Richard Feynman – A Life in Science

Richard Feynman – A Life in Science

Author: John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin

Pages: 284

Rating:

Presentation: 3, Language: 3, Relevance: 4, Depth: 3, Reputation: 5

Dedication: “To Jacqueline Shaw, Richard Feynman’s sister-in-law who put the idea into our minds”

John Gribbin, the very famous physicist and science writer, starts the book with a quote from Feynman’s philosophy essay at MIT.

“I wonder why. I wonder why

I wonder why I wonder

I wonder why I wonder why

I wonder why I wonder”

Richard Feynman (1918-1988), probably the greatest physicist and teacher combined in one, in the latter half of the 20^th century rose from modest beginnings. An insightful father guided his childhood. Being very affectionate to his siblings, he promised his younger sister Joan that he would spare the phenomenon of aurora for her to study and kept that promise till death. He did his graduation at MIT and PhD from Princeton. After serving as a member of the Manhattan Project which made US its first nuclear bomb, he joined Cornell University as Professor and later adopted Caltech as his permanent place of work. Besides being an ardent drummer, code breaker and womanizer, he dabbled in biology and art as well.

He was awarded the Nobel prize in 1965 for formulating QED (Quantum Electrodynamics). QED is a theory that describes all interactions involving light (photons) and charged particles and in particular, all interactions involving photons and electrons. It underpins all of Chemistry. Feynman introduced space-time diagrams into its study which grew enormously in popularity and were came to be known as Feynman diagrams.

His other major contributions were the works on the superfluidity of Helium at 2.2 K, the weak nuclear interaction and the lectures he did at Caltech for undergraduates and graduates. He was also a member of the Congressional enquiry committee which went into the faults of the ill fated launch of the space shuttle Challenger in 1986. He died in 1988 of Cancer and the associated damage to kidneys.

His books are ‘Surely You are Joking, Mr Feynman’, ‘What do you care what other people think’, ‘Feynman lectures on Computation and others.

Overall rating: 4/5