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Richard P. Feynman


American
May 11, 1918
Physicist
boat beach sea water nature ship
If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize.


Richard P. Feynman
Tags: Been Could Person
I don't believe in honors - it bothers me. Honors bother: honors is epaulettes; honors is uniforms. My papa brought me up this way.
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: Me Up Way
In talking about the impact of ideas in one field on ideas in another field, one is always apt to make a fool of oneself.
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: About Always Make
The most remarkable discovery in all of astronomy is that the stars are made of atoms of the same kind as those on the earth.
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: Most Those Kind
There is nothing that living things do that cannot be understood from the point of view that they are made of atoms acting according to the laws of physics.
Richard P. Feynman
I don't understand what it's all about or what's worth what, but if the people in the Swedish Academy decide that x, y or z wins the Nobel Prize, then so be it.
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: People About Then
It has not yet become obvious to me that there's no real problem. I cannot define the real problem; therefore, I suspect there's no real problem, but I'm not sure there's no real problem.
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: Me Real Become
The situation in the sciences is this: A concept or an idea which cannot be measured or cannot be referred directly to experiment may or may not be useful. It need not exist in a theory.
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: Which Need May
The idea is to try to give all the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: Just Your Try
When I was about thirteen, the library was going to get 'Calculus for the Practical Man.' By this time I knew, from reading the encyclopedia, that calculus was an important and interesting subject, and I ought to learn it.
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: Time About Get
Is science of any value? I think a power to do something is of value. Whether the result is a good thing or a bad thing depends on how it is used, but the power is a value.
Richard P. Feynman
It is always good to know which ideas cannot be checked directly, but it is not necessary to remove them all. It is not true that we can pursue science completely by using only those concepts which are directly subject to experiment.
Richard P. Feynman
The fact that the colors in the flower have evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting; that means insects can see the colors. That adds a question: does this aesthetic sense we have also exist in lower forms of life?
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: Life See Also
There is always another way to say the same thing that doesn't look at all like the way you said it before. I don't know what the reason for this is. I think it is somehow a representation of the simplicity of nature.
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: Nature You Like
We do not know where to look, or what to look for, when something is memorized. We do not know what it means, or what change there is in the nervous system, when a fact is learned. This is a very important problem which has not been solved at all.
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: Change Know Very
We do not know what the rules of the game are; all we are allowed to do is to watch the playing. Of course, if we watch long enough, we may eventually catch on to a few of the rules. The rules of the game are what we mean by fundamental physics.
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: Know Long May
I want to marry Arline because I love her - which means I want to take care of her. That is all there is to it. I want to take care of her. I am anxious for the responsibilities and uncertainties of taking care of the girl I love.
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: Because Want Love
Things on a very small scale behave like nothing that you have any direct experience about. They do not behave like waves, they do not behave like particles, they do not behave like clouds, or billiard balls, or weights on springs, or like anything that you have ever seen.
Richard P. Feynman
If you realize all the time what's kind of wonderful - that is, if we expand our experience into wilder and wilder regions of experience - every once in a while, we have these integrations when everything's pulled together into a unification, in which it turns out to be simpler than it looked before.
Richard P. Feynman
I think equation guessing might be the best method to proceed to obtain the laws for the part of physics which is presently unknown. Yet, when I was much younger, I tried this equation guessing, and I have seen many students try this, but it is very easy to go off in wildly incorrect and impossible directions.
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: Best Think Very
If I get stuck, I look at a book that tells me how someone else did it. I turn the pages, and then I say, 'Oh, I forgot that bit,' then close the book and carry on. Finally, after you've figured out how to do it, you read how they did it and find out how dumb your solution is and how much more clever and efficient theirs is!
Richard P. Feynman
Tags: You Me More