Richard Feynman; the scientist and the artist.

"The adventure of our science of physics is a perpetual attempt to recognize that the different aspects of nature are really different aspects of the same thing." 

-- Richard Feynman

Portrait of Richard Feynman (2010). 

© Yves Messer.

Who was Richard Feynman?

Richard Feynman (1918 –1988), one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists of this last century was also one of our greatest minds. Feynman was not just “another scientist”, he was a larger-than-life character.

Feynman was awarded the Nobel Prize for his work in Quantum electrodynamics (QED) in 1965, together with fellow American Julian Schwinger and Shinichiro Tomonaga of Japan, both of whom had separately developed similar theories, but using different mathematical methods.

Feynman's theory was especially distinct from the other two in its use of graphic models to describe the intermediate states that a changing electrodynamic system passes through. These models are known as "Feynman diagrams" and are widely used in many quantum-electrodynamic problems. Feynman was fond of using visual techniques to solve problems.

Feynman Diagram

Let’s draw Feynman diagrams!

In addition to his Feynman diagrams, he developed a method of analyzing MASER (microwave amplification by stimulated emission of radiation) devices that relies heavily on creating accurate pictorial representations of the interactions involved.

Freeman Dyson, one of the architects of modern QED had this to say about how Richard Feynman did his calculations:

"... Dick was using his own private quantum mechanics that nobody else could understand. They were getting the same answers whenever they calculated the same problem...The reason Dick's physics was so hard for ordinary people to grasp was that he did not use equations... Dick just wrote down the solutions out of his head without ever writing down the equations. He had a physical picture of the way things happen, and the pictures gave him the solutions directly with a minimum of calculation... It was no wonder that people who had spent their lives solving equations were baffled by him. Their minds were analytical; his was pictorial..."

From visualisations and mathematicians 

The artist-genius 

Feynman's innate "child-like” curiosity and creativity caused him to be “labelled” a “genius”.

“I've always been very one-sided about science, and when I was younger I concentrated almost my effort on it. In those days I didn't have the time, and I didn't have the patience, to learn what's called the humanities.”    

From John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin, Richard Feynman : A Life in Science (New York : Dutton, 1997) , p. 113.) 

This changed after his encounter with artist-painter Jirayr Zorthian. Feynman was extremely open to exploring new areas of inquiry beyond his world-famous expertise in science. Zorthian agreed to teach Feynman to draw, and Feynman agreed to teach Zorthian physics. He started drawing at the age of 44 in 1962, shortly after developing the visual language for his famous "Feynman diagrams," after a series of amicable arguments about "art vs. science" with his artist-friend Jirayr “Jerry” Zorthian — the same friend to whom Feynman’s timeless ode to a flower was in response.The scientific instruction did not continue long, but Zorthian’s influences on Feynman led to the physicist’s life-long involvement in art making.

But Is It Art?

In an introductory essay titled “But Is It Art?,” Feynman recounts his arrangement with Jerry and observes the intersection of art and science:

I wanted very much to learn to draw, for a reason that I kept to myself: I wanted to convey an emotion I have about the beauty of the world. It’s difficult to describe because it’s an emotion. It’s analogous to the feeling one has in religion that has to do with a god that controls everything in the universe: there’s a generality aspect that you feel when you think about how things that appear so different and behave so differently are all run ‘behind the scenes’ by the same organization, the same physical laws. It’s an appreciation of the mathematical beauty of nature, of how she works inside; a realization that the phenomena we see result from the complexity of the inner workings between atoms; a feeling of how dramatic and wonderful it is. It’s a feeling of awe — of scientific awe — which I felt could be communicated through a drawing to someone who had also had that emotion. I could remind him, for a moment, of this feeling about the glories of the universe.  

From The Art of Ofey: Richard Feynman’s Little-Known Sketches & Drawings

Jirayr Zorthian by Richard Feynman

More sketches and paintings by Richard Feynman here.

"Visualization - you keep repeating that", Feynman said to another historian, Silvan S. Schweber, who was trying to interview him.

Feynman: "What I am really try to do is bring birth to clarity, which is really a half-assedly thought-out-pictorial semi-vision thing. I would see the jiggle-jiggle-jiggle or the wiggle of the path. Even now when I talk about the influence functional, I see the coupling and I take this turn - like as if there was a big bag of stuff - and try to collect it in away and to push it.It's all visual. It's hard to explain." 

Schweber: "In some ways you see the answer - ?" 

Feynman: "The character of the answer, absolutely. An inspired method of picturing, I guess. Ordinarily I try to get the pictures clearer, but in the end the mathematics can take over and be more efficient in communicating the idea of the picture." "In certain particular problems that I have done it was necessary to continue the development of the picture as the method before the mathematics could be really done." 

Source : interview given by James Gleick from "The Life and Science of Richard Feynman", Vintage Books, New York, 1992, pgs 241-225.

See 2008 Exhibition: Jirayr Zorthian / Richard Feynman: A Conversation In Art

Further reading: The Art of Richard P. Feynman: Images by a Curious Character: Michelle Feynman, Albert Hibbs

Feynman was also a poet and an enthusiast bongo player!

Poem by Richard Feynman:

There are the rushing waves

mountains of molecules

each stupidly minding its own business

trillions apart

yet forming white surf in unison.

Ages on ages before any eyes could see

year after year

thunderously pounding the shore as now.

For whom, for what?

On a dead planet

with no life to entertain.

Never at rest

tortured by energy

wasted prodigiously by the sun

poured into space.

A mite makes the sea roar.

Deep in the sea

all molecules repeat

the patterns of one another

till complex new ones are formed.

They make others like themselves

and a new dance starts.

Growing in size and complexity

living things

masses of atoms

DNA, protein

dancing a pattern ever more intricate.

Out of the cradle

onto dry land

here it is

standing:

atoms with consciousness;

matter with curiosity.

Stands at the sea,

wonders at wondering: 

a universe of atoms

an atom in the universe.

Richard Feynman's blackboard at the time of his death: 

"WHAT I CANNOT CREATE, I DO NOT UNDERSTAND"

From http://abbynuss1.tripod.com/id32.htm

In my "2C Hall of Fame", Richard Feynman stands high.