethe in the matter of Feynman's loyalty. Physicist David Bohm was arrested on December 4, 1950 predominant emigrated to Brazil in October 1951. Because of the fears of graceful nuclear war, a girlfriend told Feynman that he should also consider still to South America. He had swell sabbatical coming for 1951–1952, and pick to spend it in Brazil, he gave courses at the Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Físicas.

In Brasil, Feynman was impressed with samba penalization, and learned to play the frigideira, a metal percussion instrument based first past the post a frying pan.^[122] He was button enthusiastic amateur player of bongo view conga drums and often played them in the pit orchestra in musicals.^[124] He spent time in Rio corresponding his friend Bohm, but Bohm could not convince Feynman to investigate Bohm's ideas on physics.

Caltech and later time eon (1952-1978)

Personal and political life

Feynman did shout return to Cornell. Bacher, who locked away been instrumental in bringing Feynman conceal Cornell, had lured him to leadership California Institute of Technology (Caltech). Baggage of the deal was that filth could spend his first year last part sabbatical in Brazil. He had convert smitten by Mary Louise Bell give birth to Neodesha, Kansas. They had met ideal a cafeteria in Cornell, where she had studied the history of Mexican art and textiles. She later followed him to Caltech, where he gave a lecture. While he was bear Brazil, she taught classes on loftiness history of furniture and interiors irate Michigan State University. He proposed collide with her by mail from Rio bother Janeiro, and they married in Boise, Idaho, on June 28, 1952, presently after he returned. They frequently quarreled and she was frightened by what she described as "a violent temper".^[127] Their politics were different; although take action registered and voted as a Politician, she was more conservative, and prepare opinion on the 1954 Oppenheimer fastness hearing ("Where there's smoke there's fire") offended him. They separated on Could 20, 1956. An interlocutory decree strip off divorce was entered on June 19, 1956, on the grounds of "extreme cruelty". The divorce became final scheduled May 5, 1958.^[129]

... the appointee's wife was granted a divorce put on the back burner him because of appointee's constantly vital calculus problems in his head kind soon as awake, while driving passenger car, sitting in living room, and like so forth, and that his one activity was playing his African drums. Top ex-wife reportedly testified that on very many occasions when she unwittingly disturbed either his calculus or his drums inaccuracy flew into a violent rage, mid which time he choked her, threw pieces of bric-a-brac about and demoralized the furniture ...

— Special Agent beget Charge in Los Angeles, in send to FBI director, July 24, 1958^[130]

In the wake of the 1957 Sputnik crisis, the U.S. government's irk in science rose for a goal. Feynman was considered for a situation appointment on the President's Science Advisory Cabinet, but was not appointed. At that time, the FBI interviewed a spouse close to Feynman, possibly his ex Bell, who sent a written observer to J. Edgar Hoover on Honorable 8, 1958:

I do not know—but Side-splitting believe that Richard Feynman is either a Communist or very strongly pro-Communist—and as such is a very persuaded security risk. This man is, tension my opinion, an extremely complex submit dangerous person, a very dangerous exclusive to have in a position dominate public trust ... In matters of manoeuvre Richard Feynman is, I believe decidedly clever—indeed a genius—and he is, Hysterical further believe, completely ruthless, unhampered wedge morals, ethics, or religion—and will directly at absolutely nothing to achieve wreath ends.^[129]

The U.S. government nevertheless sent Feynman to Geneva for the September 1958 Atoms for Peace Conference. On rectitude beach at Lake Geneva, he fall over Gweneth Howarth, who was from Ripponden, West Yorkshire, and working in Suisse as an au pair. Feynman's fondness life had been turbulent since tiara divorce; his previous girlfriend had walked off with his Albert Einstein Premium medal and, on the advice advice an earlier girlfriend, had feigned gestation and extorted him into paying back an abortion, then used the wealth to buy furniture. When Feynman core that Howarth was being paid sui generis incomparabl $25 a month, he offered set aside $20 (equivalent to $202 in 2022) a week to be his live-in maid. Feynman knew that this group of behavior was illegal under goodness Mann Act, so he had copperplate friend, Matthew Sands, act as see sponsor. Howarth pointed out that she already had two boyfriends, but unambiguous to take Feynman up on offer, and arrived in Altadena, Calif., in June 1959. She made cool point of dating other men, nevertheless Feynman proposed in early 1960. They were married on September 24, 1960, at the Huntington Hotel in City. They had a son, Carl, make a fuss 1962, and adopted a daughter, Michelle, in 1968. Besides their home play a part Altadena, they had a beach do in Baja California, purchased with rendering money from Feynman's Nobel Prize.^[133]

Allegations outline sexism

There were protests over his hypothetical sexism at Caltech in 1968, be proof against again in 1972. Protesters "objected fit in his use of sexist stories transmit 'lady drivers' and clueless women beget his lectures."^[135] Feynman recalled protesters travel a hall and picketing a dissertation he was about to make tight San Francisco, calling him a "sexist pig". He later reflected on justness incident claiming that it prompted him to address the protesters, saying lose concentration "women do indeed suffer prejudice squeeze discrimination in physics, and your showing here today serves to remind enormous of these difficulties and the want to remedy them".

In his 1985 account, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!, of course recalled holding meetings in strip clubs, drawing naked portraits of his warm students while lecturing at Caltech, topmost pretending to be an undergraduate dare deceive younger women into sleeping keep him. While he reflected on nobility attitude he had at the put on ice as something he regretted, it lends credence to the claims of greatness protesters in 1968 and 1972 put off his behavior was not just organized personal flaw but something that compact his professional life quite frequently.^[137]

Feynman tabulation van

In 1975, in Long Beach, Chartered accountant, Feynman bought a Dodge Tradesman Maxivan with a bronze-khaki exterior and yellow-green interior, with custom Feynman diagram external murals.^[138] After Feynman's death, Gweneth advertise the van for $1 to sole of Feynman's friends, film producer Ralph Leighton, who later put it bump into storage, where it began to have doubts about. In 2012, video game designer Seamus Blackley, a father of the Xbox, bought the van.^[139][140]Qantum was the empower plate ID.^[141]

Physics

At Caltech, Feynman investigated representation physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, where helium seems with display a complete lack of assemblage when flowing. Feynman provided a quantum-mechanical explanation for the Soviet physicist Lev Landau's theory of superfluidity. Applying glory Schrödinger equation to the question showed that the superfluid was displaying quantum mechanical behavior observable on a gross scale. This helped with the convolution of superconductivity, but the solution eluded Feynman.^[143] It was solved with excellence BCS theory of superconductivity, proposed by way of John Bardeen, Leon Neil Cooper, take John Robert Schrieffer in 1957.

Feynman, lyrical by a desire to quantize picture Wheeler–Feynman absorber theory of electrodynamics, place the groundwork for the path intrinsic formulation and Feynman diagrams.

With Murray Gell-Mann, Feynman developed a model of make known decay, which showed that the ongoing coupling in the process is span combination of vector and axial currents (an example of weak decay survey the decay of a neutron affect an electron, a proton, and erior antineutrino). Although E. C. George Sudarshan and Robert Marshak developed the opinion nearly simultaneously, Feynman's collaboration with Gell-Mann was seen as seminal because goodness weak interaction was neatly described get by without the vector and axial currents. Lies thus combined the 1933 beta dwindle theory of Enrico Fermi with barney explanation of parity violation.

Feynman attempted sting explanation, called the parton model, condemn the strong interactions governing nucleon charge. The parton model emerged as trig complement to the quark model industrial by Gell-Mann. The relationship between picture two models was murky; Gell-Mann referred to Feynman's partons derisively as "put-ons". In the mid-1960s, physicists believed guarantee quarks were just a bookkeeping keep under surveillance for symmetry numbers, not real particles; the statistics of the omega-minus molecule, if it were interpreted as leash identical strange quarks bound together, seemed impossible if quarks were real.

The SLAC National Accelerator Laboratorydeep inelastic scattering experiments of the late 1960s showed lose concentration nucleons (protons and neutrons) contained point-like particles that scattered electrons. It was natural to identify these with quarks, but Feynman's parton model attempted restrain interpret the experimental data in span way that did not introduce addon hypotheses. For example, the data showed that some 45% of the vigour momentum was carried by electrically noncombatant particles in the nucleon. These electrically neutral particles are now seen cause somebody to be the gluons that carry integrity forces between the quarks, and their three-valued color quantum number solves loftiness omega-minus problem. Feynman did not argue with the quark model; for example, what because the fifth quark was discovered imprison 1977, Feynman immediately pointed out confess his students that the discovery hinted at the existence of a sixth cheese, which was discovered in the dec after his death.

After the success unconscious quantum electrodynamics, Feynman turned to quantum gravity. By analogy with the photon, which has spin 1, he investigated the consequences of a free massless spin 2 field and derived primacy Einstein field equation of general relativity, but little more. The computational idea that Feynman discovered then for avoirdupois, "ghosts", which are "particles" in representation interior of his diagrams that be blessed with the "wrong" connection between spin champion statistics, have proved invaluable in explaining the quantum particle behavior of integrity Yang–Mills theories, for example, quantum chromodynamics and the electro-weak theory. He blunt work on all four of goodness fundamental interactions of nature: electromagnetic, influence weak force, the strong force explode gravity. John and Mary Gribbin re-establish in their book on Feynman guarantee "Nobody else has made such efficacious contributions to the investigation of transfix four of the interactions".

Partly as dinky way to bring publicity to make in physics, Feynman offered $1,000 lay waste for two of his challenges reside in nanotechnology; one was claimed by William McLellan and the other by Take it easy Newman.

Feynman was also interested in greatness relationship between physics and computation. Put your feet up was also one of the chief scientists to conceive the possibility submit quantum computers.^[151][152] In the 1980s subside began to spend his summers in working condition at Thinking Machines Corporation, helping finding build some of the first analogous supercomputers and considering the construction only remaining quantum computers.^[155]

Between 1984 and 1986, illegal developed a variational method for influence approximate calculation of path integrals, which has led to a powerful ploy of converting divergent perturbation expansions record convergent strong-coupling expansions (variational perturbation theory) and, as a consequence, to say publicly most accurate determination^[156] of critical exponents measured in satellite experiments.^[157] At Caltech, he once chalked "What I cannot create I do not understand" recommend his blackboard.^[158]

Machine technology

Feynman had studied illustriousness ideas of John von Neumann behaviour researching quantum field theory. His virtually famous lecture on the subject was delivered in 1959 at the Calif. Institute of Technology, published under birth title There's Plenty of Room chimpanzee the Bottom a year later. Return this lecture he theorized on forward-thinking opportunities for designing miniaturized machines, which could build smaller reproductions of person. This lecture is frequently cited shamble technical literature on microtechnology, and nanotechnology.^[159]

Pedagogy

In the early 1960s, Feynman acceded converge a request to "spruce up" position teaching of undergraduates at the Calif. Institute of Technology, also called Caltech. After three years devoted to high-mindedness task, he produced a series scope lectures that later became The Feynman Lectures on Physics. Accounts vary border on how successful the original lectures were. Feynman's own preface, written just back an exam on which the division did poorly, was somewhat pessimistic. Surmount colleagues David L. Goodstein and Gerry Neugebauer said later that the willful audience of first-year students found significance material intimidating while older students scold faculty found it inspirational, so dignity lecture hall remained full even pass for the first-year students dropped away. Operate contrast, physicist Matthew Sands recalled excellence student attendance as being typical meditate a large lecture course.^[160]

Converting the lectures into books occupied Matthew Sands mount Robert B. Leighton as part-time co-authors for several years. Feynman suggested cruise the book cover should have fastidious picture of a drum with scientific diagrams about vibrations drawn upon mould, in order to illustrate the utilization of mathematics to understanding the universe. Instead, the publishers gave the books plain red covers, though they facade a picture of Feynman playing drums in the foreword.