All the time you're saying to yourself, 'I could do that, but I won't,' — which is just another way of saying that you can't.
— Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character
Richard Feynman was an American theoretical physicist who shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for work on quantum electrodynamics. The diagrams he invented to picture the behaviour of subatomic particles, now called Feynman diagrams, are still in everyday use, and he is credited with pioneering quantum computing and introducing the idea of nanotechnology.
He worked on the atomic bomb during the Second World War and taught for years at Caltech. The wider public came to know him in the 1980s through the Rogers Commission on the Challenger disaster and through the best-selling collections of his stories gathered by Ralph Leighton. His lectures for students and general audiences made him one of the best loved explainers of physics.
He worked on the atomic bomb during the Second World War and taught for years at Caltech. The wider public came to know him in the 1980s through the Rogers Commission on the Challenger disaster and through the best-selling collections of his stories gathered by Ralph Leighton. His lectures for students and general audiences made him one of the best loved explainers of physics.
Most quoted works
- Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character 7
- The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist 4
- The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman 3
- What Do You Care What Other People Think? 3
- The Character of Physical Law 2
- The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vols 1-2 2
I couldn't claim that I was smarter than sixty-five other guys--but the average of sixty-five other guys, certainly!
— Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character
Science is a long history of learning how not to fool ourselves.
— The Quotable Feynman
If one cannot see gravitation acting here, he has no soul.
— Six Easy Pieces: Essentials of Physics By Its Most Brilliant Teacher
…the imagination of nature is far, far greater than the imagination of man.
— What Do You Care What Other People Think?
I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.
— The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist
Words can be meaningless. If they are used in such a way that no sharp conclusions can be drawn.
— The Meaning of It All: Thoughts of a Citizen-Scientist
I learned from her that every woman is worriedabout her looks, no matter how beautiful she is.
— Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character
I can live with doubt and uncertainty and not knowing. I think it's much more interesting to live not knowing than to have answers that might be wrong.
— The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman
THE QUESTION IS, OF COURSE, IS IT GOING TO BE POSSIBLE TO AMALGAMATE EVERYTHING, AND MERELY DISCOVER THAT THIS WORLD REPRESENTS DIFFERENT ASPECTS OF ONE THING?
— The Feynman Lectures on Physics Vols 1-2