How an “Ordinary” Man Won the Nobel Prize in Physics

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That letter to his wife was heartbreaking man. Often forget the greatest minds also have hearts

A man who is "especially gifted at math and physics" is no "ordinary man."

It was not just IQ. Feynman had an insane physics intuition. That means he could tell if an idea is right before he did any calculations. It worked even for mathematical theorems as long as he could imagine a physical model to understand it. Allegedly he was never wrong.

Omg that letter to his wife is so touching

Anyone who thinks he had average IQ should read his book and they will see how incredibly smart and diverse his brain was. A true talent.

Not mentioned, Feynman also deciphered Mayan hieroglyphs in his free time, that nobody else could make sense of

I'm so so happy there's interviews and videos of him to watch on the internet. I wish I could've met him but at least there's videos to revisit every now and then, listening to him talk just brings me so much peace and comfort. He had a great way of explaining things.

I recently finished “Surely you're joking mr. feynman". It’s a great book that demonstrates his infinite curiosity and his eclectic interests.

A correction: Feynman worked on the Manhattan project throughout WWII, and did not leave Los Alamos until October of 1945. He was of draft age, but there was no mechanism for the ultra-secret Manhattan project to reach down to Feynman's draft board and tell them that he was engaged in war work too important to be drafted, and indeed this might have been a security breach. Feynman's superiors in the Manhattan project suggested to him that the best solution would be for him to fail the draft physical --- he was, essentially, ordered to do it, and he proceeded to make himself out to be a 4F nutcase. The "IQ of 125" is just nonsense. At that time, IQ tests were given to all children in public school in New York City, but those tests had a very limited number of difficult questions and were not capable of measuring IQs more than 3 sigma from the mean. Feynman may have been assigned an IQ of 125 at one point, but the tests were not capable of measuring substantially higher scores. Feynman's sister was assigned a slightly higher score in her year; this became a family joke and tease, and is why this "fact" was remembered. In high school he won the NYU Math Championship and in college he aced the Putnam exam, indications that he was among the very most intelligent and capable students in the entire country. Feynman did not have to boast about his brilliance, it was obvious in his contributions. He could happily talk with people less brilliant than himself, but he had little patience with intellectual show-offs. He told many self-deprecating stories about his own self-perceived intellectual shortcomings, often told to students as parables about how to approach intellectual problems. One of the most remarkable things he did was his informal "Physics X" seminar given in the evenings at Caltech. Feynman would stand in the front of a physics lecture hall with only a piece of chalk in his hand, and would take any question from anyone who came --- questions from "why is the sky blue?" to "what is the cross-section of a Kerr black hole to electromagnetic radiation in the long-wavelength approximation?" He would attempt an answer using only the knowledge in his head (he claimed he only could remember first principles), and would work out the math on the blackboard, using his own private math symbology. It was astonishing.

He was one of the brightest minds America had at the time. The guy worked with Oppenheimer. The things he solved are still used today in classrooms and lecture halls. He was no ordinary man.

Feynman is a legend as a scientist, professor and human being. One of the greatest minds of all times.

This is an excellent video overall. I find it hilarious to think that Feynman’s self-reported IQ of 125 might have been accurate, though. (The number appears in James Gleick’s biography of Feynman, but the citation indicates that Feynman himself was the source.) Among many other data points, as a senior at MIT Feynman got the highest score on the Putnam Competition math exam. This indicates mathematical ability of around 5–7 standard deviations above the mean, the IQ equivalent of 175–205. Even if his verbal IQ was only 125 (doubtful), on a professional-grade, high-normed IQ test Feynman would probably have scored something like 160–190. It might sound nice and humble to take an attitude like “I’m just an ordinary guy who was curious and worked hard”, but when you think about it there’s an unintentional cruelty in it. I used to tutor students at Caltech who were in danger of failing the Physics Core curriculum despite working as hard as they could. Imagine telling such students that “there’s no miracle, just be curious and study hard!” No one disputes that hard work is necessary to understand, say, quantum mechanics, but it’s definitely not sufficient, at least not for an “ordinary” person. Alas, we can’t all be Feynman!

11:44 the Challenger hearing was more complex than Feynman "making a discovery". He had been recruited expressly because he could say out loud (in the hearing) what many engineers had known for a long time. He was a great sport about this and it was absolutely pivotal to getting the truth out, but it wasn't his own research or investigation.

There may be better scientists, more intelligent scientists, more accomplished scientists, more famous scientists, but his down to earth personality, his sense of fun, his manner, his humility, his humor and his scientific honesty make him my favorite scientist.

No way ordinary.. he combined intellect with hardwork and humor and luck helped him in becoming a legend

he really inspires really ordinary people to become something extraordinary just by hard work. thank you, Richard Feyman

Faynman's textbooks were so different; they were distinguished by his humor and also the acknowledgment that he might not understand something. Can you imagine a textbook writer writing something like this? He stimulated thinking about what it means to "understand" something in quantum mechanics. Without going into details and although it may sound strange, his perspective helped me gain confidence in my studies. RIP dear professor.

"Surely you are joking Mr. Feynman"

This was beautifully rendered. I read a couple of Feynman biographies, and adjacent works, so I only know enough to be dangerous. But I didn’t expect a 15-minute video to capture him in such exquisite detail. Very well done, much appreciated.