Six Easy Pieces by Richard Feynman

Richard P. Feynman was born in 1918 in Brooklyn; in 1942 he received his Ph.D. from Princeton. Already displaying his brilliance, Feynman played an important role in the development of the atomic bomb through his work in the Manhattan Project. In 1945 he became a physics teacher at Cornell University, and in 1950 he became a professor at the California Institute of Technology. He, along with Sin-Itero and Julian Schwinger, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his work in the field of quantum electrodynamics.

Another great achievement of Dr. Feynman's was the creation of a mathematical theory that accounts for the phenomenon of super fluidity in liquid helium. Along with Murray Gell-Mann, Feynman did fundamental work with weak interactions like beta decay. Years later, Dr. Feynman was an important part of the development of quark theory by putting forward his parton model of high-energy proton collision processes. Furthermore, Dr. Feynman introduced new computational techniques and notations into physics, most importantly, the Feynman diagrams that perhaps more than any formality in recent scientific history, have altered how basic processes of physics are calculated and conceptualized.

Feynman was considered a superb teacher, and received many awards and honors, the one he admired most being the Oersted Medal for Teaching, which was awarded to him in 1972. Critics and fellow scientists around the world held many of his publications in high esteem, and his some of his works were written for the general public, so that all people might have an opportunity to grasp the basic concepts of physics. His more advanced writings have become important assets to researchers and students; some of his works have even made their way into textbooks.

Another of his most famous contributions is his work in the Challenger investigation when it crashed in 1986. His notorious demonstration of the O-rings to cold was during this research, an experiment that