Education Feynman teaching: http://ysfine.com/feynman/ 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. It was during this period when Feynman married Arline Greenbaum, his high school sweetheart. Arline had been diagnosed with tuberculosis, a highly contagious and fatal disease. Richard married Arline anyway; he desired to be the one caring for her as she ended her life. Her life did end all too quickly, in July of 1945, with Richard by her side. In the death of Arline Richard lost his soul mate, trusted confidante and companion. While Richard was finishing at Princeton, Robert Wilson approached him about aiding in the research of the atomic bomb at the Los Alamos Laboratory. Wilson was a group leader at the research facility and recognized Richard's talents in the mathematical and physics arenas. Initially Feynman was hesitant, but the drive to discover the atomic mechanism before Nazi Germany provided adequte incentive for Feynman to join the effort. So Richard moved to Los Alamos, installing Arline close by in a hospital in Alberquerque. During the week he remained at Los Alamos and then on the weekend he drove to the hospital to be with Arline. http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en-commons/4/41/Richard_Feynman_ID_badge.png It was at Los Alamos that Richard developed his fascination with safecracking. He was worried about the security of the filing cabinets and combination safes containing the research at the Los Alamos facility so he began researching the topic. Los Alamos soon had a budding safecracker! Feynman loved to play pranks on his Los Alamos colleagues. Once, he left a set of notes in one of the filing cabinets, sparking concern that there was a spy with access to the sensitive information. In 1945, shortly after Arline's death, the completed atomic bomb was tested to complete success. Safe cracking! http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/PictDisplay/Feynman.html