Richard Feynman was born in New York in 1918. He studied physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. In 1942 he was awarded a doctorate from Princeton University and joined the team of scientists engaged in the development of the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. He taught at Cornell University and the California Institute of Technology and in 1954 He was elected to the American Academy of Science.

In 1965, Richard Feynman was awarded the Nobel prize in physics, together with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, for the development of a quantum electrodynamics theory.

In classical physics, electrodynamics was an established theory, but in the modern quantum physics, difficulties were encountered in its development until the turning point discovered by Feynman was reached.

Feynman’s calculative approach, with the help of which he succeeded in constructing the quantum electrodynamics theory, holds that in order to calculate the likelihood of a particle moving from a certain initial position to a certain final position, the probabilities must be calculated for every possible path separately, and the probabilities of all possible paths must be summarized. This method is known as “Feynman’s integrals”. He described the various paths with the help of the famous “Feynman’s diagrams” which simplified comprehension of the abstract processes and enabled, with the help of calculations he determined, the explanation of phenomenon that did not fit in with earlier calculations of the quantum theory.

Apart from being a brilliant scholar, Feynman was also famous for his talents as a drummer and for his special sense of humor. When he was working in Los Alamos, he would break into the safes in which top-secret material was kept and leave a note for the security officers with the message, “Guess who did it?” His books are written in a light style and with a great deal of humor, and achieved wide popularity.

Richard Feynman died in 1988.