Born May 11, 1918, in New York City. American physicist.
Feynman graduated from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1939 and received a Ph .D. in theoretical physics at Princeton University in 1942. He later joined the staff of the Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory and the faculty of Cornell University. In 1950 he became a professor at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena.
Feynman’s main works deal with quantum electrodynamics, quantum mechanics, and statistical mechanics. Feynman devised a mathematical technique (see) that played an important part in the development of quantum field theory; for this achievement, he received a Nobel Prize in 1965. In statistical mechanics, he proposed the polaron theory for the case of intermediate coupling and explained the occurrence of vortices, called Feynman vortices, in superfluid helium. In quantum mechanics, he developed the method of path integration.
Together with R. Leighton and M. Sands, Feynman wrote a course of lectures for higher educational institutions, which substantially modernized the traditional account of physics (in Russian translation, Feinmanovskie lektsii po fizike, vols. 1–9, Moscow, 1965–67).
D. N. ZUBAREV