Feynman - physics with a human face

Traditionally, scientists have been portrayed as the brain without the heart, a calculating machine. This physicist was above all, human. Richard Philips Feynman was a scientist, a legendary teacher, a skilled storyteller, an amateur painter, and a drummer. He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb, expanded the understanding of quantum electrodynamics, translated Mayan hieroglyphics, and cut to the heart of the Challenger disaster. He also held patents for rocket-propelled aeroplanes and enriched uranium. His books Surely you're joking Mr. Feynman and What do you care what others say? are very well known. Here I have tried to supply stories that are not much known.

During the Manhattan Project, Niels Bohr said that the only person who would not be carried away by his 'crazy ideas' was Feynman. That was the first time the big-shots of science started noticing him.

At the turn of the twentieth century, physics was in crisis. Old laws were being thrown into question by new discoveries. Even the father of quantum electrodynamics, Paul M Dirac, was foxed. Quantum mechanics implies that all reasonable possibilities do take place at the same time. A moving particle can take all the paths available to it. Feynman's path integral adds up the contributions from all the infinite possibilities to give a very finite probability. One of his best-known contributions is Feynman diagrams, pictorial representation of complex processes. A single diagram can represent a lot of different processes. Thus, a single expression counts the effects of several processes. This led to him winning the Nobel Prize in 1965. But he didn't want the Nobel Prize. For him "the pleasure of finding the thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation of other people using it" were the real things; the honours were unreal. He had a strong disrespect for authority and epaulets. Feynman is also known for his work in the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics for which he proposed the parton model. 

Though he was a theorist, he was never a pen-and-paper man. What if a sprinkler was made to suck water instead of ejecting? How would it move? He designed an experiment for it. The experiment resulted in damage to the apparatus and he was banished from the lab. I would not bore you with more science, let's take a look at the other stories.      

In 1964, Feynman selected science textbooks for children. He was annoyed when he saw a textbook mention a toy moves on energy. To him, it was as well as saying that God made it move. "The children should be shown the mechanism inside the toy", he said.

Once he took a sabbatical year and pursued biology. He was interested a lot in nanotechnology, has even given lectures on it. At Los Alamos, he took up safe-cracking. He would playfully open safes that held the secrets of the nuclear bomb.  

When his son, Carl, pursued a career in supercomputers he signed up for a summer job. He was asked to find applications of supercomputers in physics. He said that sounded like a bunch of baloney and wanted to do something real. So they sent a Nobel laureate to buy the stationery of the company. Feynman helped the young men to organize themselves in facing a problem. He gave lectures on computer heuristics. "Don't say 'reflected acoustic wave' say echo", he would say.  Nothing annoyed him more than making something simple appear complicated.

This was his most fundamental approach to teaching. He was perhaps the greatest science communicator who ever lived. His lectures on physics for undergraduate students are legendary. 

Feynman delivering the Messenger Lectures

In 1965, he gave The Messenger Lectures for the ordinary people which were televised. He appeared in many BBC documentaries where he talked about science, the fun in imagining science, and the pleasure of finding things out. He would simplify everything and state it in a way everyone could understand. He used analogies, examples, and jokes; the audience gently stepped on his magic carpet which carried them over to mystery lands. Bill Gates described Feynman as 'the best teacher I never had'.

He always said, "there is a difference between knowing the name and understanding it", he understood physics better than anyone else. His passion for physics approached reverence; yet he once wrote to a student's mother "Physics is not the most important thing, love is".

Feynman with his classic demonstration of the O-ring

In the Challenger disaster investigation, a lot of people did not want the facts to be disclosed, saying that it would be too dangerous for NASA's image. In the conference, he was seen harshly ridiculing NASA's story. He dumped a rubber o-ring in a glass of ice water to demonstrate how the o-rings allowed the rocket exhaust to burn a hole in the rocket. He was a thorough and direct man who preferred looking at the original data rather than read someone's idea as to what the data meant. In his appendix he said "reality must take precedence over public relations; for Nature cannot be fooled."

Feynman had a unique sense of humour and mischief. When at a restaurant he would spell his name as ‘BJØRK’ and wait gleefully for the name to be called. He would pretend to be fluent in a foreign language when met with a foreign guest. In some cases, his confidence would make the guests believe that the gibberish was actually an old dialect of their language. He bought a van and had Feynman diagrams painted all over it. He invented a song called Orange Juice which he would sing on his bongos after lectures.

He would like to disagree with a lot of scientists today. He explained the basic statement in science, saying that if the experiments don't agree with the consequences of the law, it is wrong. "It doesn't matter how beautiful you are or what your name is; if it doesn't agree, it is wrong." Something which hasn't been experimentally verified is not a theory. It is a hypothesis at best. Well, string theorists wouldn't like this.

When asked about the Theory of Everything, he said, "if there is a simple ultimate law that explains everything then so be it.  Nature is going to come out the way she is. We shouldn't pre-decide what it is we're trying to do, except to find out more about nature."

If you are genuinely interested in Feynman you can watch his documentaries The pleasure of finding things out, Fun to imagine, The world from another point of view, and The Fantastic Mr. Feynman.

(This was initially published on my other blog on Feynman's birthday.)