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Richard P. Feynman Papers

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This collection documents the career of Nobel Prize winner Richard Phillips Feynman (1918-1988). It contains correspondence, biographical materials, course and lecture notes, speeches, manuscripts, publications, and technical notes relating to his work in quantum electrodynamics. Feynman served as Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology from 1951 until his death.

• Creation: 1933-1988
• Feynman, Richard P. (Richard Phillips), 1918-1988 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection has not been digitized, and is available only in the reading room of the Caltech Archives. Access is available to anyone conducting research for which it is necessary; please contact the Caltech Archives to make an appointment.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright to this collection is not held by Caltech. If you wish to quote or reproduce an item created by Richard Feynman beyond the extent of fair use, please contact his heirs' agent, Melanie Jackson Agency, at [email protected]. Copyright to works by others may be held by their respective creators or publishers, or their heirs. If you wish to quote or reproduce them beyond fair use, please contact the copyright holder to request permission. ("Fair use" is a legal principle which permits unlicensed reproduction in certain circumstances. You are responsible for determining whether your own reproduction would fit the legal requirements for fair use.)

Biographical / Historical

Physicist Richard Feynman won his scientific renown through the development of quantum electrodynamics, or QED, a theory describing the interaction of particles and atoms in radiation fields. As a part of this work he invented what came to be known as "Feynman Diagrams," visual representations of space-time particle interactions. For this work he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, together with J. Schwinger and S. I. Tomonaga, in 1965. Later in his life Feynman became a prominent public figure through his association with the investigation of the space shuttle Challenger explosion and the publication of two best-selling books of personal recollections. Feynman was born in the borough of Queens in New York City on May 11, 1918. He grew up and attended high school in Far Rockaway, New York. In 1939, he received his BS degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then attended Princeton University as a Proctor Fellow from 1940 to 1942, where he began his investigation of quantum electrodynamics under the supervision of J. A. Wheeler. He was awarded his PhD in 1942 for his thesis on the least action principle. While still at Princeton, Feynman was recruited for the atomic bomb project. He was transferred to Los Alamos in 1942, where he headed a team undertaking complicated calculations using very primitive computers. While at Los Alamos, Feynman became good friends with Hans Bethe, who at the end of the war secured a position for Feynman as an associate professor of physics at Cornell. Feynman remained at Cornell from 1945 to 1951. During this time he formalized his theory of quantum electrodynamics and began to publish his results. He also participated in the Shelter Island Conference of 1947, which helped to determine the course of American physics in the atomic age. At this conference he introduced his theory of QED to the leading American physicists. In 1951, Feynman accepted an offer to become the Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology, a position he filled until his death. While at Caltech Feynman continued his work at the leading edge of theoretical physics, making important contributions to the study of liquid helium, particle physics, and later quantum chromodynamics. He also began his distinguished career as a teacher and lecturer. In 1961 and 1962 he delivered to Caltech's freshmen the introductory lectures that were later published as The Feynman Lectures on Physics . In 1986, Feynman was asked to serve on the Presidential Commission investigating the space shuttle Challenger accident. In a dramatic fashion, Feynman publicly demonstrated the inelasticity of the shuttle's O-rings at near freezing temperatures, a leading cause of the disaster. He also contributed an extended appendix to the Committee's report, highlighting the technical and administrative deficiencies of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's space program. Feynman's many interests outside of science, such as his fondness for codes and safecracking, his bongo drums, his theatrical appearances, his artwork, plus his experiments in out-of-body experiences, are well documented in his autobiographies, as well as in his papers at Caltech. Feynman continued his scientific work and his lecturing activities up until his death on February 15, 1988, after a long battle with a rare form of cancer.

39 linear feet (93 boxes)

Language of Materials

Additional description, arrangement.

The two groups of papers have been kept separate, although box numbering is continuous throughout the collection. The guide to the collection is in two parts, and researchers must expect to consult both parts. At the time the second group of papers was processed, an effort was made to create an arrangement parallel to that of group 1. However, the different content and larger scope of group 2 eventually resulted in a somewhat different scheme. Correspondence: The Feynman collection contains a large amount of both incoming and outgoing correspondence. Feynman's scientific contacts include many of the greatest names in twentieth-century physics: Hans Bethe, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Stephen Hawking, Werner Heisenberg, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Hideki Yukawa—to name only a few. In Group 1, correspondence has been spread over four series: correspondence (largely with individual colleagues), miscellaneous or general correspondence, publication correspondence, and, in the biographical series, a small number of personal letters. For Group 2, an attempt was made to pull both personal, general, and publication correspondence into one main series, Series 1. However, when letters demonstrated both intellectual and physical links with other documents, their original contextual relationships were maintained. Thus, publication correspondence will be found both in Series 1 and in Series 6. Fan mail surrounding Feynman's television appearances, his two autobiographies, and his Nobel Prize has been placed in Series 2, Biographical, as has other correspondence relating to his business and consulting activities documented there. Course and Lecture Notes: Feynman's lecture courses at institutions in Southern California other than Caltech, and even outside the U.S., are represented in Group 2. Of special interest are the courses Feynman gave, in addition to those he attended, at Hughes Aircraft Company, and the sets of lectures that were later published as Statistical Mechanics and QED (originally the Mautner Lectures, which were in turn predated by the Robb Lectures, first delivered at the University of Aukland, New Zealand). Material pertaining to the publication of these lecture series is found in Group 2 correspondence under the respective publishers. Talks, Speeches, Conferences: In this category are those lectures delivered for a special occasion or purpose, usually as single lectures, but sometimes as a series, and in both formal and informal settings. This category overlaps somewhat with Course Notes and Lectures. In Group 1, these materials are to be found under Professional Organizations and Meetings (Series 3) and Manuscripts (Series 5). In Group 2, they are arranged under Series 5 in chronological order, when dated, and in a sub-series of undated talks. Folders in this category contain a wide variety of talk-related documents, from holograph notes to correspondence to slides, figures, or transparencies. Publications: Group 1 contains a small series of publication correspondence (Group 1, Series 4), mostly pertaining to Feynman's book or monograph publishers; in Group 2, similar correspondence has been placed in the main correspondence series (Group 2, Series 1). Group 2's Series 6 lists Feynman's publications by title in chronological order. Folders contain a variety of material, from holograph notes to correspondence to proofs and prints. Researchers should note that formal reprints have been grouped at the end of Group 2, in Section 9. Working Notes and Calculations: The vast majority of Feynman's working notes are located in Group 2. A representative sample from his early years appears in Group 1, Series 5. Of special interest in this group are notebooks from his student days, beginning circa 1933. The notes in Group 2 capture the breadth and depth of Feynman's thought, as well as reflecting many aspects of his personality. They cover a wide range of subjects, from quantum electrodynamics and later quantum chromodynamics to biology and computers. The notes also reflect Feynman's working style. They are sometimes carefully organized into notebooks that were rigorously dated, such as the binders dated between 1966 and 1987 at the beginning of Group 2, Series 7. Unfortunately for researchers, these are the exception. The great mass of Feynman's working notes are scattered on miscellaneous sheets of papers, envelopes, placemats, and seemingly whatever else was at hand when thoughts struck him. Feynman occasionally took time to organize these into a system for files, although only a small fraction of his notes found their way into such a system. The great majority was left in a scattered condition and grouped during the processing of the papers as well as possible by subject matter. Many miscellaneous papers remain. Work of Others: Feynman officially maintained neutrality on the work of his contemporaries, but informal commentaries in the form of notes and marginal glosses on the work of others abound in his papers. A small segment of such materials can be found in Group 1, Series 5. A large amount of work by others, both with and without Feynman's commentary, forms Group 2's Series 8. A preponderance of material on computers dictated an arrangement in which computer-related projects are categorized separately. Individuals whose work is strongly represented—largely Caltech colleagues, students, or collaborators—are listed singly; otherwise materials have been listed by subject.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The Richard Phillips Feynman Papers were given to Caltech by Richard Feynman and Gweneth Feynman in two main installments. The first group of papers, now boxes 1-20 of the collection, was donated by Richard Feynman himself beginning in 1968, with additions later. It contains materials dating from about 1933 to 1970. The second group occupies boxes 21-90. It was given to Caltech by Feynman's widow Gweneth early in 1989. Group 2 contains papers primarily from the 1970s and 1980s, although some older material is present. Supplements since 1994 occupy three boxes and have come from various donors outside the Feynman family.

Related Materials

Researchers should also consult the Caltech Archives' Historical Files, which contain much miscellaneous material on Richard Feynman acquired from many sources. Similarly the Photo Archives offer a selection of images, obtained in a similar way. The audio and video collections contain substantial Feynman material; researchers should consult the specific index. Manuscript collections at Caltech which contain materials of particular relevance to Feynman include the Robert Leighton Papers and course lecture notes by Bruce H. Morgan.

Processing Information

The initial processing of this collection was completed on July 1, 1993.

• Challenger (Space shuttle)
• Gravitation--Research
• Particles (Nuclear physics)
• Physics--Study and teaching
• Quantum chromodynamics
• Quantum electrodynamics
• Quantum theory
• Space shuttles--Accidents--Investigation--United States

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Part of the California Institute of Technology Archives and Special Collections Repository

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Richard P. Feynman Papers, FeynmanRP2. California Institute of Technology Archives and Special Collections.

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Richard P. Feynman Papers, FeynmanRP2. California Institute of Technology Archives and Special Collections. https://collections.archives.caltech.edu/repositories/2/resources/168 Accessed April 01, 2024.

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Feynman's thesis [electronic resource] : a new approach to quantum theory

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• # Least Action in Classical Mechanics: # The Concept of Functional # The Principle of Least Action # Conservation of Energy. Constants of the Motion # Particles Interacting Through an Intermediate Oscillator # Least Action in Quantum Mechanics: # The Lagrangian in Quantum Mechanics # The Calculation of Matrix Elements in the Language of a Lagrangian # The Equations of Motion in Lagrangian Form # Translation to the Ordinary Notation of Quantum Mechanics # The Generalization to Any Action Function # Conservation of Energy. Constants of the Motion # The Role of the Wave Function # Transition Probabilities # Expectation Values for Observables # Application to the Forced Harmonic Oscillator # Particles Interacting Through an Intermediate Oscillator # Space-Time Approach to Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics # The Lagrangian in Quantum Mechanics.
• (source: Nielsen Book Data)

Princetoniana Museum

Richard p. feynman *42 physics 1965.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1965

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1965 was awarded jointly to Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Julian Schwinger and Richard P. Feynman "for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles."

Following the establishment of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, an initial relativistic theory was formulated for the interaction between charged particles and electromagnetic fields, however, this needed to be reformulated. In 1948, Richard Feynman contributed to creating a new quantum electrodynamics by introducing Feynman diagrams: graphic representations of various interactions between different particles. These diagrams facilitated the calculation of interaction probabilities.

[Curator’s note: The following material quotes and paraphrases extensively from articles posted by the Nobel Prize Committee and the Princeton Herald and the Princeton Alumni Weekly; see Sources below for details.]

Richard P. Feynman was born in New York City on May 11, 1918. Feynman attended Far Rockaway High School, which was also attended by fellow Nobel laureates Burton Richter and Baruch Samuel Blumberg. Upon starting high school, Feynman was quickly promoted to a higher math class. An IQ test administered in high school estimated his IQ at 125—high but "merely respectable", according to biographer James Gleick. His sister Joan, who scored one point higher, later jokingly claimed to an interviewer that she was smarter. Years later he declined to join Mensa International, saying that his IQ was too low.

Undergraduate studies at MIT

Feynman attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he joined the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. Although he originally majored in mathematics, he later switched to electrical engineering, as he considered mathematics to be too abstract. Noticing that he "had gone too far," he then switched to physics, which he claimed was "somewhere in between." As an undergraduate, he published two papers in the Physical Review. One of these, which was co-written with Manuel Vallarta was entitled "The Scattering of Cosmic Rays by the Stars of a Galaxy."

The other was his senior thesis, on "Forces in Molecules", based on an idea by John C. Slater, who was sufficiently impressed by the paper to have it published and it became known as the Hellman-Feynman theorem. In 1939, Feynman received a bachelor’s degree and was named a Putnam Fellow.

Princeton for Graduate School

He attained a perfect score on the graduate school entrance exams to Princeton University in physics, an unprecedented feat. Attendees at Feynman's first seminar, which was on the classical version of the Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory, included Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli and John Neumann. Feynman received a Ph.D. from Princeton in 1942. His thesis advisor was John Archibald Wheeler. In his doctoral thesis entitled, "The Principle of Least Action in Quantum Mechanics,” a key insight was that positrons behaved like electrons moving backwards in time. James Gleick wrote:

This was Richard Feynman nearing the crest of his powers. At twenty-three ... there may now have been no physicist on earth who could match his exuberant command over the native materials of theoretical science. It was not just a facility at mathematics (though it had become clear ... that the mathematical machinery emerging in the Wheeler–Feynman collaboration was beyond Wheeler's own ability). Feynman seemed to possess a frightening ease with the substance behind the equations, like Einstein at the same age, like the Soviet physicist Lev Landau—but few others.

One of the conditions of Feynman's scholarship to Princeton was that he could not be married; nevertheless, he continued to see his high school sweetheart, Arline Greenbaum, and was determined to marry her once he had been awarded his Ph.D. despite the knowledge that she was seriously ill with tuberculosis. This was an incurable disease at the time, and she was not expected to live more than two years. On June 29, 1942, they took the ferry to Staten Island where they were married in the city office. The ceremony was attended by neither family nor friends and was witnessed by a pair of strangers. Feynman could kiss Arline only on the cheek.

Professor Feynman worked at Princeton in the early stages of the Manhattan Project on the problem of separating uranium isotopes. Later he was a group leader in theoretical physics at Los Alamos Laboratory and was present at the first test explosion of the atomic bomb.

Curiosity, wit, brilliant and playful temperament

Feynman was a professor of Theoretical Physics at Cornell University (1945-1950) and then Visiting Professor and thereafter appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (1950-1959). He was the Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology.

He was widely known for his insatiable curiosity, gentle wit, brilliant mind and playful temperament. These qualities were clearly evident in his popular 1985 book of reminiscences, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman,” which was on the New York Times best-seller list for 14 weeks.

MIT physicist Philip Morrison called Mr. Feynman “the most original theoretical physicist of our time,” according to a report by United Press International. Morrison said Mr. Feynman, who called his Nobel Prize “a pain in the neck,” was “extraordinarily honest with himself and everyone else,” and added that “he didn’t like ceremony or pomposity . . . he was extremely informal. He liked colorful language and jokes.”

Mr. Feynman attracted widespread attention during the Rogers Commission hearings on the Challenger space shuttle accident in 1986. Frustrated by witnesses’ vague answers and by slow bureaucratic procedures, he conducted an impromptu experiment that proved a key point in the investigation: He dunked a piece of the rocket booster’s O-ring material into a cup of ice water and quickly showed that it lost all resiliency at low temperatures. In the commission’s final report, Mr. Feynman accused the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of “playing Russian roulette” with astronauts’ lives.

His driving curiosity was apparent when, in his last media interview, he told The Boston Globe last year that his work on the shuttle commission had so aroused his interest in the complexities of managing a large organization like NASA that if he were starting his life over, he might be tempted to study management rather than physics.

Ever playful and unintimidated by authority, Mr. Feynman caused consternation in his years with the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb, by figuring out in his spare time how to pick the locks on filing cabinets that contained classified information. Without removing anything, he left taunting notes to let officials know that their security system had been breached.

Former Caltech president Marvin Goldberger, now director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., said Mr. Feynman was “a towering figure in 20th century physics, always curious, always modest, always ebullient, always willing to share his deep insights with students and colleagues.”

Receives the Nobel Prize in 1965

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1965, along with Shinichero Tomonaga of Japan and Julian Schwinger of Harvard University. The three had worked independently on problems in the theory of quantum electrodynamics, which describes how atoms produce radiation. He reconstructed almost the whole of quantum mechanics and electrodynamics in his own way, deriving a way to analyze atomic interactions through simple diagrams, a method that is still used widely.

He described the theory for a general audience in his 1986 book, “QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.” An earlier textbook, “The Feynman Lectures on Physics,” was published in 1963 and remains a leading text in physics classes.

In “Lectures,” Mr. Feynman responded to charges that scientific understanding detracts from an esthetic appreciation of nature:

“The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I was a part — perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one is belching there . . . It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. Far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined!”

Professor Feynman was a member of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the National Academy of Science; in 1965 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society, London (Great Britain).

He holds the following awards: Albert Einstein Award (1954, Princeton); Einstein Award (Albert Einstein Award College of Medicine); Lawrence Award (1962).

Richard P. Feynman died on February 15, 1988, leaving behind his wife, Gweneth; a son, Carl; a daughter, Michelle, and a sister, Joan Feynman.

• The Nobel Prize in Physics 1965. NobelPrize.org.

• From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1963-1970, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972. The Nobel Foundation 1965:Richard P. Feynman – Biographical. NobelPrize.org.

• Nobel Prize Is Won By Princeton Ph.D. Princeton Herald, Volume 42, Number 94, 27 October 1965

• Richard Feynman in Wikipedia

• Obituary: Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics; Probed Shuttle Disaster

OTHER RESOURCES

• PAW: A rose by another name?

• PAW:Top 25

• PAW: The List

• Richard Feynman website

• Bland Adventure Misses Feynman's Spark by Brett Borowski.Daily Princetonian - Holiday Shopping Guide And Book Review, Volume 115, 10 December 1991

• Richard Feynman dead at 69: Leading Theoretical Physicist by James Gleick. NYTimes February 17, 1988

• Cal Tech:Remembering Richard Feynman

• Nobel Physicist R. P. Feynman of Cal Tech dies

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Feynman's Thesis: A New Approach to Quantum Theory

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Richard Feynman

Theoretical physicist Richard Phillips Feynman greatly simplified the way in which the interactions of particles could be described through his introduction of the diagrams that now bear his name (Feynman diagrams) and was a co-recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his reworking of quantum electrodynamics (QED).

He shared the prize with Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Julian Schwinger . Feynman is often remembered as much for his offbeat personality and lively wit as for his considerable contributions to twentieth-century physics.

Feynman was born in New York City on May 11, 1918. His parents were a considerable influence on him, his father encouraging his inquisitive nature and his mother inspiring his notorious sense of humor. Feynman displayed an early proficiency in engineering and mathematics, which would eventually serve him well when he enrolled at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology ( MIT ) to pursue a degree in physics. During his final year there, Feynman won the prestigious undergraduate Putnam Mathematical Competition. He graduated in 1939, after completing an impressive thesis that described a unique method of determining molecular forces.

Feynman continued his study of physics at Princeton University, where he scored perfectly on the mathematics and physics sections of the entrance exams. The prominent theoretician John Archibald Wheeler oversaw Feynman’s doctoral thesis, in which he applied the principle of least action to various aspects of quantum mechanics. The methodology he used supplanted the wave-based depiction of electromagnetism advanced in the mid-19th century by James Clerk Maxwell in favor of his own approach, based on probability mapping of particles and their interactions with one another in space and time.

While still a student at Princeton, Feynman married Arline Greenbaum, whom he had known since high school. Greenbaum suffered from tuberculosis; the couple took great care so that Feynman would not contract the infectious disease. In this period, Feynman was invited to join the atomic-bomb development effort known as the Manhattan Project. Although initially hesitant, he changed his mind after considering another country might produce such a bomb first. Feynman and his wife moved to New Mexico after graduation. While he began work at the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, she stayed in a sanitarium in Albuquerque, close enough for Feynman to visit on the weekends until her death in July 1945.

Hans Bethe, who headed the theoretical division at Los Alamos, made Feynman a group leader, the youngest scientist there appointed to the position. With Bethe, Feynman developed a formula for predicting the amount of energy generated by a nuclear explosive. Feynman also oversaw the overhaul of computer systems used in the research and developed a way to calculate how close fissile material was to reaching a critical state. Later at the Oak Ridge, Tennessee, research facility, he helped determine the safest means of storing nuclear materials.

Feynman was as well known at Los Alamos for his mischievous sense of humor as for his scientific contributions. He developed a talent for picking combination locks, common at a lab where research was top-secret. Colleagues often unlocked their safes and cabinets only to discover humorous notes left there by Feynman.

Feynman attended the first successful test of the atomic bomb on July 16, 1945. He reportedly did not wear the protective glasses donned by others, instead watching from behind a windshield, which he believed would be sufficient to filter out harmful ultraviolet rays. The test was the culmination of many years of hard work, but after the initial elation, Feynman, like many others, grew very concerned about the immense destructive power of the atomic bomb.

After World War II, Feynman accepted a position as assistant professor at Cornell University. There he returned to theoretical work on quantum electrodynamics and developed the graphical means of depicting particle interactions that came to be known as Feynman diagrams. In 1950, Feynman left Cornell for the California Institute of Technology, where he continued reworking QED theory but also addressed topics such as superfluidity and radioactive decay. He collaborated with American physicist Murray Gell-Mann on radioactive decay and the associated weak force. Each scientist developed his own model of the strong force. Feynman’s was termed the parton model ; Gell-Mann’s more widely accepted model was based on quarks. Despite his alternative model, Feynman did not deride Gell-Mann’s quark model, and when a fifth quark was discovered, he accurately predicted that a sixth would soon be found.

Feynman was an excellent teacher and popularizer of physics. He played an integral role in updating the physics curriculum at Caltech and gave a series of lectures that were compiled into the extremely influential three-volume text, Feynman Lectures on Physics . Other Feynman talks were put into print, resulting in The Character of Physical Law and QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter . The book Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! was a series of interviews with the scientist that appeared on the New York Times bestseller list. What Do You Care What Other People Think? and Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman's Last Journey! came later, the latter after Feynman’s death. What Do You Care included, among other things, anecdotes about Feynman’s work on the presidential Rogers Commission, which investigated the 1986 Challenger space shuttle disaster. Feynman found significantly more fault with NASA management than did most members of the commission; his report appeared as an appendix to the report of the majority.

Not long after completing his work with the Rogers Commission, Feynman fell ill from abdominal cancer. It was his second bout with the disease, which had been successfully treated with surgery in 1980. This time, Feynman refused treatment and died on February 15, 1988. He was survived by his third wife, Gweneth, with whom he had two children.

Feynman received numerous honors over the course of his career. In addition to a share of the Nobel Prize in Physics, he won the Albert Einstein Award, the Atomic Energy Commission's E.O. Lawrence Award, the Niels Bohr International Gold Medal, the National Medal, and the Ørsted Medal of the American Association of Physics Teachers, a prize of which he was especially proud. Feynman’s life has been the subject of several books, plays and movies.

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Richard Feynman

Born on 11 May 1918 in Queens, New York, Richard Feynman was the first child of Melville and Lucille Feynman. Melville, the son of immigrants, had dreamed of a career in science himself, but would only realize that dream through his son whose early talent for math and science he encouraged.

Feynman considered a career as a mathematician, but soon discovered a passion for physics. He completed his undergraduate studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in 1939, and his graduate studies at Princeton University, where he obtained his PhD in 1942. During his time at school, he met the woman he would marry, Arline Greenbaum. The two became inseparable and planned to marry once Feynman earned his PhD. Unfortunately, Arline was diagnosed with tuberculosis, and though advised against it by family and colleagues, Feynman married Arline before completing his degree to better tend to her needs.

Feynman earned respect among his peers at Princeton, who encouraged him to join the group of scientists working on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico—a project dedicated to developing the first nuclear weapon. Feynman accepted the offer and moved Arline to an Albuquerque hospital, where he could see her in his down time. In 1945, shortly before the first tests of the bomb, Arline succumbed to her illness. Feynman immersed himself in his work, until the project was complete. An offer from the Institute for Advanced Study at Princeton revitalized Feynman, in low spirits following his wife’s death, and prompted him to return to ideas he had explored in his Ph.D thesis—one that focused on computing the probability of a transition from one quantum state to another. Feynman developed diagrams that illustrated the mathematical expressions necessary to describe the behavior of systems of interacting particles. These diagrams have since become a standard theoretical tool and bear his name. It was for this work that Feynman received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. Feynman's influence is also felt in the emergent field of nanotechnology . In a 1959 lecture entitled “There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” Feynman discussed a future that included micromachines and constructing things on the atomic level. Physicist K. Eric Drexler , a pioneer in nanotech, was in part inspired by Feynman’s work.

Feynman had a short-lived marriage during the 1950s, but in the early 1960s married the woman who would see him to the end of his days, Gweneth Howarth. They had one son, Carl, and later adopted a daughter, Michelle. During this time, he worked as a professor at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), where he rewrote the Freshman Physics curriculum—a collection of lectures still popular today. He would hold the position until his death.

In 1986 Feynman worked with fellow scientists investigating the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle. It was Feynman who discovered that the rubber O-rings were the culprit in the tragedy. Wanting to guarantee that this information would not be buried in the politics surrounding the case, he announced his discovery during a live, televised commission meeting, shattering any chance of a cover-up.

In all of his years as student and teacher, Feynman had become a talented storyteller, weaving in tales of his own adventures. Eventually these were to be compiled and published in 1985 under the title Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman. It would hit the bestseller list and remain there for a number of weeks. After his death, a second collection of his stories was published, What Do You Care What Other People Think?, which also sold very well.

By 1987, a recurrent bout with cancer was clearly weakening Feynman. He chose to forego any attempts to prolong his life and passed away on 15 February 1988.

Feynman was a member of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the National Academy of Science, and in 1965 was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society, London. In addition to the Nobel Prize, he received many other honors, including the Albert Einstein Award from Princeton University, the Albert Einstein Award from the College of Medicine, and the Lawrence Award.

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Forces in Molecules

“Feynman’s thesis began as a circumscribed problem... It ended as a fundamental discovery about the forces acting within the molecules of any substance [and] found its way into the permanent tool kit of the physics of solids.” –James Gleick, Genius FIRST EDITION of Feynman’s undergraduate thesis at MIT, “a fundamental discovery” published in The Physical Review when he was just twenty-one. “Forces or energy—that was the choice for those seeking to apply the quantum understanding of the atom to the workings of real materials. At stake was not mere terminology but a root decision about how to conceive of a problem and how to proceed in calculating...

 “As Feynman conceived the structure of molecules, forces were the natural ingredients. He saw springlike bonds with varying stiffness, atoms attracting and repelling one another. The usual energy-accounting methods seemed secondhand and euphemistic... [He demonstrated that] the force on an atom’s nucleus is no more or less than the electrical force from the surrounding field of charged electrons—the electrostatic force. Once the distribution of charge has been calculated quantum mechanically, then from that point forward quantum mechanics disappears from the picture. The problem becomes classical; the nuclei can be treated as static points of mass and charge. Feynman’s approach applies to all chemical bonds” (Gleick). His discovery, now known as Feynman’s theorem or the Feynman-Hellmann theorem, has endured as an efficient approach to the calculation of forces in molecules. Provenance: With ownership signature of D.W. Epstein on front cover; presumably the D.W. Epstein who, along with I.G. Mallof developed the electron gun in 1934. IN: The Physical Review, Vol 56, Second Series, Number 4, August 15, 1939. Lancaster, PA and New York, NY: American Physical Society, 1939. Quarto, original wrappers. Toning around edges of wrappers, red paint marks on spine extending into front wrapper. Rare in original wrappers. Note: A custom cloth box is available for this item for an additional $225 .

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The Hellmann-Feynman theorem: a perspective

• Original Paper
• Published: 31 August 2018
• Volume 24 , article number  266 , ( 2018 )

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• Peter Politzer 1 &
• Jane S. Murray 1  

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The Hellmann-Feynman theorem has, with a few exceptions, not been exploited to the degree that it merits. This is due, at least in part, to a widespread failure to recognize that its greatest value may be conceptual rather than numerical, i.e., in achieving insight into molecular properties and behavior. In this brief overview, we shall discuss three examples of significant concepts that have come out of the Hellmann-Feynman theorem: (1) The forces exerted upon the nuclei in molecules are entirely Coulombic in nature. (2) The total energies of atoms and molecules can be expressed rigorously in terms of just the electrostatic potentials at their nuclei that are produced by the electrons and other nuclei. (3) Dispersion forces are due to the attractions of nuclei to their own polarized electronic densities. To summarize, energy and force analyses should not be viewed as competitive but rather as complementary.

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Acknowledgments

It is our pleasure to join in honoring Professor Pratim K. Chattaraj, an esteemed friend and scientist.

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This paper belongs to Topical Collection International Conference on Systems and Processes in Physics, Chemistry and Biology (ICSPPCB-2018) in honor of Professor Pratim K. Chattaraj on his sixtieth birthday

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Politzer, P., Murray, J.S. The Hellmann-Feynman theorem: a perspective. J Mol Model 24 , 266 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00894-018-3784-7

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The doctoral students of Richard Feynman

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the legendary physicist supervised more than 30 doctoral students, many of whom have become prominent in their fields.

“An ordinary genius is an ordinary fellow . . . There is no mystery as to how his mind works . . . It is different with the magicians . . . Even after we understand what they have done, the process by which they have done it is completely dark. They seldom, if ever, have students . . . Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber.” —Mark Kac, Enigmas of Chance

As the centennial of Richard Feynman’s birth approaches, it’s a good time to dispel a minor myth about him: that he had very few doctoral students. The myth is embodied in the words of Mark Kac above and in a statement attributed to one of his students, Philip Platzman: “The reason why Feynman did not have many students was because he was very difficult with them, because he didn’t really worry about students . . . He had a few students, but not many.” Despite such statements, which seem to represent the prevailing belief in the scientific community, the claim that Feynman did not often supervise students for their PhD theses is simply not true.

The number of Feynman’s doctoral students is actually about 30, with some uncertainty due to unavailable documents as well as possible subjectivity on my part. The lineup of students who completed their PhD research under Feynman’s discerning gaze begins with Michel Baranger, Laurie Brown, and Giovanni Lomanitz at Cornell University in 1951 and concludes with Ted Barnes and Thomas Curtright at Caltech in 1977.

Although 30 is not an extremely large number of doctoral students to have mentored during a lifetime as an academic (Julian Schwinger, for example, supervised at least 70 during five decades), it does amount to three PhDs for every four years of Feynman’s time as a professor. If not for illness during the last several years of his career, Feynman might have supervised several more students.

The most recognized physicist among Feynman’s doctoral students is undoubtedly George Zweig, who graduated from Caltech in 1964. Soon thereafter Zweig had a major impact on elementary-particle physics through his independent invention of the quark model of hadrons. The research of Feynman’s other students has also had significant impact and continues to influence several areas of physics.

At the time of this writing, Wikipedia lists only six students to have officially received PhDs with Feynman as the adviser. The mother lode of information about Feynman’s doctoral students can be found at the Caltech library. A direct search of the school’s online database produces a list of 25 PhD theses in which Feynman is described as the adviser or co-adviser. By way of comparison, a direct search for his Caltech colleague Murray Gell-Mann as adviser turns up 16 theses. Zweig, along with Henry Hilton and Michael Levine, were co-advised by Feynman and Gell-Mann. Beyond publicly accessible sources, the largest amount of documentation on Feynman’s doctoral students came from Curtright.

From looking at many theses and papers by Caltech students, my overall impression is that Feynman played a major role in the school’s graduate program in physics through his mentoring and supervision of doctoral students. He exerted tremendous influence on graduate student research conducted at Caltech during his four decades there—perhaps even more than his widely perceived influence on Caltech undergraduate studies.

The Students

“There are PhDs, and then there are Feynman PhDs.” —Richard Sherman

From theses and PhD dissertation examination documents in which it was either explicitly stated or otherwise clear that Feynman was the adviser or co-adviser, I find the 30 doctoral students listed here, the first three at Cornell, the others at Caltech:

• Michel Baranger (1951) “Relativistic corrections to the Lamb shift”
• Laurie Brown (1951) “Radiative corrections to the Klein–Nishina formula”
• Giovanni Lomanitz (1951) “Second order effects in the electron–electron interaction”
• Albert Hibbs (1955) “The growth of water waves due to the action of the wind”
• William Karzas (1955) “The effects of atomic electrons on nuclear radiation”
• Koichi Mano (1955) “The self-energy of the scalar nucleon”
• Gerald Speisman (1955) “The neutron–proton mass difference”
• Truman Woodruff (1955) “On the orthogonalized plane wave method for calculating energy Eigen-values in a periodic potential”
• Michael Cohen (1956) “The energy spectrum of the excitations in liquid helium”
• Samuel Berman (1959) “Radiative corrections to muon and neutron decay”
• Frank Vernon (1959) “The theory of a general quantum system interacting with a linear dissipative system”
• Willard Wells (1959) “Quantum theory of coupled systems having application to masers”
• Henry Hilton (1960) “Comparison of the beta-spectra of boron 12 and nitrogen 12”
• Carl Iddings (1960) “Nuclear size corrections to the hyperfine structure of hydrogen”
• Philip Platzman (1960) “Meson theoretical origins of the non-static two nucleon potential”
• Marvin Chester (1961) “Some experimental and theoretical observations on a configurational EMF”
• Elisha Huggins (1962) “Quantum mechanics of the interaction of gravity with electrons: theory of a spin-two field coupled to energy”
• Harold Yura (1962) “The quantum electrodynamics of a medium”
• Michael Levine (1963) “Neutrino processes of significance in stars”
• George Zweig (1964) “Two topics in elementary particle physics: The reaction [photon-neutron going to pion-nucleon] at high energies. K leptonic decay and partially conserved currents”
• James Bardeen (1965) “Stability and dynamics of spherically symmetric masses in general relativity”
• Howard Kabakow (1969) “A perturbation procedure for nonlinear oscillations (The dynamics of two oscillators with weak nonlinear coupling)”
• Robert Carlitz (1971) “Elimination of parity doubled states from Regge amplitudes”
• Mark Kislinger (1970) “Elimination of parity doublets in Regge amplitudes”
• Finn Ravndal (1971) “A relativistic quark model with harmonic dynamics”
• Richard Sherman (1971) “Surface impedance theory for superconductors in large static magnetic fields”
• Arturo Cisneros (1973) “I. Baryon-antibaryon phase transition at high temperature. II. Inclusive virtual photon-hadron reactions in the parton model”
• Steven Kauffmann (1973) “Ortho-positronium annihilation: steps toward computing the first order radiative corrections”
• Frank (Ted) Barnes (1977) “Quarks, gluons, bags, and hadrons”
• Thomas Curtright (1977) “Stability and supersymmetry”

From documents in which Feynman was not described as an adviser or co-adviser but was a member of the PhD examination committee (although not the committee chairman) and/or was acknowledged in the thesis for moderate influence and general advice, I find in addition:

• Fredrik Zachariasen (1956) “Photodisintegration of the deuteron”
• Paul Craig (1959) “Observations of perfect potential flow and critical velocities in superfluid helium II”
• James Mercereau (1959) “Diffraction of thermal waves in liquid helium II”
• Kenneth Wilson (1961) “An investigation of the Low equation and the Chew–Mandelstam equations”
• John Andelin (1966) “Superfluid drag in helium II”
• Karvel Thornber (1966) “I. Electronic processes in α-sulfur. II. Polaron motion in a D.C. electric field”
• Lorin Vant-Hull (1967) “Verification of long range quantum phase coherence in superconducting tin utilizing electromagnetically stabilized Josephson junctions”
• William Press (1973) “Applications of black-hole perturbation techniques”
• Robert Wang (1976) “A study of some two-dimensional field theory models”
• Don Page (1976) “Accretion into and emission from black holes”
• Stephen Wolfram (1980) “Some topics in theoretical high-energy physics”

I also find several less compelling cases where Feynman was only a member of the dissertation examination committee at Caltech and was not particularly influential in the research, as far as I can tell. I suspect there are many more such cases that I have not found, since on this point documentation is quite often incomplete and not all committee members are listed. For example:

• Richard Lipes (1969) “I. Application of multi-Regge theory to production processes. II. High energy model for proton-proton scattering”
• Christopher Hill (1977) “Higgs scalars and the nonleptonic weak interactions”
• William Dally (1986) “A VLSI architecture for concurrent data structures”
• John Wawrzynek (1987) “VLSI concurrent computation for music synthesis”

T. S. Van Kortryk is an amateur mathematician based in Paris, Missouri, who has an interest in the history of physics.

Editor’s note, 30 August: Due to a change in the thesis information provided by Caltech and further research, the author has determined that Feynman did not serve as co-adviser for Sandip Trivedi’s 1990 thesis. Two references to that thesis were removed from the article, and the minimum number of Feynman doctoral students was revised from 31 to 30.

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