Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman

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Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman Page 69

by James Gleick


  Catskill Mountains (New York), 28

  causality, 7, 40, 54, 70–72, 109, 112, 243, 365–66, 371

  Cedarhurst (New York), 20–21, 23, 26, 45, 151

  Centro Brasileiro de Pesquisas Fisicas, 278, 283–84

  “Century of Progress” (1933 World’s Fair), 40–42

  CERN (European Center for Nuclear Research), 381, 383

  Challenger (space shuttle), 11, 145, 415–28

  background, 425

  investigating commission, 416–17

  launch, 415–16

  O-rings, 418–23, 427–28

  risk assessment, 427–28

  Chandrasekhar, Subrahmanyan, 316

  chaos, 119, 182, 360, 430–31, 435–36

  Character of Physical Law, 13, 364–71

  Chaucer, 235

  chemistry, 38–39, 67, 79, 86–90, 99, 264

  quantum, 40, 87

  Chicago, University of, 10, 41, 141, 146, 157–58, 161, 164, 282, 309, 386

  honorary degree offer, 384

  recruiting of Feynman, 294

  Christian Century, 207

  Citizen Kane (Welles), 236

  City College of New York, 48, 215

  clouds, 22, 80–81, 154

  Cobb, Ty, 327

  Cohn, David L., 192 n

  Coleman, Sidney, 10 n, 323–24, 389, 405

  color (light), 130, 131, 321, 357, 362

  color (particle property), 229, 387, 390, 402–3, 432

  Columbia Grammar and Preparatory School (New York), 307, 309

  Columbia University, 49, 144, 180, 252, 267, 309, 334, 337, 384

  Rabi at, 53, 91, 232, 234

  Schwinger at, 215–16

  Commerce, Department of, United States, 296

  complementarity, 40, 54

  Compton, Karl, 55, 94, 138

  computing, 6, 175–82, 329, 348, 354–55, 435

  analog, 137

  ENIAC, 182

  Condon, Edward, 54–55

  consciousness, 68–69, 123–24, 243, 321, 431

  continental drift, 321

  Cook, Richard, 423–24

  Coolidge, Albert Sprague, 85

  Cooper, Leon, 303

  Copyright Office, United States, 328

  Coriolis force, 37

  Cornell University, 3, 53, 123

  Bethe at, 53, 80, 166, 225–27, 238, 277

  Dyson at, 7, 238–39

  Feynman at, 10, 204, 214–22, 225–27, 263, 277–78, 286, 288, 293–94, 365

  postwar growth, 210–12, 221

  women at, 212

  cosmic rays, 81–82, 98, 114, 168, 215, 253, 304, 332

  cosmology, 112–14, 123–26, 293, 353–54

  Crease, Robert, 433–34 n

  Crick, Francis, 349, 351, 382

  current algebra, 328, 338, 393

  Cutler, Monarch, 82–83

  Cvitanović, Predrag, 279–80 n

  cyclotron, 95–96, 107–8, 136, 160, 210–11, 305–6

  Daghlian, Harry, 196

  Darwin, Charles, 207

  Dawes, Rufus C, 41

  Day, Edmund Ezra, 210

  Delbrück, Max, 293, 340, 349

  Depression, 41, 46, 53, 55, 77, 281, 308

  Descartes, René, 58–59, 67–68

  diffusion, 79, 80, 171–75, 182, 249

  and entropy, 119

  in uranium separation, 139–40, 144

  DiMaggio, Joe, 328

  Dirac, Paul Adrien Maurice

  antimatter, 122, 253

  at Cambridge, 53–54, 166, 236

  Feynman and, 7, 184, 226, 228–29, 437

  as genius, 43–44, 322

  history of quantum mechanics, 72–73

  Lagrangian in quantum mechanics, 128–29, 131–32, 226

  parity and, 334

  at Pocono, 5, 7, 255–58

  The Principles of Quantum Mechanics, 56, 76, 99–100, 260

  religion and, 58

  renormalization and, 347–49

  Schwinger and, 48–49

  Slater and, 53–54

  Dirac equation, 5, 73, 229–30, 234, 261–62, 336–38

  discovery, 284, 313–14, 321

  individual vs. multiple, 329

  myths of, 279, 315, 380

  DNA, 14, 293, 349–351, 355, 386

  Dr. Strangelove (Kubrick), 156

  Don Juan, 319

  Double Helix, The (Watson), 386

  DuBridge, Lee, 295, 415

  Duff, William, 313

  Dyson, Freeman J., 298

  background, 235–38

  at Cornell, 235, 238

  Feynman and, 3–4, 7, 240–41, 244, 249–51, 262–66, 273, 323, 368, 424

  genius and, 317, 320–21, 323, 328

  Nobel Prize, 377–78

  Oppenheimer and, 269–70

  quantum electrodynamics, 239–40, 252, 259, 263, 266–72, 274, 279–80, 307, 309, 348, 367

  Schwinger and, 261, 266–68, 271

  Dyson, George, 235, 267

  Dyson, Mildred, 235–36

  Dyson graph, 269, 273

  earthquake science, 281–82

  Eastman, George, 55

  Eddington, Arthur, 52, 75, 109, 433

  Edgerton, Harold, 77

  Edison, Thomas Alva, 40–44, 54–55, 319–20, 329

  Einstein, Albert, 5, 9–10, 45, 54, 56, 70, 112, 120, 123, 129, 209, 244, 264, 281, 324, 386, 433–34

  atomic bomb, 136

  Bohr and, 40

  brain, 311–12

  ether, 18, 101–2

  Feynman and, 98, 115, 117, 118–19, 257

  legend, 41–44, 311–13, 320–22, 326

  Nobel Prize, 375–77

  photoelectric effect, 71, 377

  on Princeton, 97

  on quantum mechanics, 40, 45, 215, 243, 347

  relativity, 42–43, 71, 72, 255, 329, 351–52, 365, 368, 375, 429–30

  religion and, 58, 372

  retirement, 118–19

  Einstein Award, 295–96, 343, 378–79

  Eisenhower, Dwight D., 296, 297, 340

  electric light, 319, 329

  electricity, 320

  electron, 4, 5, 33, 71–73, 79, 86, 114, 122–23, 127, 231–32, 283, 306

  -electron interaction, 48–49, 273

  -neutron interaction, 270–71

  -photon interaction, 241–42, 246

  -positron interaction, 253–54

  -proton interaction, 391–95

  in beta decay, 335–37

  magnetic moment, 251–52

  reality of, 375

  self-energy, 99–102, 109–12, 239–40, 251–52, 256, 273–75, 380

  in solids, 88–90, 349

  spin, 229–31, 239

  two-slit experiment, 247–48, 250, 366

  electron microscope, 38, 355

  electroweak theory, 431

  Encyclopaedia Britannica, 25, 38, 49, 286, 354–55

  energy, 31, 38–39

  conservation of, 60, 88, 139, 330, 360–61

  force vs., 87–89, 226

  gravity waves and, 352

  infinite, 49, 99, 253

  kinetic and potential, 60–61, 121

  mass and, 4, 42

  negative, 122, 253

  quantum mechanics and, 71–72, 74, 127

  textbooks and, 398

  Engineering and Science, 355–56

  ENIAC, 182

  entropy, 355, 362–63, 435

  Erhard, Werner, 405–6

  Esalen Institute, 407

  est Foundation, 405

  ether, 18, 42, 48, 101

  Ethical Culture School (New York), 24, 159

  Euclid, 34, 41, 121

  evolution, 31–32, 208, 332

  exclusion principle, 6–7, 255, 258

  explanation, 357, 364–75

  Explorer satellites, 415–16

  Far Rockaway (New York), 20–24, 45–49, 64, 98, 126, 191, 409

  Temple Israel, 219, 296

  Far Rockaway High School, 30–36, 60–61, 302

&
nbsp; Young People’s Socialist League, 296

  Faraday, Michael, 101

  Faulkner, William, 380

  Faust (Goethe), 52, 66, 208, 236

  Federal Bureau of Investigation, 296–97

  Fermat, Pierre de, 57–58, 61, 250

  Fermat’s last theorem, 267

  Fermi, Enrico, 305, 309

  calculating ability, 175

  death, 294

  Feynman and, 282–83

  as genius, 322

  “lightness of approach,” 166–67

  nuclear reactor, 146, 157, 161

  nuclear research, 79, 95, 173

  at Pocono, 5, 255–57

  Schwinger and, 216

  at Trinity, 155, 203

  Fermi-Dirac statistics, 399

  Fermi interaction, see weak interaction

  Feynman, Anne (paternal grandmother), 24

  Feynman, Arline Greenbaum (first wife), 45–46, 64–65, 67, 69, 91, 116–17, 146, 184–88, 206, 212–14, 221–22, 264, 287, 289, 290, 343, 409–10

  illness, 117, 126–27, 134–35, 149–51, 159–60, 170, 191–96, 200–202

  marriage, 149–51

  Feynman, Carl (son), 346, 378, 396–98, 405, 409, 435

  Feynman, Gweneth Howarth (third wife), 340–47, 353, 378, 401–2, 405, 408, 426, 438

  Feynman, Henry Phillips (brother), 25–26, 46, 221

  Feynman, Joan (sister), 16, 19, 26–27, 30, 40–42, 46, 64, 135, 194–95, 202, 220–21, 335–36, 438

  Feynman, Louis (paternal grandfather), 24

  Feynman, Lucille (née Phillips, mother), 15, 19, 23, 24–26, 27–28, 32, 40–42, 46, 115, 149–51, 156, 159, 169, 182–83, 201, 213–14, 220–21, 263, 293, 346, 378–79, 397

  Feynman, Mary Louise (second wife), see Bell,

  Mary Louise

  Feynman, Melville (father), 22, 24–26, 27–31, 40–42, 46, 68, 91, 126, 133, 149–51, 169, 176, 186, 214, 219–22, 242, 379, 388, 410

  Feynman, Michelle (daughter), 346, 396–98, 401, 408, 437

  Feynman, Richard Phillips

  “aggressive dopiness,” 405

  ambition, 34, 170, 265–66

  atomic bomb and, 3, 6, 11, 15, 140, 153–205, 213, 216, 218, 224–25, 263–64, 417

  awards, 295–96, 343, 375–86

  beaches and, 21–22, 283–87, 339, 401

  beauty and, 13, 373, 435

  birth, 25

  books, 11–13

  The Character of Physical Law, 13, 364–71

  The Feynman Lectures on Physics, 12, 21–22, 37–38, 145, 357–64, 407, 435–36

  Photon-Hadron Interactions, 395

  QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter, 13

  Quantum Electrodynamics, 12

  Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, 11, 409–11

  Theory of Fundamental Processes, 12

  What Do You Care What Other People Think?, 11

  calculating ability, 9–10, 14–15, 33–36, 60, 175–78

  California Institute of Technology and, 277–78, 282–83, 293–94, 311, 338, 340–41, 349, 398, 404, 406–7, 435, 437

  Challenger and, 11, 145, 415–28

  childhood, 17–49

  children, 346, 378, 396–98, 401, 405, 408–9, 435, 437

  college admission, 49

  consulting, 223, 295, 406, 434

  at Cornell, 3, 10, 204, 214–22, 225–27, 277–78, 286, 288, 293–94, 365

  culture and, 14, 32, 65, 83, 185, 285–87, 292

  diagrams and, 7–8, 11, 17, 104, 130–31

  divorce, 293

  draft status, 222–25, 297

  dreams, 69–70

  drugs and, 14, 406

  education, 30–36, 55–56, 60–61

  as educator, 12, 98, 216–18, 262, 278–79, 357–60, 397–401

  examinations, 30, 49, 52, 65, 66, 83–84, 130

  Gell-Mann and, 11, 310–11, 315, 332–39, 346–47, 354, 367, 387–89, 411, 434

  graduation, 91–92, 148

  honorary degrees, 148, 384

  illness, 401–4, 408, 410, 417, 437–38

  investigation of, 296–97

  irresponsibility, 181, 200, 386, 388

  lecturing, 114–15

  marriages, 151, 292, 346

  Mexico house, 379, 402

  money and, 98, 192, 349, 406–7

  Nobel Prize, 9, 49, 375–83

  “Notebook of Things I Don’t Know About,”130

  obituary, 437

  parents and, 25–30, 91, 149–51, 215–16, 220–21

  patents of, 15, 218

  physical intuition, 131, 142, 243–45, 302–3, 325–26

  poetry and, 7–8, 31–32, 69, 105, 244, 373–74, 412–13, 436–37

  politics, 292, 297

  psychiatry and, 223–25

  radios and, 17–19, 46–47

  rationality, 70, 115–16, 220–22

  religion and, 22–23, 31–32, 65, 84–85, 115, 220–21, 372–73

  reputation, 3, 9–12, 36, 51, 96, 129–31, 184

  rhythmic sense, 16, 65, 78, 106, 191, 243, 277, 286

  safecracking, 15, 189–90

  scientific work computing, 6, 138, 175–82, 190–91, 198, 201, 329, 407–8, 414–15, 435

  cosmic rays, 81–82, 215

  electrodynamics (Wheeler-Feynman), 110–15, 117–29, 147, 215, 246, 253–54, 381

  forces in molecules, 9, 86–90

  genetics, 14, 349–51

  gravitation, 9, 120, 316, 351–54, 434

  partons, 9, 390–96

  path integrals, 132, 174, 229–31, 246–51, 254–55, 275, 349, 354

  predetonation, 6, 168–69

  quantum electrodynamics, 6–9, 127–29, 146–48, 245–52, 258, 267–77

  quantum mechanics, 74–76

  superfluidity, 9, 298–303

  tiny machines, 14, 354–56, 407

  weak interactions, 9, 335–39

  and the sixties, 405–7

  socialization of, 26–27, 32, 45–46, 62–64, 97–98

  sports and, 32, 63, 401

  storytelling, 11, 25, 28–29, 46–47, 222–25

  theses, 9, 86–90, 138–41, 146–48, 215, 229, 246, 249

  war work, 137–38. See also isotron project; atomic bomb

  women and, 3, 5, 32, 45–46, 63–64, 97, 192, 200, 212, 277, 286–93, 342–46, 411–12

  Feynman diagrams, 7–8, 11, 270–76, 282, 303, 330, 335, 348, 352, 394, 437

  acceptance of, 275–78

  precursors, 104, 130–31

  Schwinger and, 276–77

  Feynman-Hellmann theorem, 89—90

  Feynman Lectures on Physics, 12, 21–22, 37–38, 145, 357–64, 407, 435–36

  Field, Richard, 402–3

  field, 18–19,48–49, 121, 139, 260

  derived from quantum mechanics, 368

  Feynman’s aversion to, 100–101, 109–10, 146–47, 250, 380

  gravitational, 74, 351–52

  neutrino, 337

  particles and, 102, 132, 275

  parton, 391–95

  paths of, 275

  visualization of, 102, 242, 245–46

  field theory, 48–49, 118, 146, 250, 256, 261–62, 275, 279–80, 326, 348, 381, 402

  decline of, 330

  fission, nuclear, 79, 95, 136, 146, 161–63, 168, 172–73

  Fitzgerald, F. Scott, 97

  flavor (particle property), 229, 390, 403

  Fleming, Alexander, 133, 329

  Flexagons, 9, 103–4, 131

  “The Flight of the Bumblebee,” 15

  Fonda, Henry, 44

  Ford, Henry, 40

  Fort Knox, 164

  Fowler, Willy, 316

  Frankel, Stanley, 180

  Frankford Arsenal (Philadelphia), 137–38

  free will, 431

  French, Bruce, 253–54

  Freud, Sigmund, 318, 326

  friction, 9, 29, 299–302, 356, 361, 398

  Frisch, Otto, 154, 203

  Fuchs, Klaus, 6, 185, 187, 190, 191, 201, 296–97
/>   functional roots, 137

  Gardner, Martin, 104

  gauge invariance, 256

  Gauss, Carl Friedrich, 311

  Gell-Mann, Margaret, 346

  Gell-Mann, Murray, 232, 348, 351, 382

  background, 307–9

  at Caltech, 311, 338, 340–41, 346–47, 402, 405, 407

  Feynman and, 11, 310–11, 315, 332–39, 346–47, 354, 367, 387–89, 411, 434

  Nobel Prize, 376–77, 396

  parity, 332–35

  quarks, 390–96

  on Schwinger, 277, 308

  on solid-state physics, 14

  strangeness, 309–10, 360

  SU(3), 387, 389–91

  weak interactions, 335–39

  Gelman, Benedict, 308

  General Electric, 141, 223

  general relativity, see relativity

  genetics, 14, 133, 293, 349–51, 355, 358

  Geneva, 339–40

  genius, 8, 36, 311–29

  American, 318–19

  disappearance of, 312, 327–29

  Edison as, 319–20

  imagination in, 313, 324–25

  literature of, 312–15

  madness and, 314–19

  as “magician,” 10–11, 312, 315–17, 324

  mythologizing of, 10–11, 43–44, 315, 322

  originality, 10, 324–26

  physical basis of, 311–12

  physicists’ view of, 8, 322–24

  rationalization of, 315–16

  Gerard, Alexander, 314

  Germany, 22, 42, 77–78, 97, 128, 140, 167, 260, 414

  Gershwin, George, 186

  Gilbert, William, 68

  Glashow, Sheldon, 405

  God, 317, 318, 322, 372–73, 398

  Feynman and, 31–32, 115, 220–21, 372–73

  proofs of, 58–59, 67–68

  scientists and, 58–60

  Gödel, Kurt, 295, 429

  Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von, 66, 236

  Goldberger, Marvin, 293, 404

  Goodstein, David, 12 n, 363, 386–87

  Gordon, Walter, 73

  Gould, Stephen Jay, 327

  Graduate Record Examination, 83–84

  Graham, William R., 417–21

  gravitation, 9, 42, 56, 74–75, 111, 115, 120, 309, 316, 351–54, 365

  Groves, Leslie R., 143–44, 159–60

  Grünewald, Matthias, 65–66

  gyroscope, 362

  hadron, 392–95

  Hamiltonian method, 128, 226

  Handler, Philip, 384

  Hardy, Godfrey Harold, 236

  Harvard University, 83, 85, 97, 141–42, 160, 182, 216, 276–77, 308, 378, 404

  Harvey, Thomas S., 311–12

  Harvey, William, 68

  Hawking, Stephen, 322, 430–32

  Heisenberg, Werner. See also uncertainty in quantum mechanics

  atomic bomb and, 140

  cosmic rays and, 82

  Feynman and, 404

  quantum mechanics, 72–73, 75, 88, 102, 232, 246, 269, 367, 391

 

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