1. My wife, Carrie Rinker-Schaeffer (now associate professor in surgery, the University of Chicago) got her PhD at the University of Kentucky starting in 1986. One of her fellow biochemistry students was a very bright fellow by the name of Bharath Srinivasan. One day, Bharath was arguing with someone about a point of physics and announced, "There is only one person in the world to ask about this, and that is Richard Feynman." So he got on the phone and called Feynman's office at Caltech, and miraculously got through to him. In a tumble of words and without pausing, he said, "Professor Feynman my name is Bharath Srinivasan and I am a grad student at the University of Kentucky and we have this argument about physics and you are the only one who can help please don't hang up on me..." Feynman told him to go ahead and Bharath asked, "Is time a vector or a scalar quantity?" Feynman said something like, "You know, that's a very interesting question..." and proceeded to talk at some length on the subject. (Unfortunately, I don't know how the discussion went.) Then Feynman asked if Bharath were from India, which he was, and they talked for a while about that country, which Feynman apparently had a great interest in. Then they talked about graduate education in the United States and a bunch of other topics. Finally, after about 2 hours, Feynman indicated that he had to go, and Bharath's response was, "Oh, Dr. Feynman, this has been great and thanks for talking to me. May I call you again some time?" Feynman replied, "No."

2. When Richard Feynman was a professor at Cornell University, he was asked to teach a weekly course at an aeronautics laboratory in Buffalo. One night, to make his trip to Buffalo a little more exciting, he decided to stop into a bar. Feynman enjoyed the bar, called the Alibi Room, and frequented it often. One night he ran into a drunk in the bathroom. When Feynman entered, the drunk boomed, I don't like your face. I think I'll push it in. Feynman retorted, Get out of my way... The drunk promptly punched him in the face, and before he knew what had happened, Feynman had punched back with equal strength! The drunk was dumbfounded, and backed out of the bathroom. But Feynman's troubles did not end there. Feynman stubbornly stayed in the bar and continued to drink his Coke [another story]. Later, the drunk, Curly, and his mob approached Feynman. They wanted to fight, but Feynman was still stubborn and didn't budge. So the mob backed away. Curly's temper flared again, however, and Feynman felt that he might have a fight on his hands. Luckily for Feynman, another man came into the bar and proceeded to introduce Curly to Feynman, after which Feynman quickly slipped out of the door. Richard Feynman: physicist, drummer, safecracker, boxer (?).

3. During all of World War II, Richard Feynman was deferred from the army because he was working on the bomb at Los Alamos. After the war, however, he was required by the government to get a physical. Feynman passed quickly through most of the procedures: checking vision, hearing, etc. However, when Feynman arrived at the next booth he was confronted with one of his most hated foes: a psychiatrist. After the psychiatrist talked with an angry Feynman for 25 minutes, he called another colleague in. During their talk, Feynman did not answer the psychiatrist's questions directly, giving extensive, and sometimes almost silly answers. When the other psychiatrist was done speaking to him, Feynman handed his papers to an army officer. The officer handed Feynman's papers back with 'REJECTED' stamped in large red letters. It turns out that Feynman had received a 'D' [deficient] on the psychiatric portion of the examination. Upon writing a letter to the army explaining his situation, Feynman received the following result: Deferred. 4F. Medical Reasons. Much of this information was taken from the book Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman

4. Richard Feynman was obviously a remarkable person as an adult, but what was he like as a child? It is no surprise that the young Feynman was an overachiever. Even his friends sensed that he was extremely smart when, in his senior year, they named him not 'Most Intelligent' or anything of that sort, but 'Mad Genius'. Throughout his high school years he made it no secret that he was intelligent. He set up a small chemistry 'lab' which consisted, mainly, of a chemistry set and a few other tools. Unfortunately, his lab was burnt down by a few vile children in his neighborhood. Searching for another hobby, Feynman turned to math. Possibly his most favorite events during his high school career were math team meets. Feynman enjoyed the competitive intensity of the New York High School math meets, and of course, he always performed well. But then, he did have a head start on the rest of his colleagues. By the age of 15, Feynman had mastered trigonometry and calculus, both integral and differential. He then quickly moved on to understanding conics and complex numbers. It was no surprise when, in his senior year, he won the annual New York University Math Championship. Thus, Feynman went through high school as triumphantly as he went through the rest of his life. Who would believe that this incredible man, a genius for sure, maybe more, scored a mere 125 on his grade school IQ test?