Individuality in science:Richard Feynman.

Art is regarded as largely individual while science, at least contemporary science, is increasingly the work of large groups. And yet, from time to time a scientist appears who makes an individual mark on the entire enterprise, much like exceptional artists do. One such person was Richard P. Feynman (1918–1988) (1–3 ). Feynman was born in New York and was a mathematical prodigy: his exceptional mathematical prowess became evident very early. He then received a world class education at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and obtained a PhD from Princeton. During the war he was one of a group of leaders in the Manhattan Project at the Los Alamos laboratory. Later he joined Cornell University in Ithaca, and from 1950 he worked at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech). His most notable work was on quantum electrodynamics and in 1965, together with Sin-Itiro Tomonaga and Julian Schwinger, he received the Nobel Prize in physics “for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deepploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles” (4 ). Apart from his research, the Feynman legend includes many stories of his life outside science: his fascination with adventure, his drum playing, and later his highly accomplished drawing (about which he was actually quite dismissive) (5, 6 ). Feynman was decidedly not an arts person but he did have a “visual mind.” One of his lasting contributions was the introduction, in 1948, of diagrams illustrating atomic and subatomic interactions, which within a few years became commonly used in the physics community. They are now known as Feynman diagrams. Performance, in a theatrical sense, was part of Feynman’s personality. He was known for charismatic discussions and animated lectures. Interestingly he did not have many postgraduate students—but in the 1960s he spent 2 years lecturing undergraduate physics at Caltech. These lectures were subsequently published with Robert B. Leighton and Matthew Sands as The Feynman Lectures on Physics and became a staple of physics education (6 ). Fig. 1 shows another example of his visual ability: one of his pencil portraits. It is a highly accomplished work: note the precise handling of light and shade, and simplicity of form, with carefully modulated weight of the line. He was famous (or notorious) for his disregard for authority and convention: for instance, his first response to the news of the Nobel Prize was to consider rejecting it. His penchant for directness is evident in his wittily selfdemeaning Nobel Lecture (4 ). He was also completely College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, UK. * Address correspondence to the author at: Gartnavel General Hospital, 1053 Great Western Rd., Glasgow G12 0YN, Scotland, UK. Fax +44-141-211-3452; e-mail [email protected]. Received March 3, 2015; accepted March 10, 2015. © 2015 American Association for Clinical Chemistry Fig. 1. Richard Feynman. Untitled.©Reproducedwith permission fromMichelle Feynman, Carl Feynman, and CMG Brands, LLC. Science in the Arts