By age 15, he had mastered differential and integral calculus, and frequently experimented and re-created mathematical topics such as the half-derivative before even entering college.
Feynman received a bachelor’s degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1939, and was named Putnam Fellow that same year. He received a Ph.D. from Princeton University in 1942, and in his theses applied the principle of stationery action to problems of quantum mechanics, laying the groundwork for the “path integral” approach and Feynman diagrams. Professor of Theoretical Physics at Cornell University (1945-1950), Visiting Professor and thereafter appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (1950-1959).
At present he is Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology. He holds the following awards: Albert Einstein Award (1954, Princeton); Einstein Award (Albert Einstein Award College of Medicine); Lawrence Award (1962).
(1918 – 1988)
– Richard P. Feynman Quotes –
It doesn’t matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn’t matter how smart you are. If it doesn’t agree with experiment, it’s wrong.
~ Richard P. Feynman
It is in the admission of ignorance and the admission of uncertainty that there is a hope for the continuous motion of human beings in some direction that doesn’t get confined, permanently blocked, as it has so many times before in various periods in the history of man.
~ Richard P. Feynman
Nature uses only the longest threads to weave her patterns, so that each small piece of her fabric reveals the organization of the entire tapestry.
~ Richard P. Feynman
Scientific views end in awe and mystery, lost at the edge in uncertainty, but they appear to be so deep and so impressive that the theory that it is all arranged as a stage for God to watch man’s struggle for good and evil seems inadequate.
~ Richard P. Feynman
I was born not knowing and have had only a little time to change that here and there.
~ Richard P. Feynman
You can know the name of a bird in all the languages of the world, but when you’re finished, you’ll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird… So let’s look at the bird and see what it’s doing — that’s what counts. I learned very early the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.
~ Richard P. Feynman
Reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled.
~ Richard P. Feynman
The worthwhile problems are the ones you can really solve or help solve, the ones you can really contribute something to.
~ Richard P. Feynman
We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on.
~ Richard P. Feynman
For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled.
~ Richard P. Feynman
Poets say science takes away from the beauty of the stars – mere globs of gas atoms. I, too, can see the stars on a desert night, and feel them. But do I see less or more?
~ Richard P. Feynman
I believe that a scientist looking at nonscientific problems is just as dumb as the next guy.
~ Richard P. Feynman
The idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.
~ Richard P. Feynman
If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn’t have been worth the Nobel Prize.
~ Richard P. Feynman
There is no harm in doubt and skepticism, for it is through these that new discoveries are made.
~ Richard P. Feynman
There is a computer disease that anybody who works with computers knows about. It’s a very serious disease and it interferes completely with the work. The trouble with computers is that you ‘play’ with them!
~ Richard P. Feynman
The first principle is that you must not fool yourself and you are the easiest person to fool.
~ Richard P. Feynman
A philosopher once said ‘It is necessary for the very existence of science that the same conditions always produce the same results’. Well, they do not. You set up the circumstances, with the same conditions every time, and you cannot predict behind which hole you will see the electron.
~ Richard P. Feynman
No problem is too small or too trivial if we can really do something about it.
~ Richard P. Feynman
Physicists like to think that all you have to do is say, these are the conditions, now what happens next?
~ Richard P. Feynman
I think I can safely say that nobody understands Quantum Mechanics.
~ Richard P. Feynman
There are 10^11 stars in the galaxy. That used to be a huge number. But it’s only a hundred billion. It’s less than the national deficit! We used to call them astronomical numbers. Now we should call them economical numbers.
~ Richard P. Feynman
