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Introduction Early Life World War Two Contributions to Physics Challenger Bibliography |
Early LifeRichard was born on May 11th, 1918 in New York City, the first son of Melville and Lucille Feynman. He enjoyed science and mathmatics from a early age, most of which he took it upon himself to learn before it was taught in school. His primary source for self-learning was the Encylopedia Britannica and a lab that he set up in his room at home. In this lab he dabbled in electronics, whether it was repairing the radio or just making some circuits. In high school, Feynman was ahead in physics and mathematics, already a master of differential equations, trigonometry, and other high levels of calculus, but he was lacking in his other subjects, such as english and history. Feynman applied to many schools, but was turned down either because of his lacking social science grades, or because he was a Jew. Massachusettes Institute of Technology accepted him readily though, as one would expect being a top scientific school even then, and he set out to major in mathematics, though this changed several times. Feynman was not satisified by doing mathematics without an end purpose, and so he eventually ended up in the field of physics, more specifically interested in quantum physics. Richard recieved his BS from MIT in 1939, four years after entering college, and went on to recieve his PhD at Princeton. |