edited by MICHELLE FEYNMAN princeton university press princeton and oxford Copyright © 2015 by Michelle Feynman and Carl Feynman Requests for permission to reproduce material from this work should be sent to Permissions, Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, 41 William Street, Princeton, New Jersey 08540 In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, 6 Oxford Street, Woodstock, Oxfordshire OX20 1TW press.princeton.edu Cover image of Richard P. Feynman photographed by and © 1984 Faustin Bray,
[email protected] All Rights Reserved Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Feynman, Richard P. (Richard Phillips), 1918-1988, author. [Quotations. Selections] The quotable Feynman / edited by Michelle Feynman. pages cm Includes index. ISBN 978-0-691-15303-2 (hardcover : alk. paper) 1. Feynman, Richard P. (Richard Phillips), 1918-1988—Quotations. I. Feynman, Michelle, editor. II. Title. QC16.F49A25 2015 081—dc23 2015022699 British Library Cataloging-in-Publication Data is available This book has been composed in BodoniStd-Book Printed on acid-free paper. ∞ Printed in the United States of America 1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2 To Ava and Marco Contents A Brief Note on Sources Foreword, by Brian Cox Reflections on Richard Feynman, by Yo-Yo Ma Preface: My Quotable Father, by Michelle Feynman Chronology ix xi xv xvii xxiii Youth Family Autobiographical Art, Music, and Poetry Nature Imagination Humor Love Philosophy and Religion Nature of Science Curiosity and Discovery How Physicists Think The Quantum World Science and Society Mathematics Technology War Challenger Politics 3 15 23 51 57 83 89 103 109 123 165 185 197 213 223 241 249 261 271 viii Contents Doubt and Uncertainty Education and Teaching Advice and Inspiration Intelligence The Nobel Prize Worldview The Future Honoring Richard Feynman 281 293 317 327 333 345 355 363 Acknowledgments Photo Credits Sources Index 383 387 389 397 A Brief Note on Sources Richard Feynman has been called the great explainer. This book of quotes characterizes my father’s 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 1966–1973. I, along with research assistants Anisha Cook and Janna Wennberg, who were instrumental in the book’s 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 father’s 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 Foreword 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 T