2023-05-10 20:00:00
“Dying is boring.” These were Richard Feynman’s last words before he passed away on February 15, 1988, at the age of 69, from abdominal cancer. The physicist thus maintained, in his last moments, the peculiar joking genius that had accompanied him throughout his life. And it is that, revolutionary of the world of science for his study of path integralsfrom quantum electrodynamics the one of superfluidityamong others, Feynman also stood out for his extroverted and joking public figure that, on certain occasions, came to place him in the crosshairs of various controversies.
Dubbed “the smartest man in the world” by the magazine Omni in 1979, and as “one of the 10 greatest physicists of all time” by the British Physics World the Nobel winner argued that, really, no one ever understood quantum physics. In his biographical book Are you kidding, Mr. Feynman?, defines his unique way of “doing science”, in which he stressed that it was important not to try to understand scientific explanations in familiar terms, but to enjoy and relax while experts explained how nature works.
And it is that, under its peculiar character without holding back, it collects in these memories some anecdotes that make him a more than unique character: “For some time, restaurants became fashionable topless. One would go there for lunch, the girls would dance naked from the waist up and, after a while, completely naked. It turned out that one of those places was a few kilometers from my house, so I went there frequently. He would take a seat in one of the stalls and do a little physics on the paper placemats on the table. Gweneth, my wife, didn’t mind my going to that place; she said that the English went to clubs ”.
Caltrech Archives
EARLY YEARS
From a humble family, Feynman was born in May 11, 1918 outside of New York, in the Bronx. His father was a sales manager at a uniform company and was responsible for instilling a love of science in his son, encouraging him to ask questions that challenged his thinking in order to learn new things. His sense of humor and transparency were, however, an inheritance from his mother. He himself tells that, during his childhood, he did not utter a single word until he was 3 years old.
At the age of 13, he began autonomously in the study of differential calculus, emphasizing widely in front of their peers. At 18 he entered the Massachusetts Institute of Technologywhere he trained in mathematics and physics to finally, at 21, be admitted to the Princeton University to develop his thesis, drawing the attention of other great scientists for his remarkable intelligence.
Caltech Archives
Feynman in his office in 1974
On one occasion, at the gates of the Second World Warthe physicist Bob Wilson approached him to talk about a job he had been entrusted with: the separation of uranium isotopes with the aim of create an atomic bomb. Feynman tells in his memoirs that, at first, he flatly refused and continued working on his thesis. However, he spent several minutes thinking about the proposal: “The Germans had Hitler and the possibility that they would develop an atomic bomb before us was too terrifying.” Under this justification, decided to collaborate in the project.
THE MANHATTAN PROJECT
Feynman’s motivation to help the United States develop the atomic bomb before Nazi Germany led him to participate in the Manhattan Project, located in the research center of Poplars, where hundreds of American scientists worked to achieve that common goal. The role of the physicist was not essential to the project, but it was of great importancesince he coordinated the entire human calculation group and, later, managed the transition to the use of punch cards for IBM.
Robert Oppenheimer, the repentant father of the atomic bomb
During the first test of the bomb, known as TrinityFeynman is said to have been the only that he did not wear dark glasses to view the event, as he claimed that looking through the truck’s windshield would protect him from harmful ultraviolet emission.
After the success of the test, Feynman’s work was less, since most of the work was already done. “There was nothing to do there,” the physicist commented in his memories. He then dedicated himself to trying to open locks and decipher security codes of the project itself, which helped to look for vulnerabilities in the encryption of the American equipment and reinforce security against possible infiltrations.
CC
Feynman (center) and Oppenhaimer (right) chatting at Los Alamos during their involvement with the Manhattan Project
However, the explosion of the bomb against the Japaneseon August 6, 1945, was a blow to conscience of the scientist “I was on this spree, drinking too and drunk sitting on the hood of a Jeep; playing the drum with excitement while we toured Los Alamos at the same time that there were people dying and fighting in Hiroshima ”, he described for an interview with the BBC. She was only 27 years old at the time and it would take her 20 more to win the Nobel Prize.
in his book The pleasure of discovering, narrates that the regrets They arrived when they saw the consequences of their actions, admitting that they did not regret collaborating in the development of the bomb, since the possibility of Germany getting hold of it was much worse, but that it was a mistake not to reconsider the situation and abandon the project. project when Germany was defeated. In fact, he makes a great reflection on all the concerns that arose for the future, because he did not see the need to build another bomb: using it again would only entail risks, tensions and deaths. For this reason, when the government materialized its desire to create another for the future, Feynman abandoned the project.
THE NOBEL PRIZE OF 1965
After World War II, Feynman, at just 30 years old and with a stunning reputation, began teaching classes at the Cornell University. His students described his classes as “masterful”. The physicist managed to show the atomic theory in a simple way, starting from absolute ignorance and always helped by some simple and elegant diagrams that supported his explanations, but whose beauty and aesthetic factor encouraged the imagination. These schemes went down in history as the Feynman diagramsfundamental in any explanation of particle physics.
CERN
Feynman teaching one of his famous classes
He recounts in his book that the motivation to bring the understanding of quantum physics closer to all kinds of audiences arose from a everyday episode in the college cafeteria where he taught. Feynman narrates that he was having a coffee, when one of his students began to joke, throwing a plate through the air. The physicist noticed that, in the center of it, there was a university medallion that rotated faster than it wobbled, which seemed very curious to him and he decided to calculate its movement. He found himself, then, sitting on the floor of his house, at dawn with many papers with equations which he had obtained. simplify in a few explanatory diagrams. “I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be fun if these diagrams were really useful and other people started using them?”
Ramón y Cajal, the Spanish Nobel Prize winner who entered the brain
Unknowingly, Feynman had just launched a new theory known as quantum electrodynamics, which explains the interaction between light and matter and allows us to understand the bases of electricity, X-rays and magnetism. For the development of this theory from his first diagrams and equations, he had the collaboration of physicists Julian Schwinger y Sin-Itiro Tomagawith whom he shared the Noble de 1965.
Caltech Archives
Feynman receiving the Nobel Prize in 1965
“It was nice to get some money — which allowed me to buy a house on the beach — but on the whole it seems to me that it would have been better not to have received the Nobel Prizebecause now I can no longer show myself as I am in any public situation ”, he collects himself.
THE CHALLENGER DISASTER
In his last years of life, Feynman played a very important role within the Presidential Rogers Commission, which had the objective of investigating the disaster of the space shuttle Challenger, which occurred in 1986. This accident represented the most serious in the entire space conquest, since it led to the disintegration of the vehicle 73 seconds after its launch, causing the death of the seven members of his crew. Thus, during a televised hearing, Feynman showed that the failure he had been in the theoretical meetings of the ship, since the material used became less resistant in cold climates.
In his posthumous book What do you care what others think?, Feynman devotes the entire second half to narrating his experience in this commission, thus deviating from his daily cheerful and joking narrative to adopt a more sober tone. In it he alleges that found misunderstandings of very surprising general concepts among NASA technicians, as well as a very relevant disconnect between engineers and executives. TV documentary drama The Challenger Disaster collected in 2013 part of Feynman’s research.
A couple of years later, Feyman passes away in Los Angeles leaving behind a total of 9 books, where he combines memories, theoretical physics and popular science. There is no doubt that his overwhelming personality, his unconventional way of thinking, his sense of humor, his intelligence and his remarkable ability to disseminate physics they assured him a place in the history of science that will keep you present forever.
#Nobel #atomic #bomb #topless #restaurants