Richard P. Feynman

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Richard P. Feynman Early Life Richard was born on May 11th, 1918, in New York City, the first son of Melville and Lucille Feynman. He enjoyed science and mathematics from an early age, most of which he taught himself before it was taught in school. His primary source for self-learning was the Encyclopedia Britannica and a lab that he set up in his room at home. In this lab, he dabbled in electronics, whether it was repairing the radio or just making some circuits. In high school, Feynman was ahead in physics and mathematics, already a master of differential equations, trigonometry, and other high levels of calculus, but he was lacking in his other subjects, such as English and history. Feynman applied to many schools but was turned down either because of his lacking grades in social sciences or because of his Jewish background. However, Massachusetts Institute of Technology readily accepted him, being a top scientific school even then, and he set out to major in mathematics, though he changed his major several times. Feynman was not satisfied with doing mathematics without a specific purpose, and so he eventually ended up in the field of physics, specifically interested in quantum physics. Richard received his BS from MIT in 1939, four years after entering college, and went on to receive his PhD at Princeton. World War II After college, Feynman began to shine in his field. In 1942, he was invited to join the team that developed the atomic bomb in Los Alamos and Princeton. Initially, he declined to help create a weapon of such mass destruction, but he changed his mind when he considered that Hitler would likely have no qualms about making an atom bomb. Richard played a crucial role in developing safe methods to separate various radioactive materials and determining the amount of uranium needed to achieve critical mass without requiring large-scale detonations. Major Contributions to Physics After World War II, and a brief respite from research, Feynman resumed his work on quantum physics. Over the next few decades, he worked on several projects and achieved success in most of them. Along with another physicist, he tested and proved their theory on "weak decay," which explains how it occurs and its results. Feynman's most significant contribution was his diagrams that describe how particles act in a system and express this movement in mathematics.

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