THE LIFE OF RICHARD FEYNMAN

Richard Feynman's parents were Melville Feynman and Lucille Phillips. After their marriage Lucille and Melville Feynman moved to Manhattan and, in the following year, their first child Richard was born. Melville wanted his son to be a scientist so he tried to interest him in science at a young age. Richard had a brother who died when four weeks old. Later he had a sister named Joan and moved to Far Rockaway.
Feynman learnt a great deal of science from the Encyclopaedia Britannica and began teaching himse elementary mathematics before he encountered it at school. He also set up a laboratory in his room at home where he experimented with electricity. By the time he got to high school, his interests were entirely in mathematics and science. He had no time for art. He continued to studie mathematics in his own time including trigonometry, calculus, and complex numbers.
He entered MIT in 1935 and, after four years study, obtained his B.Sc. in 1939. Though he started out as a math major, he eventually switched to electrical engineering and later physics.
He received his doctorate from Princeton in 1942 but before this time the United States had entered World War II. Feynman worked on the atomic bomb project at Princeton University (1941-42) and then at Los Alamos (1943-45), Developing a theory of how to separate Uranium 235 from Uranium 238. His remarkable abilities soon led to him being appointed as head of the theoretical division.
After World War II, Feynman was appointed as a professor of theoretical physics at Cornell University, where he began research on the quantum theory of electrodynamics.
In 1950 Feynman accepted a position as professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology. He remained at Cal tech for the rest of his career.
Feynman's main contribution was to quantum mechanics, following on from the work of his doctoral thesis. He introduced diagrams (now called Feynman diagrams) that are graphic analogues of the mathematical expressions needed to describe the behaviour of systems of interacting particles. He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1965, jointly with Schwinger and Tomonoga. Other work on particle spin and the theory of 'partons' which led to the current theory of quarks were fundamental in pushing forward an understanding of particle physics. His final major task was as a member of a committee set up to investigate the cause of the explosion on the space shuttle Challenger.
Near the end of 1987 cancer was found, for a second time, in his abdomen. He died in 1988 after a long fight with cancer.