Birth of Richard Feynman

Richard Feynman was born on 11 May 1918 in Far Rockaway. An American theoretical physicist from New York, Feynman worked on the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos and later became a professor at Caltech. His development of quantum electrodynamics, including the diagrams that bear his name, won him the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965, shared with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. His Feynman Lectures on Physics became a classic textbook, and his talks and books, including his playful memoirs, made him a popular figure. In 1986 he served on the commission investigating the Challenger disaster and demonstrated how cold affected the rubber seals. He also played bongo drums and was a safe-cracking enthusiast.

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