Richard Feynman :: biography biographies bio

Early Years * Richard Phillips Feynman was born May 11, 1918 to Melville and Lucille Feynman. His sister, Joan, followed later, March 31, 1928. * Richard's life was charted for science before he was even born. Melville decided while the child was still in the womb that if the baby was a boy he would grow up to be a scientist. Richard, in fact, was a boy and his precocious young mind caught on quickly to his father's earliest scientific teaching. His father's practice of teaching Richard to ask investigative questions began a lifetime devoted to the wonder and mystery of the universe. * It was this process, learned early in life, of questioning and observing, the classic scientific method, that Richard credited his discoveries by. As he stated in an address to science teachers in 1966, " I think it is very important--at least it was to me--that if you are going to teach people to make observations, you should show that something wonderful can come from them. I learned then what science was about: it was patience. If you looked, and you watched, and you paid attention, you got a great reward from it--although possibly not every time. As a result, when I became a more mature man, I would painstakingly, hour after hour, for years, work on problems--sometimes many years, sometimes shorter times; many of them failing, lots of stuff going into the wastebasket--but every once in a while there was the gold of a new understanding that I had learned to expect when I was a kid, the result of observation. For I did not learn that observation was not worthwhile (What Is Sc ience?)." * In high school, Richard's aptitude for learning was most evident. He excelled at math, building a solid foundation for his physics career ahead. In fact, he won first prize in the New York University math competition in his final year in Far Rockaway high school (Wikipedia). * After high school, Richard continued his education at Massachusetts Institute of Technology graduating with a degree in physics in 1939 as well as receiving the pretigious Putnam Fellow reward (Wikipedia). As an undergraduate, Feynman took every physics course offered at the university. He then continued his education, moving on to Princeton to study for his Ph.D. Once again, Feynman showed his facility with all things mathematical, receiving a perfect score on the mathematical and physics portion of the Princeton entrance exam.