Richard Phillip Feynman was born on May 11, 1918 in Far Rockaway, New York (a small town near New York City). His parents were Melville and Lucille Feynman. It was from his father, Melville, that Feynman got two things: his love of science, and dislike for ceremony and authority. These two things affected his later life greatly.

As a young child Feynman was always very curious. By the age of eleven he had constructed his own "lab" consisting of packing box, a shelf, a heater, a storage battery, and a lamp bank. A lamp bank is basically a bunch of light bulbs wired together in series and parallel, so the voltage of the circuit may be varied. A wall outlet from his house powered the lamp bank. Feynman realized that if he drew to much current with his lamp bank he could blow a fuse in the house, so what he did was take a blown fuse, then he fixed it with aluminum foil. It still conducted electricity but it would go out much easier than one of the fuses in the house, the house would then be protected from whatever he did.

As Feynman grew older he maintained his interest in science. He taught himself how to do many things. Including trigonometry (for which he developed his own notation, but had to scrap) and calculus. Soon after he began experimenting with the lamp bank, Feynman taught himself how to fix radios (he even made some money doing it too).