Brief Biography Of Richard Feynman

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Richard Phillips Feynman was an American theoretical physicist, known for his theory of Quantum Electrodynamics, and for his ‘Feynman Diagrams’ He was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his contribution to the field of Quantum Electrodynamics. He also helped in the development of the atomic bomb. Richard Feynman was born on May 11th, 1918, in Far Rockaway, New York. He was a mathematical prodigy in his younger days, he had learnt calculus on his own at the age of 15, and had won the New York University Math Championship. He received his Bachelor of Science degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1939 and later a PhD from Princeton in 1942. He was recruited to participate in the Manhattan Project, with many other scientists to create an atomic bomb. The project was top secret at the time and they did their research at an isolated place called Los Alamos, in New Mexico. Feynman found entertainment, in the otherwise dull place, by playing practical jokes on his colleagues. He guessed the combinations to locked cabinets, wherein a colleague had kept his research notes, and then replaced them with other notes, scaring his colleague who was paranoid that a Soviet spy had gotten to his work. Feynman, being the unique individual that he was, would sometimes climb up a near-by mesa alone to drum like the Native Americans. Feynman would discuss and argue about Physics with Niels Bohr, when the other scientists were hesitant to, since he was a much respected physicist. He had rationalistic beliefs and his philosophy in life that he promoted was to keep an open mind. He once said “Philosophers say a great deal about what is absolutely necessary for science, and it is always, so far as one can see, rather naive, and probably wrong.” During the time when other physicists were still not convinced that the Feynman diagrams were correct, Feynman had
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