I once read a set of personality test questions on the Internet. One of the questions was, "if you could meet any three people in the world alive or dead, who would they be, and why?" (Or something like that). One of the people I chose was Richard Feynman.
Feynman was one of many young physicist that worked on the Manhattan project. Later in life he won the Nobel Prize for his work on quantum electrodynamics (no, I’m not exactly sure what that is-- something to do with quantum mechanics and particles taking every path at the same time rather than any of the infinite options). His 1959 lecture, "There's Plenty of room at the bottom," is also widely credited as the start of the science of nanotechnology. In addition, he was also the person who (among others I would guess) who figured out that the space shuttle Challenger exploded because of the faulty O-rings.
All of that is only half of why I chose him as one of the three I would like to meet. The other half was that he was just an extraordinarily interesting character. Feynman wrote several books about his adventures. Ever read about how a Nobel physist approaches meeting women? How about his experiments in sensory deprivation chambers? Better yet is his "hacker" past as a guy who made a hobby in the down time at Los Alamos cracking safes.
The U.S. Postal service has recently commissioned a new stamp of Feynman, and I just thought I'd take the opportunity to talk about him.
No comments:
Post a Comment