Feynman Richard Phillips - The quotable Feynman

To Ava and Marco

Richard Feynman has been called the great explainer. This book of quotes characterizes my fathers approach to scientific problem solving, his philosophy, and his communication style. Taken by topic, these quotes provide a richer, deeper understanding of how he thought, emphasize what he thought was important, and give shining examples of how he expressed himself.

Sources were his many published works, his personal papers that occupy 14 file drawers, and dozens of hours of recorded lectures. A number of important quotes also came from interviews that he did with Charles Weiner for an oral history project for the American Institute of Physics from 19661973. I, along with research assistants Anisha Cook and Janna Wennberg, who were instrumental in the books shape over the final summer, gathered thousands of quotes and then sorted them into the 26 topics that make up this book.

While no collection of quotations drawn from written works, notes, correspondence, and lectures can fully capture my fathers wide-ranging thoughts on various topics, it is my hope this compilation will provide the reader with a sense of his clarity, his humor, his unique way of looking at the world.

Michelle Feynman

If you go into any physics department at any university in the world and ask the undergraduates which scientist they most aspire to be like, I think a majority would say Richard Feynman. Einstein might come a close second. I would say Feynman.

Richard Feynman was one of the greatest physicists of the 20th century. His 1965 Nobel Prize, shared with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, was awarded for their work in developing the theory of quantum electrodynamics, which to this day stands as our most precise description of the interaction between light and matter. We wouldnt understand atoms without it. Feynmans name is most closely associated with the theory because of his introduction of Feynman diagrams. Every physicist working at CERN, or any modern particle physics laboratory, has been taught how to use Feynman diagrams. They are the foundation of our understanding of the subatomic world, allowing us to calculate what will happen when particles collide and even to predict the existence of new ones, like the Higgs Boson. I cannot imagine particle physics without them, and they probably wouldnt exist today without Feynman; I dont think anyone else would have come up with them. They are intuitively obvious after they have been explained to you, and yet you get the feeling that youd never have invented them yourself. This was Richard Feynmans particular genius; exploring nature using a sort of internalized intuitive magic. His approach was summarized famously by his friend and colleague Hans Bethe: There are two types of genius. Ordinary geniuses do great things, but they leave you room to believe that you could do the same if only you worked hard enough. Then there are magicians, and you can have no idea how they do it. Feynman was a magician.

Quantum electrodynamics alone is enough to place Feynman firmly among the greats, but there are plenty of Nobel Prizewinning physicists whose names few undergraduates would even recall, let alone hero worship. The reason for the unique esteem in which Richard Feynman is held, I think, can be found in this book. It is his incisive, humble logic; razor-sharp precision deployed with humanity; wonder catalyzing discovery; a deep love of nature and a powerful desire to understand how it works. When I read his words, which should be read in a New York working-mans accent, I hear the reassuring clarity of an old engineer whos popped round to fix your plumbing. There is no artifice, no obfuscation, no attempt to bamboozle or self-aggrandize; just a feeling that this person will get the job done with a minimum of fuss. Richard Feynman thought about physics like that. I often quote him in my own books because I can never put my feelings about physics quite as clearly as he could. There is a beautiful interview broadcast by the BBC in 1981 called The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, in which Feynman is asked about the possibility of discovering a Theory of Everything a complete mathematical framework which describes all of Nature at the most fundamental level.

People say to me, Are you looking for the ultimate laws of physics? No, Im not. Im just looking to find out more about the world, and if it turns out there is a simple ultimate law which explains everything, so be it; that would be very nice to discover. If it turns out its like an onion with millions of layers and were just sick and tired of looking at the layers, then thats the way it is! And therefore when we go to investigate we shouldnt pre-decide what it is we are trying to do except to find out more about it.... My interest in science is to simply find out more about the world.

That is, for me, a perfect description of science. Take delight in the small, rather than adopting futile intellectual postures in the face of the intricate infinite delicacy of nature and you might make a little progress. Reading his words, you will hear that message over and over again. I am a simple man, and I like to think carefully about simple things. Thats a real physicist talking.

This direct simplicity certainly didnt preclude lyricism when it came to describing the process of doing science. Some of my favorite quotes are those that reveal Feynmans inner picture of the scientific endeavor: We live in a heroic, a unique and wonderful age of excitement. Its going to be looked at with great jealousy in the ages to come. How would it have been to live in the time when they were discovering the fundamental laws? This is suffused with, to use a clich often hurled at scientists, childlike wonder, and Feynman was absolutely comfortable with such a double-edged compliment. I hate adults.

Feynman was also a polemicist, deploying his deliberate linguistic clarity to powerful effect whenever he got the chance. I can think of few physicists who would write, in an introductory lecture on electromagnetism: From a long view of the history of mankind, seen from, say, ten thousand years from now, there can be little doubt that the most significant event of the 19th century will be judged as Maxwells discovery of the laws of electrodynamics. The American Civil War will pale into provincial insignificance in comparison with this important scientific event of the same decade. I love this. I read it as an entirely appropriate swipe at the futility of provincial wars, prefiguring Carl Sagans Pale Blue Dot, the great lament for parochial human stupidity written three decades later: The Earth is a very small stage in a vast cosmic arena. Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

In these pages, then, you will catch a glimpse of genius, read the thoughts of one of historys great polymaths and one of the greatest scientists who ever lived. I hope you will learn a lot, as I have, and perhaps emerge with a little additional curiosity, wonder, humility, and respect for the natural world. Having said that, I dont wanna take this stuff seriously. I think we should just have fun imagining it and not worry about it.