Richard Feynman. PHOTO BY CHRISTOPHER SYKES.
1918 May 11. Richard Phillips Feynman Record Examination scores in physics and Computations Group. is born in Manhattan to Melville Feynman math are the best they have ever seen and 1944 Richard is sent to Oak Ridge, and Lucille Phillips Feynman. The whose scores in history and literature are Tennessee, to correct the potentially cata- Feynmans eventually settle in Far lower than those of any applicant they strophic mishandling of nuclear material at Rockaway, Queens, sharing a house have ever considered accepting. Publishes the uranium processing labs. two papers, one his senior thesis, in (owned by Lucille’s father) with Lucille’s 1945 June. Arline dies in Albuquerque. Physics Review. Graduates from MIT. sister Pearl and her husband and family. July. The first atomic bomb is detonated. Richard begins graduate work at Princeton. 1927 Joan Feynman born. “I was “Those guys up where I was all had dark Richard Feynman’s first student and he 1940 Richard gives his first professional glasses. I’m the only guy who saw it with was my first teacher.” presentation. The audience, to his horror, the human eye…We jumped up and down, includes Wolfgang Pauli and Albert 1931 Richard meets Arline Greenbaum. we screamed, we ran around slapping Einstein. “And I can still see my own hands each other on the backs....Everything was 1934 High School physics teacher and as I pulled out the papers from the enve- perfect but the aim — the next one would ex-Columbia Ph.D student Abram Bader lope that I had them in. They were shaking. be aimed for Japan not New Mexico.” explains to Richard the Principle of Least As soon as I got the paper out and started November. Begins teaching at Cornell. Action. to talk, something happened to me which 1947 Spring. Seeing a plate thrown in 1935 Richard graduates from Far has always happened to me since....If I’m the Cornell cafeteria, Richard — “for fun” Rockaway High taking honors in all aca- talking physics, I love the thing, I think only — calculates the relationship between the demic subjects, including, thanks to an about physics, I don’t worry where I am; I wobble and spin of a flying plate. essay deliberately meant to appeal to his don’t worry about anything.” Eventually this was applied to his work on teachers’ biases, English. Rejected by 1941 Summer. Richard works at the spin of electrons. “The whole business Columbia because they had filled their Frankford Arsenal in Philadelphia. Arline I got the Nobel Prize for came from the quota of Jewish freshmen, Richard enrolls Greenbaum, long ill, is first diagnosed as piddling around with the wobbling plate.” at MIT with $100 a year scholarship. having Hodgkin’s disease, then, correctly, 1948 April. Richard and Julian 1936 Richard and Arline agree to marry tuberculosis. December. Pearl Harbor is Schwinger compare notes on Quantum when he finishes his degree. Richard attacked and the U.S. declares war. Electrodynamics at the Pocono changes his major from Electrical Richard is invited to join the Manhattan Conference. Oppenheimer, now director of Engineering to Math to, finally, Physics. Project. the Institute for Advanced Study at Richard and fellow sophomore prodigy Ted 1942 Spring. Richard quickly writes his Princeton, receives a paper from Japanese Welton enroll in MIT’s only course dealing thesis. June. Richard receives his Ph.D. On physicist Shin’ichiro Tomonaga — another with Quantum theory. On losing his place June 29 Richard takes Arline from Deborah version of QED. in his lecture, Julius Stratton, the instructor Hospital in Brown Mills, N.J. After they 1949 April. Richard presents his formula- for the first semester and later president of marry on Staten Island he returns her to tion of QED at Oldstone-on-the-Hudson the school, asks, “Mr. Feynman, how did the hospital. you handle this problem?” Conference. Shortly afterward young 1943 March 28. Richard and Arline leave physicist Freeman Dyson, speaking at the 1938 Richard and Welton are two for Los Alamos, New Mexico. Arline stays American Physical Society, declares, “We of only three students willing to take MIT’s at Presbyterian Sanitarium in Albuquerque. have the key to the Universe. Quantum first course in nuclear physics for credit. Hans Bethe, head of the Theory Division, Electrodynamics works and does every- 1939 The graduate admissions commit- makes Richard a group leader (Feynman is, thing you wanted it to do.” tee at Princeton considers Feynman, a by a decade, the youngest group leader) 1950 Richard accepts appointment as “diamond in the rough” whose Graduate and later head of the Theoretical Richard Feynman. PHOTO COURTESY OF MICHELLE FEYNMAN.
Professor of Theoretical Physics at the 1960 Gradually Richard falls in love with with cancer; the 14-pound tumor in his California Institute of Technology. Gweneth and — unable to make big abdomen has crushed his kidney and 1951-1952 Spends sabbatical year at decisions — sets a date in the future to spleen. the Center for Research in Physics, Rio de propose to her. The date comes and he 1983 MIT graduate student Daniel Janeiro; he plays in a samba band during finds the decision easy. They marry soon Hillis tells Feynman of his plans to leave Carnaval. after. school and start a company that will build 1954 Receives Albert Einstein Award. 1962 Son Carl Richard born. a computer using a million processors operating in parallel. “That is positively Elected to National Academy of Science. 1961-1962 As part of Caltech’s effort the dopiest idea I ever heard,” responds “When I was in high school, one of the to revitalize the physics curriculum, Feynman. He also insists on going to work first honors I got was to be a member of Feynman agrees to give up research for for Hillis’ Thinking Machine Corporation in the Arista....when I got into the Arista I two years and teach freshman Physics; the summer of that year. discovered that what they did in their the course is preserved in The Feynman meetings was to sit around and discuss Lectures on Physics, published in 1965. 1985 Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! who else was worthy to join this wonderful Feynman later tells a colleague that the published. Ralph Leighton, Richard’s friend group.... When I became a member of Lectures would, ultimately, prove his most and drumming partner (and son of the National Academy of Sciences, I had lasting contribution to Physics. Feynman’s Caltech colleague Robert ultimately to resign because that was Leighton) creates the book from tapes 1965 Feynman receives the Nobel Prize another organization most of whose time made during his drumming sessions with in Physics, along with Shin’ichiro was spent in choosing who was illustrious Feynman. Dr. Joan Feynman, knowing that Tomanaga and Julian Schwinger, for enough to join.” her brother is dying, takes a job at the Jet his work in Quantum Electrodynamics. “I Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena to be 1958 Summer, Geneva, Switzerland. don’t see that it makes any point that near Richard. Meets Gweneth Howarth, a young English someone in the Swedish Academy decides woman working her way around the world, this work is noble enough to receive a 1985 Feynman and Leighton publish and impulsively suggests she come work prize — I’ve already got the prize. The QED: The Strange Theory of Light and for him — keeping house — in Pasadena. prize is the pleasure of finding the thing Matter, taken from Richard’s Alix B. The next day Richard apologizes to out, the kick in the discovery, the observa- Mautner Memorial Lectures at UCLA, Gweneth for his forwardness, but she tion that other people use it — those are which created a popular explanation of accepts his offer anyway. the real things, the honors are unreal to quantum electrodynamics. 1959 Richard is appointed Chace me.” 1986 February. Richard joins the Rogers Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at 1967 Turns down honorary degree from Commission inquiry into the explosion of Caltech. Spends his sabbatical year as a University of Chicago. “...I thank you for the Space Shuttle Challenger. Engineers “graduate student” in biology at Caltech; considering me for such an honor. had warned NASA not to launch if temper- his duties include teaching first year biolo- However, I remember the work I did to get atures fell below 53 degrees and at a live gy. “I got a tremendous boost obtaining a real degree at Princeton and the guys on press conference Feynman uses a glass of the best score [from student evaluations] of the same platform receiving the honorary ice-water to demonstrate that the shuttle’s all teaching assistants; even in biology, not degrees without work — and felt that an rubber O-ring gaskets lose resiliency at low my field, I could explain things clearly and I honorary degree was a debasement of the temperatures. Feynman spends several was rather proud of it.” December. “There’s idea....” months investigating NASA operations and Plenty of Room at the Bottom,” ground- fights to have his work included in the 1968 Daughter Michelle Catherine born. breaking talk on nanotechnology delivered Commission’s final report; it is relegated to to annual meeting of American Physical 1972 Received Oersted Medal for the appendix. Teaching Society. 1986 - 1988 Feynman continued to 1959 Summer: After a year of red tape, 1973 Receives Niels Bohr International live his life in his unique and inimitable way, Gweneth receives a green card to work as Gold Medal and to battle cancer. The events of these Feynman’s housekeeper. She lives in her 1974 Delivers Commencement Address years are the setting of the play “QED.” own quarters and chauffeurs Feynman to at Caltech. work, having passed the California driving 1978 October. Richard is diagnosed —Timeline created by Christopher Breyer test with a 100% score without study.