Today is the birth anniversary of iconic scientist Richard Feynman, if there was some one I would call a maverick, it is him. defied the stereotype of a scientist, being a serious academic, with no other life or passion, having a rather glum and serious disposition.

There are scientists, there are geniuses and then there is Richard Feynman, he was in a league of his own. He had an interest in safe cracking( yes you read that right), and was a linguist too. He dabbled with art and samba music, could play the bong

And this is why for me Richard Feynman, remains among my favorite scientists, maybe next to Tesla, not just for the work he did, but for his attitude towards life, his efforts to popularize science. And in between he could write poems, draw sketches too.

As a physicist, Feynman was primarily noted for his work in quantum mechanics, the path integral formulation part mainly, his theory of quantum electrodynamics, for which he won the Nobel for Physics, in 1965 along with Julian Schwinger and Schinichiro Tomonaga.

His Feynman diagrams that he used to explain the behavior of subatomic particles, give a simple visualization of the complex interactions between the particles. And this helped later physicists to undertake more critical calculations.

Feynman worked on the Manhattan Project, and during his spare time, he played around with combination locks on safes to store papers, and later became an expert in it. He was also on the panel that investigated the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster in 1986.

Feynman wa a pioneer in quantum computing and introduced the concept of Nano Technology. More than that he made science popular, explaining the concepts in a simple language, taking it to the layperson.

Feynman's lectures on Nano Technology have been recorded in the book There is Plenty of Room at the Bottom, that later became a reference text for many researchers in that field, not to mention his undergrad lectures in 3 volumes of The Feynman Lectures on Physics.

And of course his autobiography Surely You are Joking Mr.Feynman, that remains one of my favorite books, offers great insights about the man, and his work, as also into science. His other autobiography What Do you care what other people think? is equally worth reading.

Feynmann was born in a family of Lithuanian Jewish immigrants in 1918, in Queens., NYC. His mother was a housewife, while his father was a sales manager. He personally was an atheist, though later when he read the Talmud, remarked it was a wonderful book.

Feynman had an aptitude for engineering early in life, as a kid he maintained an experimental lab at home, loved repairing radios, created a home burglar alarm system. His sister Joan, would be an equally well known astrophysicist too later.

Feynman was a teen prodigy, at 15, he taught himself trignometry, advanced algebra, infinite series, calculus and much before entering college he was re creating half derivative using his own notation. He had his own unconventional way of asking questions,.

Though Feynman applied to Columbia, he was not taken in, as the Jewish quota was exceeded, he joined MIT in maths, later switched to eletrical engineering, as he found maths too abstract, and then he ended up in physics, which was in between.

For Feynman, physics lay in somewhere between the theoretical abstraction of maths, and the strictly utilatarian ethos of electrical engineering, which he felt comfortable with. He published two papers in the Physical Review too.

One was co written with Manuel Vallarta on The Scattering of Cosmic Rays by Stars in a Galaxy, another one was on Forces in Molecules, which led to the Hellman- Feynman theorem in quantum mechanics.

Feynman's first ever seminar on the classical version of Wheeler-Feynmann absorber theory, was attended by likes of Einstein, Pauli, John Von Neumann. He got his PhD from Princeton in 1942, on the application of stationary action principles to quantum mechanics.

Again it's not possible to go in depth into Feynman's scientific work, that is a separate thread by itself. This is more an overview of his work and achievements, especially on the Manhattan Project, which is a chapter by itself.

Feynman worked under Robert Oppenheimer during the Manhattan Project, and like many others, fell under his charismatic spell. At Los Alamos, he found himself assigned to Hans Bethe's team, where he developed the formula to calculate yield of a fission bomb.

Feymann was one of the few physicists not in awe of Niels Bohr, who was then an iconic figure. And this precisely was why Bohr invited him for one to one discussions, coz unlike others, he often asked questions, and had no hesitation in pointing out the flaws in his theory.

Post the Manhattan Project, Feynman had a rather depressing phase in life. His childhood sweetheart and wife Aline, passed away after a long illness, leaving him lonely. He tried to overcome his depression, solving physics problems, at the same neglecting his research work.

Post WWII, there was this debate in science on theoeriticians vs experimentalists, and theoretical physicists like Feynman often found themselves at a disadvantage. It was the time when applied physics was more popular, and discoveries like Lamb Shift were gaining ground.

At Cornell, Feynman'had a frustrated life. Quantum Electrodynamics was still not accepted due to the mathematical flaws in it. Nor did his attempt at using Feynman diagrams to explain the concept go down well, with Bohr, Teller, Dirac all raising objections.

He later collaboratred with Shinichiro Tomanaga, Julian Schwinger on quantum electrodynamics, and his Feynman diagrams soon became popular with students at Cornell, not just in physics. On the other hand, post the death of his wife, his personal life went into a total mess.

Feynman was never too comfortable to Cornell, and the cold weather made it even worse. He shifted to Rio in 1949. With the Cold War and FBI cracking down on what they deemed anti Communists, Feynman decided to stay in Brazil for some time.

Teaching in Rio, Feynmann developed an interest for samba music, learnt to play the bongo drums, and after some time returned, however not to Cornell, but Cal Tech this time, where he investigated the physics of superfluidity with supercooled liquid helium.

His scientific accomplishments aside, Feynman's biggest contribution was to popularize Physics through his books. The Feynman's Lectures on Physics based on his lectures began to be referred to by undergraduate students and remains one of the most popular physics books ever.

Feynman was against rote learning, and he believed in clear thinking and presentation. There was no way you could get away by not being prepared with him, and pretenders were exposed ruthlessly. Fact is Feynman, felt that what was taught in textbooks, was rarely used later.

Surely you are joking Mr.Feynman, his autobiography is a must read, even if you are not scientifically inclined, the anecdotes on his life, his interests that included safe cracking, languages, samba music, his work on the Manhattan Project,

Feynman also played an important role on the Rogers Comission, investigating the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster, which was due to the improper sealing of the O-Ring. He also found a disconnect between NASA's executives and it's engineers, which he wrote about later.

Richard Feynman passed away in 1988, from kidney failure, but not before leaving a rich legacy. Again this thread of mine is just a cursory look at his life, for those who want to know more read his autobiography and his lectures on Physics as well as Nanotechnology.