Richard Phillips Feynman was born in Queens, New York on May 11, 1918 to Jewish but non-practicing parents, inheriting his father's skepticism of authority and his mother's sense of humor. He demonstrated exceptional mathematical aptitude from adolescence, mastering differential and integral calculus by age fifteen before earning his bachelor's degree from MIT in 1939. Feynman completed his Ph.D. at Princeton University in 1942 with groundbreaking work applying the principle of stationary action to quantum mechanics, establishing foundations for his later path integral approach. His early career trajectory included significant contributions to the Manhattan Project during World War II, where he worked alongside Hans Bethe at Los Alamos before accepting positions at Cornell University and ultimately at the California Institute of Technology, where he remained for the majority of his professional life until his death in 1988.
Feynman revolutionized theoretical physics through his fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, which earned him the 1965 Nobel Prize shared with Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Julian Schwinger. His most significant contribution was the development of Feynman diagrams, elegantly simple schematic representations that transformed how physicists visualize and calculate interactions between subatomic particles in space-time. Collaborating with Hans Bethe, he formulated the Bethe-Feynman equation for calculating nuclear bomb yield, and during his Manhattan Project service, he established critical safety procedures for nuclear material handling at Oak Ridge facilities to prevent accidental criticality. His path integral formulation of quantum mechanics provided an entirely novel mathematical framework that enabled physicists to solve previously intractable problems in particle physics and quantum phenomena.
Feynman's enduring legacy extends far beyond his specific scientific contributions, as he was renowned for his exceptional ability to communicate complex concepts with remarkable clarity and infectious enthusiasm. His three-volume Lectures on Physics, delivered at Caltech, became one of the most influential physics textbooks ever published, shaping physics education for generations of students worldwide. Beyond quantum electrodynamics, he made significant contributions to understanding weak decay processes, computation methods, and statistical physics, while his distinctive approach to problem-solving emphasized deep intuitive understanding over mathematical formalism. Today, Feynman's innovative methodologies and irreverent yet profound perspective on scientific inquiry continue to inspire physicists and researchers across multiple disciplines, cementing his status as one of the most transformative theoretical physicists of the twentieth century.
