Today would have been Richard Feynman's 100th birthday. This was a nice appreciation of the man I believe should be an American icon.
His 100th birthday is being celebrated at a number of places around the globe.
We used to have "celebrity" physicists from Einstein, to Feynman to Stephen Hawking - who will be this generations celebrity physicist? It will be interesting to see who steps up.
One thing that hurts Feynman is after the death of his wife he developed into quite a "ladies man" in the full Mad Men era image that invokes. That sort of treatment of women in today's PC culture is not acceptable and unfortunately that's what many will focus on. That's a shame because Richard Feynman should be an American icon.
A great American and a great scientist. It was probably you who inspired me to read his memoirs. They were fascinating and hilarious.
ReplyDeleteI thought the funniest thing reading his autobiography was the fact that he almost didn't even mention winning the Nobel Prize. He easily spent ten-times more time explaining how he learned to be a safecracker.
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