feynman thesis advisor

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Richard p. feynman *42 physics 1965.

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1965

The Nobel Prize in Physics 1965 was awarded jointly to Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, Julian Schwinger and Richard P. Feynman "for their fundamental work in quantum electrodynamics, with deep-ploughing consequences for the physics of elementary particles."

Following the establishment of the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics, an initial relativistic theory was formulated for the interaction between charged particles and electromagnetic fields, however, this needed to be reformulated. In 1948, Richard Feynman contributed to creating a new quantum electrodynamics by introducing Feynman diagrams: graphic representations of various interactions between different particles. These diagrams facilitated the calculation of interaction probabilities.

[Curator’s note: The following material quotes and paraphrases extensively from articles posted by the Nobel Prize Committee and the Princeton Herald and the Princeton Alumni Weekly; see Sources below for details.]

Richard P. Feynman was born in New York City on May 11, 1918. Feynman attended Far Rockaway High School, which was also attended by fellow Nobel laureates Burton Richter and Baruch Samuel Blumberg. Upon starting high school, Feynman was quickly promoted to a higher math class. An IQ test administered in high school estimated his IQ at 125—high but "merely respectable", according to biographer James Gleick. His sister Joan, who scored one point higher, later jokingly claimed to an interviewer that she was smarter. Years later he declined to join Mensa International, saying that his IQ was too low.

Undergraduate studies at MIT

Feynman attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he joined the Pi Lambda Phi fraternity. Although he originally majored in mathematics, he later switched to electrical engineering, as he considered mathematics to be too abstract. Noticing that he "had gone too far," he then switched to physics, which he claimed was "somewhere in between." As an undergraduate, he published two papers in the Physical Review. One of these, which was co-written with Manuel Vallarta was entitled "The Scattering of Cosmic Rays by the Stars of a Galaxy."

The other was his senior thesis, on "Forces in Molecules", based on an idea by John C. Slater, who was sufficiently impressed by the paper to have it published and it became known as the Hellman-Feynman theorem. In 1939, Feynman received a bachelor’s degree and was named a Putnam Fellow.

Princeton for Graduate School

He attained a perfect score on the graduate school entrance exams to Princeton University in physics, an unprecedented feat. Attendees at Feynman's first seminar, which was on the classical version of the Wheeler-Feynman absorber theory, included Albert Einstein, Wolfgang Pauli and John Neumann. Feynman received a Ph.D. from Princeton in 1942. His thesis advisor was John Archibald Wheeler. In his doctoral thesis entitled, "The Principle of Least Action in Quantum Mechanics,” a key insight was that positrons behaved like electrons moving backwards in time. James Gleick wrote:

This was Richard Feynman nearing the crest of his powers. At twenty-three ... there may now have been no physicist on earth who could match his exuberant command over the native materials of theoretical science. It was not just a facility at mathematics (though it had become clear ... that the mathematical machinery emerging in the Wheeler–Feynman collaboration was beyond Wheeler's own ability). Feynman seemed to possess a frightening ease with the substance behind the equations, like Einstein at the same age, like the Soviet physicist Lev Landau—but few others.

One of the conditions of Feynman's scholarship to Princeton was that he could not be married; nevertheless, he continued to see his high school sweetheart, Arline Greenbaum, and was determined to marry her once he had been awarded his Ph.D. despite the knowledge that she was seriously ill with tuberculosis. This was an incurable disease at the time, and she was not expected to live more than two years. On June 29, 1942, they took the ferry to Staten Island where they were married in the city office. The ceremony was attended by neither family nor friends and was witnessed by a pair of strangers. Feynman could kiss Arline only on the cheek.

Professor Feynman worked at Princeton in the early stages of the Manhattan Project on the problem of separating uranium isotopes. Later he was a group leader in theoretical physics at Los Alamos Laboratory and was present at the first test explosion of the atomic bomb.

Curiosity, wit, brilliant and playful temperament

Feynman was a professor of Theoretical Physics at Cornell University (1945-1950) and then Visiting Professor and thereafter appointed Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology (1950-1959). He was the Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology.

He was widely known for his insatiable curiosity, gentle wit, brilliant mind and playful temperament. These qualities were clearly evident in his popular 1985 book of reminiscences, “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman,” which was on the New York Times best-seller list for 14 weeks.

MIT physicist Philip Morrison called Mr. Feynman “the most original theoretical physicist of our time,” according to a report by United Press International. Morrison said Mr. Feynman, who called his Nobel Prize “a pain in the neck,” was “extraordinarily honest with himself and everyone else,” and added that “he didn’t like ceremony or pomposity . . . he was extremely informal. He liked colorful language and jokes.”

Mr. Feynman attracted widespread attention during the Rogers Commission hearings on the Challenger space shuttle accident in 1986. Frustrated by witnesses’ vague answers and by slow bureaucratic procedures, he conducted an impromptu experiment that proved a key point in the investigation: He dunked a piece of the rocket booster’s O-ring material into a cup of ice water and quickly showed that it lost all resiliency at low temperatures. In the commission’s final report, Mr. Feynman accused the National Aeronautics and Space Administration of “playing Russian roulette” with astronauts’ lives.

His driving curiosity was apparent when, in his last media interview, he told The Boston Globe last year that his work on the shuttle commission had so aroused his interest in the complexities of managing a large organization like NASA that if he were starting his life over, he might be tempted to study management rather than physics.

Ever playful and unintimidated by authority, Mr. Feynman caused consternation in his years with the Manhattan Project, which developed the atomic bomb, by figuring out in his spare time how to pick the locks on filing cabinets that contained classified information. Without removing anything, he left taunting notes to let officials know that their security system had been breached.

Former Caltech president Marvin Goldberger, now director of the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, N.J., said Mr. Feynman was “a towering figure in 20th century physics, always curious, always modest, always ebullient, always willing to share his deep insights with students and colleagues.”

Receives the Nobel Prize in 1965

He was awarded the Nobel Prize in 1965, along with Shinichero Tomonaga of Japan and Julian Schwinger of Harvard University. The three had worked independently on problems in the theory of quantum electrodynamics, which describes how atoms produce radiation. He reconstructed almost the whole of quantum mechanics and electrodynamics in his own way, deriving a way to analyze atomic interactions through simple diagrams, a method that is still used widely.

He described the theory for a general audience in his 1986 book, “QED: The Strange Theory of Light and Matter.” An earlier textbook, “The Feynman Lectures on Physics,” was published in 1963 and remains a leading text in physics classes.

In “Lectures,” Mr. Feynman responded to charges that scientific understanding detracts from an esthetic appreciation of nature:

“The vastness of the heavens stretches my imagination — stuck on this carousel my little eye can catch one-million-year-old light. A vast pattern — of which I was a part — perhaps my stuff was belched from some forgotten star, as one is belching there . . . It does not do harm to the mystery to know a little about it. Far more marvelous is the truth than any artists of the past imagined!”

Professor Feynman was a member of the American Physical Society, the American Association for the Advancement of Science; the National Academy of Science; in 1965 he was elected a foreign member of the Royal Society, London (Great Britain).

He holds the following awards: Albert Einstein Award (1954, Princeton); Einstein Award (Albert Einstein Award College of Medicine); Lawrence Award (1962).

Richard P. Feynman died on February 15, 1988, leaving behind his wife, Gweneth; a son, Carl; a daughter, Michelle, and a sister, Joan Feynman.

• The Nobel Prize in Physics 1965. NobelPrize.org.

• From Nobel Lectures, Physics 1963-1970, Elsevier Publishing Company, Amsterdam, 1972. The Nobel Foundation 1965:Richard P. Feynman – Biographical. NobelPrize.org.

• Nobel Prize Is Won By Princeton Ph.D. Princeton Herald, Volume 42, Number 94, 27 October 1965

• Richard Feynman in Wikipedia

• Obituary: Richard Feynman, Nobel Laureate in Physics; Probed Shuttle Disaster

OTHER RESOURCES

• PAW: A rose by another name?

• PAW:Top 25

• PAW: The List

• Richard Feynman website

• Bland Adventure Misses Feynman's Spark by Brett Borowski.Daily Princetonian - Holiday Shopping Guide And Book Review, Volume 115, 10 December 1991

• Richard Feynman dead at 69: Leading Theoretical Physicist by James Gleick. NYTimes February 17, 1988

• Cal Tech:Remembering Richard Feynman

• Nobel Physicist R. P. Feynman of Cal Tech dies

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Feynman's thesis : a new approach to quantum theory

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• # Least Action in Classical Mechanics: # The Concept of Functional # The Principle of Least Action # Conservation of Energy. Constants of the Motion # Particles Interacting Through an Intermediate Oscillator # Least Action in Quantum Mechanics: # The Lagrangian in Quantum Mechanics # The Calculation of Matrix Elements in the Language of a Lagrangian # The Equations of Motion in Lagrangian Form # Translation to the Ordinary Notation of Quantum Mechanics # The Generalization to Any Action Function # Conservation of Energy. Constants of the Motion # The Role of the Wave Function # Transition Probabilities # Expectation Values for Observables # Application to the Forced Harmonic Oscillator # Particles Interacting Through an Intermediate Oscillator # Space-Time Approach to Non-Relativistic Quantum Mechanics # The Lagrangian in Quantum Mechanics.
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Richard P. Feynman Papers

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This collection documents the career of Nobel Prize winner Richard Phillips Feynman (1918-1988). It contains correspondence, biographical materials, course and lecture notes, speeches, manuscripts, publications, and technical notes relating to his work in quantum electrodynamics. Feynman served as Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology from 1951 until his death.

• Creation: 1933-1988
• Feynman, Richard P. (Richard Phillips), 1918-1988 (Person)

Conditions Governing Access

This collection has not been digitized, and is available only in the reading room of the Caltech Archives. Access is available to anyone conducting research for which it is necessary; please contact the Caltech Archives to make an appointment.

Conditions Governing Use

Copyright to this collection is not held by Caltech. If you wish to quote or reproduce an item created by Richard Feynman beyond the extent of fair use, please contact his heirs' agent, Melanie Jackson Agency, at [email protected]. Copyright to works by others may be held by their respective creators or publishers, or their heirs. If you wish to quote or reproduce them beyond fair use, please contact the copyright holder to request permission. ("Fair use" is a legal principle which permits unlicensed reproduction in certain circumstances. You are responsible for determining whether your own reproduction would fit the legal requirements for fair use.)

Biographical / Historical

Physicist Richard Feynman won his scientific renown through the development of quantum electrodynamics, or QED, a theory describing the interaction of particles and atoms in radiation fields. As a part of this work he invented what came to be known as "Feynman Diagrams," visual representations of space-time particle interactions. For this work he was awarded the Nobel Prize in physics, together with J. Schwinger and S. I. Tomonaga, in 1965. Later in his life Feynman became a prominent public figure through his association with the investigation of the space shuttle Challenger explosion and the publication of two best-selling books of personal recollections. Feynman was born in the borough of Queens in New York City on May 11, 1918. He grew up and attended high school in Far Rockaway, New York. In 1939, he received his BS degree in physics from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He then attended Princeton University as a Proctor Fellow from 1940 to 1942, where he began his investigation of quantum electrodynamics under the supervision of J. A. Wheeler. He was awarded his PhD in 1942 for his thesis on the least action principle. While still at Princeton, Feynman was recruited for the atomic bomb project. He was transferred to Los Alamos in 1942, where he headed a team undertaking complicated calculations using very primitive computers. While at Los Alamos, Feynman became good friends with Hans Bethe, who at the end of the war secured a position for Feynman as an associate professor of physics at Cornell. Feynman remained at Cornell from 1945 to 1951. During this time he formalized his theory of quantum electrodynamics and began to publish his results. He also participated in the Shelter Island Conference of 1947, which helped to determine the course of American physics in the atomic age. At this conference he introduced his theory of QED to the leading American physicists. In 1951, Feynman accepted an offer to become the Richard Chace Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics at the California Institute of Technology, a position he filled until his death. While at Caltech Feynman continued his work at the leading edge of theoretical physics, making important contributions to the study of liquid helium, particle physics, and later quantum chromodynamics. He also began his distinguished career as a teacher and lecturer. In 1961 and 1962 he delivered to Caltech's freshmen the introductory lectures that were later published as The Feynman Lectures on Physics . In 1986, Feynman was asked to serve on the Presidential Commission investigating the space shuttle Challenger accident. In a dramatic fashion, Feynman publicly demonstrated the inelasticity of the shuttle's O-rings at near freezing temperatures, a leading cause of the disaster. He also contributed an extended appendix to the Committee's report, highlighting the technical and administrative deficiencies of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's space program. Feynman's many interests outside of science, such as his fondness for codes and safecracking, his bongo drums, his theatrical appearances, his artwork, plus his experiments in out-of-body experiences, are well documented in his autobiographies, as well as in his papers at Caltech. Feynman continued his scientific work and his lecturing activities up until his death on February 15, 1988, after a long battle with a rare form of cancer.

39 linear feet (93 boxes)

Language of Materials

Additional description, arrangement.

The two groups of papers have been kept separate, although box numbering is continuous throughout the collection. The guide to the collection is in two parts, and researchers must expect to consult both parts. At the time the second group of papers was processed, an effort was made to create an arrangement parallel to that of group 1. However, the different content and larger scope of group 2 eventually resulted in a somewhat different scheme. Correspondence: The Feynman collection contains a large amount of both incoming and outgoing correspondence. Feynman's scientific contacts include many of the greatest names in twentieth-century physics: Hans Bethe, Niels Bohr, Enrico Fermi, Stephen Hawking, Werner Heisenberg, J. Robert Oppenheimer, Hideki Yukawa—to name only a few. In Group 1, correspondence has been spread over four series: correspondence (largely with individual colleagues), miscellaneous or general correspondence, publication correspondence, and, in the biographical series, a small number of personal letters. For Group 2, an attempt was made to pull both personal, general, and publication correspondence into one main series, Series 1. However, when letters demonstrated both intellectual and physical links with other documents, their original contextual relationships were maintained. Thus, publication correspondence will be found both in Series 1 and in Series 6. Fan mail surrounding Feynman's television appearances, his two autobiographies, and his Nobel Prize has been placed in Series 2, Biographical, as has other correspondence relating to his business and consulting activities documented there. Course and Lecture Notes: Feynman's lecture courses at institutions in Southern California other than Caltech, and even outside the U.S., are represented in Group 2. Of special interest are the courses Feynman gave, in addition to those he attended, at Hughes Aircraft Company, and the sets of lectures that were later published as Statistical Mechanics and QED (originally the Mautner Lectures, which were in turn predated by the Robb Lectures, first delivered at the University of Aukland, New Zealand). Material pertaining to the publication of these lecture series is found in Group 2 correspondence under the respective publishers. Talks, Speeches, Conferences: In this category are those lectures delivered for a special occasion or purpose, usually as single lectures, but sometimes as a series, and in both formal and informal settings. This category overlaps somewhat with Course Notes and Lectures. In Group 1, these materials are to be found under Professional Organizations and Meetings (Series 3) and Manuscripts (Series 5). In Group 2, they are arranged under Series 5 in chronological order, when dated, and in a sub-series of undated talks. Folders in this category contain a wide variety of talk-related documents, from holograph notes to correspondence to slides, figures, or transparencies. Publications: Group 1 contains a small series of publication correspondence (Group 1, Series 4), mostly pertaining to Feynman's book or monograph publishers; in Group 2, similar correspondence has been placed in the main correspondence series (Group 2, Series 1). Group 2's Series 6 lists Feynman's publications by title in chronological order. Folders contain a variety of material, from holograph notes to correspondence to proofs and prints. Researchers should note that formal reprints have been grouped at the end of Group 2, in Section 9. Working Notes and Calculations: The vast majority of Feynman's working notes are located in Group 2. A representative sample from his early years appears in Group 1, Series 5. Of special interest in this group are notebooks from his student days, beginning circa 1933. The notes in Group 2 capture the breadth and depth of Feynman's thought, as well as reflecting many aspects of his personality. They cover a wide range of subjects, from quantum electrodynamics and later quantum chromodynamics to biology and computers. The notes also reflect Feynman's working style. They are sometimes carefully organized into notebooks that were rigorously dated, such as the binders dated between 1966 and 1987 at the beginning of Group 2, Series 7. Unfortunately for researchers, these are the exception. The great mass of Feynman's working notes are scattered on miscellaneous sheets of papers, envelopes, placemats, and seemingly whatever else was at hand when thoughts struck him. Feynman occasionally took time to organize these into a system for files, although only a small fraction of his notes found their way into such a system. The great majority was left in a scattered condition and grouped during the processing of the papers as well as possible by subject matter. Many miscellaneous papers remain. Work of Others: Feynman officially maintained neutrality on the work of his contemporaries, but informal commentaries in the form of notes and marginal glosses on the work of others abound in his papers. A small segment of such materials can be found in Group 1, Series 5. A large amount of work by others, both with and without Feynman's commentary, forms Group 2's Series 8. A preponderance of material on computers dictated an arrangement in which computer-related projects are categorized separately. Individuals whose work is strongly represented—largely Caltech colleagues, students, or collaborators—are listed singly; otherwise materials have been listed by subject.

Immediate Source of Acquisition

The Richard Phillips Feynman Papers were given to Caltech by Richard Feynman and Gweneth Feynman in two main installments. The first group of papers, now boxes 1-20 of the collection, was donated by Richard Feynman himself beginning in 1968, with additions later. It contains materials dating from about 1933 to 1970. The second group occupies boxes 21-90. It was given to Caltech by Feynman's widow Gweneth early in 1989. Group 2 contains papers primarily from the 1970s and 1980s, although some older material is present. Supplements since 1994 occupy three boxes and have come from various donors outside the Feynman family.

Related Materials

Researchers should also consult the Caltech Archives' Historical Files, which contain much miscellaneous material on Richard Feynman acquired from many sources. Similarly the Photo Archives offer a selection of images, obtained in a similar way. The audio and video collections contain substantial Feynman material; researchers should consult the specific index. Manuscript collections at Caltech which contain materials of particular relevance to Feynman include the Robert Leighton Papers and course lecture notes by Bruce H. Morgan.

Processing Information

The initial processing of this collection was completed on July 1, 1993.

• Challenger (Space shuttle)
• Gravitation--Research
• Particles (Nuclear physics)
• Physics--Study and teaching
• Quantum chromodynamics
• Quantum electrodynamics
• Quantum theory
• Space shuttles--Accidents--Investigation--United States

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Part of the California Institute of Technology Archives and Special Collections Repository

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Richard P. Feynman Papers, FeynmanRP2. California Institute of Technology Archives and Special Collections.

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Richard P. Feynman Papers, FeynmanRP2. California Institute of Technology Archives and Special Collections. https://collections.archives.caltech.edu/repositories/2/resources/168 Accessed April 05, 2024.

MIT Technology Review

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How this Turing Award–winning researcher became a legendary academic advisor

Theoretical computer scientist Manuel Blum has guided generations of graduate students into fruitful careers in the field.

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Every academic field has its superstars. But a rare few achieve superstardom not just by demonstrating individual excellence but also by consistently producing future superstars. A notable example of such a legendary doctoral advisor is the Princeton physicist John Archibald Wheeler. A dissertation was once written about his mentorship, and he advised Richard Feynman, Kip Thorne, Hugh Everett (who proposed the “many worlds” theory of quantum mechanics), and a host of others who could collectively staff a top-tier physics department. In ecology, there is Bob Paine, who discovered that certain “keystone species” have an outsize impact on the environment and started a lineage of influential ecologists. And in journalism, there is John McPhee, who has taught generations of accomplished journalists at Princeton since 1975. 

Computer science has its own such figure: Manuel Blum, who won the 1995 Turing Award—the Nobel Prize of computer science. Blum’s métier is theoretical computer science, a field that often escapes the general public’s radar. But you certainly have come across one of Blum’s creations: the “Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart,” better known as the captcha—a test designed to distinguish humans from bots online.

“I don’t know what his secret has been. But he has been a tremendously successful advisor,” says Michael Sipser, a theoretical computer scientist at MIT who was advised by Blum, referring to the “extraordinary number of PhD students” who have worked with him and then gone on to make an impact in the field. “It is extraordinary in the literal sense of that word—outside the ordinary.”

Three of Blum’s students have also won Turing Awards; many have received other high honors in theoretical computer science, such as the Gödel Prize and the Knuth Prize; and more than 20 hold professorships at top computer science departments. There are five, for example, at MIT and three at Carnegie Mellon University (where there were four until one left to found Duolingo). 

Blum is also distinguished by the great plurality of subfields that his students work in. When Mor Harchol-Balter, a professor of computer science at Carnegie Mellon, arrived at the University of California, Berkeley, as a PhD student, she quickly realized that she wanted to work with him. “Manuel was warm, smiling, and just immediately emanated kindness,” Harchol-Balter told me. Her specialty, queueing theory, had little overlap with Blum’s, but he took her on. “Every professor I know, if you start working on what’s way out of their area, they would tell you to go find somebody else,” she said. “Not Manuel.” 

 A few months ago, as I was reading about some of the most significant yet counterintuitive ideas in modern theoretical computer science, I realized that the vast majority of the researchers responsible for that work had been advised by Blum. I wondered whether there might be some formula to his success. Of course, it’s presumptuous to think such an intimately human process can be distilled into an algorithm. However, conversations with his students gave me a sense of his approach and revealed consistent themes. Many spoke warmly of him: I often heard some version of “I could talk about Manuel all day” or “Manuel is my favorite topic of conversation.” The finer points of mentorship aside, what I learned was at least proof that kindness can beget greatness. 

Slow beginning 

Manuel Blum is married to Lenore Blum, an accomplished mathematician and computer scientist, who has also been at the forefront of promoting diversity in math and computing (among other things, she founded America’s first computer science department at a women’s college and helped CMU’s computer science department achieve 50-50 gender parity). They are both now emeritus professors at CMU and Manuel Blum is an emeritus professor at UC Berkeley; they split their time between the two coasts. 

One day in August, I joined the couple for breakfast at their house in Pittsburgh. Breezy in his manner, Blum, at 85, still has a schoolboy’s smile and frequently erupts into a resonant laugh; he is charismatic in a way typical of people who are utterly oblivious to their charisma. (When he says “WON-derful,” which he frequently does, you can practically hear “WON” in all caps.) 

The Blums, who recently celebrated their 62nd anniversary, still shuttlecock research ideas, enthuse over emails from their former students, and complete each other’s memories—some dating from their life in Venezuela, where they met as kids. 

Manuel Blum was born in 1938 in Caracas to Jewish parents who had moved from Romania. His first language was German, which his parents spoke at home. But when they moved to the Bronx, his family realized that people did not want to hear German spoken. The year was 1942, and the country was at war. After switching to Spanish at home, he quickly lost his fluency in German. But when he had to learn English for school, he soon forgot Spanish as well.

At one point, Blum says, he was listening to both languages but found himself understanding neither. “I remember thinking to myself, ‘Very interesting—I don’t have a language. I couldn’t express myself through language. How was it that I was able to think?’” he told me. In a lucid moment of metacognition—an act that befits a future theorist of abstract concepts—he realized: You don’t need language to think.

“He is completely original and goes off and does what he thinks is interesting and important. And often it turns out to be something really significant.” Michael Sipser, theoretical computer scientist, MIT

Likely because of his language difficulties, Blum’s second-grade teacher warned his mother that while he might manage to complete high school, he might not go to college. “But I wanted to be smarter. So I asked my father, ‘What can I do to get smarter?’” His father answered that if he understood how the brain works, he could be smart. The conversation marked the inception of Blum’s interest in studying consciousness (something he and Lenore Blum now research full-time, often assisted by their son, the computer scientist Avrim Blum). 

Blum was ultimately accepted to MIT, but he struggled the first year, until a friend noticed that his approach to studying physics—owing to Blum’s training at a military academy he went to before college—was heavy on memorization. Blum recalls his friend saying, “You don’t memorize. You memorize only ‘ F = ma ’ and a few things like that. When you need a formula, you derive it.” Soon, his grades started climbing. “I went from being a Xerox machine to being a thinker. I really enjoyed thinking,” he says.

To pursue his interest in the brain, Blum took a course that involved reading multiple volumes of the standard edition of Freud’s works. But they didn’t offer much in the way of satisfactory answers. Then his professor told him that he should introduce himself to Warren S. McCulloch, known for very early research on neural networks and pioneering work in cybernetics.

Blum read some of McCulloch’s papers and was able to prove a couple of theorems in mathematical biophysics, and McCulloch took him on in his MIT lab. “A wonderful person. A magnanimous person. Anything I wanted to do, he was supportive,” Blum says. 

McCulloch’s lab focused on both the rigorous mathematical work of modeling the neuron and the experimental process of studying the brain to understand how it functions. But what Blum couldn’t study in the lab was consciousness. The topic was taboo at the time. Many felt that subjective mental phenomena weren’t fit for scientific inquiry, and there were few tools available in any case. (The fMRI, for example, which is an imaging technique that maps brain activity, wouldn’t be developed until 1990.) 

Blum would revisit the topic occasionally as he transitioned away from electrical engineering to mathematics and computer science in graduate school. As he pursued his graduate work at MIT, he became captivated by a branch of theoretical computer science known as recursive function theory—now more commonly referred to as computability theory—and began searching for a thesis advisor. Soon, he found Marvin Minsky, the mathematician and computer scientist, who was a pioneer of artificial intelligence. Minsky (who had an office full of mechanical hands) often dropped by McCulloch’s lab to demonstrate his new machines and discuss mathematical problems. 

After studying computational complexity and computability for his thesis, Blum received his PhD in 1964. At the time, computational complexity theory represented the hinterlands of computer science. It wasn’t until 1971 that Stephen Cook formulated the foundational question of the field, “P vs. NP” —which essentially asks whether every problem whose solution can be checked quickly can also be solved quickly. 

But Blum found a productive home in Berkeley’s electrical engineering and computer science department. At MIT, he had helped form the contours of computational complexity theory. At Berkeley, he showed how this highly abstract field could also have useful applications in areas such as cryptography and program checking—a method that uses an algorithm to verify the correctness of a computer program.

The kinds of questions Blum poses read like paradoxes and have a somewhat playful quality, making complexity theory and cryptography sound almost like a subgenre of sci-fi. “He is completely original and goes off and does what he thinks is interesting and important. And often it turns out to be something really significant,” Sipser told me. 

In his seminal paper “ Coin Flipping by Telephone ,” the question that he poses is: “Alice and Bob want to flip a coin by telephone. (They have just divorced, live in different cities, and want to decide who gets the car.)” Let’s say that Alice calls “heads” and Bob says she lost; how does she trust that he is being truthful? And how could Bob trust Alice if the situation were reversed?

What sounds like a riddle addresses a fundamental problem in cryptography: How can two parties engage in trustworthy exchanges over a communication channel in such a way that neither party can cheat? 

Blum showed that this can be achieved using the concept of “commitment.” In a simplified analogy, the idea is that Alice gives Bob a locked box with her prediction inside, but without the key. This prevents Alice from altering her prediction and stops Bob from discovering Alice’s guess prematurely. Once Bob tosses the coin, Alice hands over the key to open the box.

“Work with me”

 When you ask Blum about the secrets of good mentorship, he reacts with a sheepish head scratch, attributing his students’ success to their own talents. “Students come up with wonderful ideas, and people don’t realize how wonderful they are. The only thing I can say is that, more than most, I really enjoy the ideas that the students have,” he told me. “I have learned from each of them.” 

His response left me puzzled, especially after I heard from his students that Blum never criticized their ideas or prescribed research directions. Offering full autonomy and boundless encouragement sounded wonderful in theory, but I was mystified as to how it worked in practice—how did students receive the occasional course correction or hyper-specific advice that is often essential in academic pursuits? Still, it’s not that he was dodging my question. He is not so much a magician who refuses to give away his tricks as one who is himself astonished by what has been conjured around him.

One thing I came to understand about Blum’s advising style is that when he says “Students are here to teach me,” he truly means it, with all that entails. While it’s easy to pay lip service to the principle of “treating a student as a colleague,” Ryan Williams, a professor of computer science at MIT who studied with Blum, told me that working together made him really feel like one. What this means, in concrete terms, is that Blum imparted to his students a sense of pedagogical responsibility: he was really expecting to learn from them at every weekly meeting, which in turn meant they had to understand their ideas to the bone. 

“During my first few months of working with him, I thought he was testing me. And then I realized that was just him,” Russell Impagliazzo, a professor of computer science at the University of California, San Diego, told me. “You had to learn how to say things so that Manuel could understand them. And that’s the most valuable skill that he gives his students, like the skill of learning to swim by being thrown into a pool: the ability to translate what you’re saying into more concrete terms. This skill proves invaluable when you are teaching a class or writing a grant proposal.”

Former students describe Blum as unwaveringly positive, saying he had other ways besides criticism to steer them away from dead ends. “He is always smiling, but you can see he smiles wider when he likes something. And oh, we wanted that big smile,” says Ronitt Rubinfeld, a professor of electrical engineering and computer science at MIT.

What would it be like to have someone like Blum in your corner? What kinds of audacious ideas can take root when someone listens to you with absolutely no judgment?

Behind the general positivity, Rubinfeld says, is a fine taste for interesting ideas. Students could trust they were being guided in the right direction. Come up with a boring idea? Blum, who is known for his terrible memory, would have mostly forgotten it by your next meeting. 

When Harchol-Balter was in graduate school, she says, Blum never told her what to work on and instead guided her by means of questions: “Manuel is fantastic at asking questions. Manuel excels at asking questions.”

Blum also “really makes sure that each student has a special area to develop,” Lenore Blum told me. “I don’t think he’s asked a student to ever do the next iteration of someone else’s work,” she said. “But he’ll say, ‘Work with me, and we’ll do something brand new.’”

Working on a new idea is risky. But Blum’s encouragement, coupled with his track record of spotting fruitful lines of inquiry, gave his students confidence to keep going in bold directions while enduring criticism and self-doubt. “There’s a huge difference [between] Manuel’s advising style and everyone else’s in the world,” says Impagliazzo. “Manuel’s advising style is simply to listen to you and make you seem really, really important. Like what you’re doing is the most amazing thing in the world.” 

Harchol-Balter says this is the magic she is now trying to emulate with her students. “Whenever I had an idea, whatever it was, he somehow made me feel like this was the most brilliant idea that had ever been invented,” she remembers. She felt that every idea could be “a multimillion-dollar breakthrough,” which allowed her to stay committed to her line of research, undeterred by external influences or trends. “He creates this feeling of supreme confidence—not just confidence, but like, ‘You. Are. Brilliant,’” she adds. “Having somebody beside you all those six years, when you’re feeling the most vulnerable, constantly boosting your confidence … It’s amazing. And that’s why his students are so great.”

Excellence in academia, as in many other fields, is about both what you do and how you do it. You need to identify a promising topic and have the technical ability to execute it. A technically flawless idea without original insight can be trivial; a radically original idea without proper execution might never fully develop, while a bold idea powered by misplaced confidence could hit a dead end. 

The psychological reassurance students get from Blum may come in part from his superhuman level of aplomb. “He never seems stressed out,” says his son, Avrim Blum. “In the real world, there are deadlines and stresses, but he never showed any of that. At least I never saw it.” I’m still awed by his ability to mask inner turbulence—something that affects everyone—so well that it remains invisible even to his closest observers, including his own son. It’s a source of stability that students can rely on throughout their graduate studies. “I was more comfortable and more relaxed in grad school because I felt like he had things under control for me,” Williams told me. “If there were any difficulties, he would help. He had my back. He was going to sort things out.” 

Speaking with Blum’s students, I felt a pang of jealousy. What would it be like to have someone like Blum in your corner during your most vulnerable moments? And how many direct criticisms you’ve faced could have been reformulated into questions? What kinds of audacious ideas can take root when someone listens to you with absolutely no judgment? 

But even as Blum’s students claim they are still bewildered by the “magic” and “mystery” of their advisor’s approach, they have become accomplished teachers and advisors in their own right. Umesh Vazirani, a theoretical computer scientist at Berkeley, told me that he has thought a lot about Blum’s secrets. He said the essence can be expressed this way: “You respect every student, and you let them develop into whatever they want to be.” Vazirani, who has advised a number of superstars in the field himself, believes that in education, “the most important thing is not to break anything. Cause no damage.”

The potency of the Blumian approach to advising isn’t domain specific, as illustrated by George Saunders’s reflections on his writing teacher, Tobias Wolff. Writing teachers have “so much power,” Saunders has written:

They could mock us, disregard us, use us to prop themselves up. But our teachers, if they are good, instead do something almost holy, which we never forget: they take us seriously. They accept us as new members of the guild. They tolerate the under-wonderful stories we write, the dopy things we say, our shaky-legged aesthetic theories, our posturing, because they have been there themselves.

We say: I think I might be a writer.

They say: Good for you. Proceed.  

On my last day in Pittsburgh, I noticed a photo of Blum’s old advisor, Warren S. McCulloch, behind Blum’s desk in his home office. It was in a prominent place where someone else might’ve chosen to display a family heirloom or showcase an autographed photo of himself shaking a president’s hand. (McCulloch died in 1969, only a few years after Blum began his professorship.)

Out of curiosity, I pointed out the photo’s prominent position. “Yes, because he is always with me,” Blum replied. “Warren was Manuel’s spiritual father in every way,” added Lenore.

As I made my way back to the airport, I remembered a book called Surviving Death, by the philosopher Mark Johnston. In the book, Johnston postulates that a good person could “quite literally” survive death by redirecting self-interest toward the well-being of future people. This forfeiture doesn’t spell the dissolution of the self but, rather, the expansion of it, allowing the person to live on in the “onward rush of humankind.” A line from the book unfolded, with a time-release effect, in my head: “Every time a baby is born, a good person acquires a new face.” 

Behind every one of Blum’s knowing smiles, it may well have been McCulloch himself, nodding, imparting a blessing: “Wonderful idea. Proceed.” 

Sheon Han is a writer based in Palo Alto, California.

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The doctoral students of Richard Feynman

Contrary to conventional wisdom, the legendary physicist supervised more than 30 doctoral students, many of whom have become prominent in their fields.

“An ordinary genius is an ordinary fellow . . . There is no mystery as to how his mind works . . . It is different with the magicians . . . Even after we understand what they have done, the process by which they have done it is completely dark. They seldom, if ever, have students . . . Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber.” —Mark Kac, Enigmas of Chance

As the centennial of Richard Feynman’s birth approaches, it’s a good time to dispel a minor myth about him: that he had very few doctoral students. The myth is embodied in the words of Mark Kac above and in a statement attributed to one of his students, Philip Platzman: “The reason why Feynman did not have many students was because he was very difficult with them, because he didn’t really worry about students . . . He had a few students, but not many.” Despite such statements, which seem to represent the prevailing belief in the scientific community, the claim that Feynman did not often supervise students for their PhD theses is simply not true.

The number of Feynman’s doctoral students is actually about 30, with some uncertainty due to unavailable documents as well as possible subjectivity on my part. The lineup of students who completed their PhD research under Feynman’s discerning gaze begins with Michel Baranger, Laurie Brown, and Giovanni Lomanitz at Cornell University in 1951 and concludes with Ted Barnes and Thomas Curtright at Caltech in 1977.

Although 30 is not an extremely large number of doctoral students to have mentored during a lifetime as an academic (Julian Schwinger, for example, supervised at least 70 during five decades), it does amount to three PhDs for every four years of Feynman’s time as a professor. If not for illness during the last several years of his career, Feynman might have supervised several more students.

The most recognized physicist among Feynman’s doctoral students is undoubtedly George Zweig, who graduated from Caltech in 1964. Soon thereafter Zweig had a major impact on elementary-particle physics through his independent invention of the quark model of hadrons. The research of Feynman’s other students has also had significant impact and continues to influence several areas of physics.

At the time of this writing, Wikipedia lists only six students to have officially received PhDs with Feynman as the adviser. The mother lode of information about Feynman’s doctoral students can be found at the Caltech library. A direct search of the school’s online database produces a list of 25 PhD theses in which Feynman is described as the adviser or co-adviser. By way of comparison, a direct search for his Caltech colleague Murray Gell-Mann as adviser turns up 16 theses. Zweig, along with Henry Hilton and Michael Levine, were co-advised by Feynman and Gell-Mann. Beyond publicly accessible sources, the largest amount of documentation on Feynman’s doctoral students came from Curtright.

From looking at many theses and papers by Caltech students, my overall impression is that Feynman played a major role in the school’s graduate program in physics through his mentoring and supervision of doctoral students. He exerted tremendous influence on graduate student research conducted at Caltech during his four decades there—perhaps even more than his widely perceived influence on Caltech undergraduate studies.

The Students

“There are PhDs, and then there are Feynman PhDs.” —Richard Sherman

From theses and PhD dissertation examination documents in which it was either explicitly stated or otherwise clear that Feynman was the adviser or co-adviser, I find the 30 doctoral students listed here, the first three at Cornell, the others at Caltech:

• Michel Baranger (1951) “Relativistic corrections to the Lamb shift”
• Laurie Brown (1951) “Radiative corrections to the Klein–Nishina formula”
• Giovanni Lomanitz (1951) “Second order effects in the electron–electron interaction”
• Albert Hibbs (1955) “The growth of water waves due to the action of the wind”
• William Karzas (1955) “The effects of atomic electrons on nuclear radiation”
• Koichi Mano (1955) “The self-energy of the scalar nucleon”
• Gerald Speisman (1955) “The neutron–proton mass difference”
• Truman Woodruff (1955) “On the orthogonalized plane wave method for calculating energy Eigen-values in a periodic potential”
• Michael Cohen (1956) “The energy spectrum of the excitations in liquid helium”
• Samuel Berman (1959) “Radiative corrections to muon and neutron decay”
• Frank Vernon (1959) “The theory of a general quantum system interacting with a linear dissipative system”
• Willard Wells (1959) “Quantum theory of coupled systems having application to masers”
• Henry Hilton (1960) “Comparison of the beta-spectra of boron 12 and nitrogen 12”
• Carl Iddings (1960) “Nuclear size corrections to the hyperfine structure of hydrogen”
• Philip Platzman (1960) “Meson theoretical origins of the non-static two nucleon potential”
• Marvin Chester (1961) “Some experimental and theoretical observations on a configurational EMF”
• Elisha Huggins (1962) “Quantum mechanics of the interaction of gravity with electrons: theory of a spin-two field coupled to energy”
• Harold Yura (1962) “The quantum electrodynamics of a medium”
• Michael Levine (1963) “Neutrino processes of significance in stars”
• George Zweig (1964) “Two topics in elementary particle physics: The reaction [photon-neutron going to pion-nucleon] at high energies. K leptonic decay and partially conserved currents”
• James Bardeen (1965) “Stability and dynamics of spherically symmetric masses in general relativity”
• Howard Kabakow (1969) “A perturbation procedure for nonlinear oscillations (The dynamics of two oscillators with weak nonlinear coupling)”
• Robert Carlitz (1971) “Elimination of parity doubled states from Regge amplitudes”
• Mark Kislinger (1970) “Elimination of parity doublets in Regge amplitudes”
• Finn Ravndal (1971) “A relativistic quark model with harmonic dynamics”
• Richard Sherman (1971) “Surface impedance theory for superconductors in large static magnetic fields”
• Arturo Cisneros (1973) “I. Baryon-antibaryon phase transition at high temperature. II. Inclusive virtual photon-hadron reactions in the parton model”
• Steven Kauffmann (1973) “Ortho-positronium annihilation: steps toward computing the first order radiative corrections”
• Frank (Ted) Barnes (1977) “Quarks, gluons, bags, and hadrons”
• Thomas Curtright (1977) “Stability and supersymmetry”

From documents in which Feynman was not described as an adviser or co-adviser but was a member of the PhD examination committee (although not the committee chairman) and/or was acknowledged in the thesis for moderate influence and general advice, I find in addition:

• Fredrik Zachariasen (1956) “Photodisintegration of the deuteron”
• Paul Craig (1959) “Observations of perfect potential flow and critical velocities in superfluid helium II”
• James Mercereau (1959) “Diffraction of thermal waves in liquid helium II”
• Kenneth Wilson (1961) “An investigation of the Low equation and the Chew–Mandelstam equations”
• John Andelin (1966) “Superfluid drag in helium II”
• Karvel Thornber (1966) “I. Electronic processes in α-sulfur. II. Polaron motion in a D.C. electric field”
• Lorin Vant-Hull (1967) “Verification of long range quantum phase coherence in superconducting tin utilizing electromagnetically stabilized Josephson junctions”
• William Press (1973) “Applications of black-hole perturbation techniques”
• Robert Wang (1976) “A study of some two-dimensional field theory models”
• Don Page (1976) “Accretion into and emission from black holes”
• Stephen Wolfram (1980) “Some topics in theoretical high-energy physics”

I also find several less compelling cases where Feynman was only a member of the dissertation examination committee at Caltech and was not particularly influential in the research, as far as I can tell. I suspect there are many more such cases that I have not found, since on this point documentation is quite often incomplete and not all committee members are listed. For example:

• Richard Lipes (1969) “I. Application of multi-Regge theory to production processes. II. High energy model for proton-proton scattering”
• Christopher Hill (1977) “Higgs scalars and the nonleptonic weak interactions”
• William Dally (1986) “A VLSI architecture for concurrent data structures”
• John Wawrzynek (1987) “VLSI concurrent computation for music synthesis”

T. S. Van Kortryk is an amateur mathematician based in Paris, Missouri, who has an interest in the history of physics.

Editor’s note, 30 August: Due to a change in the thesis information provided by Caltech and further research, the author has determined that Feynman did not serve as co-adviser for Sandip Trivedi’s 1990 thesis. Two references to that thesis were removed from the article, and the minimum number of Feynman doctoral students was revised from 31 to 30.

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Richard Feynman

Notable works: selected scientific works.

Feynman, Richard P. (2000). Laurie M. Brown, ed. Selected Papers of Richard Feynman: With Commentary. 20th Century Physics. World Scientific.

Feynman, Richard P. (1942). Laurie M. Brown, ed. The Principle of Least Action in Quantum Mechanics. Ph.D. Dissertation, Princeton University. World Scientific (with title Feynman's Thesis: a New Approach to Quantum Theory) (published 2005).

Wheeler, John A.; Feynman, Richard P. (1945). "Interaction with the Absorber as the Mechanism of Radiation". Rev. Mod. Phys. 17 (2–3): 157–181.

Feynman, Richard P. (1946). A Theorem and its Application to Finite Tampers. Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Atomic Energy Commission.

Feynman, Richard P.; Welton, T. A. (1946). Neutron Diffusion in a Space Lattice of Fissionable and Absorbing Materials. Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Atomic Energy Commission.

Feynman, Richard P.; Metropolis, N.; Teller, E. (1947). Equations of State of Elements Based on the Generalized Fermi-Thomas Theory. Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory, Atomic Energy Commission.

Feynman, Richard P. (1948a). "Space-time approach to non-relativistic quantum mechanics". Rev. Mod. Phys. 20 (2): 367–387.

Feynman, Richard P. (1948b). "Relativistic Cut-Off for Quantum Electrodynamics". Physical Review 74 (10): 1430–1438.

Wheeler, John A.; Feynman, Richard P. (1949). "Classical Electrodynamics in Terms of Direct Interparticle Action". Rev. Mod. Phys. 21 (3): 425–433.

Feynman, Richard P. (1949). "The theory of positrons". Phys. Rev. 76 (6): 749–759.

Feynman, Richard P. (1949b). "Space-Time Approach to Quantum Electrodynamic". Phys. Rev. 76 (6): 769–789.

© Estate of Richard Feynman 2021

The Doctoral Students of Richard Feynman

I document 35 students who graduated to receive PhDs under Feynman’s supervision.  I provide links to their doctoral dissertations.

Introduction

An ordinary genius is an ordinary fellow … There is no mystery as to how his mind works. … It is different with the magicians … Even after we understand what they have done, the process by which they have done it is completely dark.   They seldom, if ever, have students … Richard Feynman is a magician of the highest caliber. — Mark Kac [ 1 ]

Since this is the centennial year of Richard Feynman ’s birth, I attempt here to dispel a minor myth about him.  The myth is embodied in the words of Mark Kac that I have emphasized above, and in the following statement attributed to one of Feynman’s students, Philip Platzman  [ 2 ] : “The reason why Feynman did not have many students was because he was very difficult with them, because he didn’t really worry about students. … He had a few students, but not many.”

Thus a prevailing belief in the scientific community seems to be [ 3 ] Feynman had very few doctoral students who completed theses under his supervision .  It may be surprising to most people to learn this is not true.

The number of Feynman’s doctoral students is actually 𝟑𝟓 ± 𝟑 plus-or-minus 35 3 \mathbf{35~{}}\boldsymbol{\pm~{}3} , with the uncertainty intended to take into account some unavailable documents as well as possible subjectivity on my part [ 4 ] .  The lineup of students who completed their PhD research under Feynman’s discerning gaze began in 1951 with Michel Baranger, Laurie Brown , and Giovanni Lomanitz at Cornell, and continued until at least 1977 with Ted Barnes and Thomas Curtright at Caltech.

\boldsymbol{70+} dissertations supervised by Julian Schwinger during five decades), nonetheless, 𝟑𝟓 35 \boldsymbol{35} does amount on average to almost one PhD for every year of Feynman’s time as a professor.  Moreover, were it not for illness during the last several years of his career, Feynman might have supervised several more students.

Among Feynman’s doctoral students the most recognized physicist is undoubtedly George Zweig , who was also mentored by Murray Gell-Mann and Alvin Tollestrup , and who graduated from Caltech in 1964.  Soon thereafter Zweig had a major impact on elementary particle physics through his independent invention of the “quark model” of hadrons.  However, in my opinion, the research of Feynman’s other students has also had significant impact and continues to influence several areas of physics.

The Students

There are PhDs and then there are Feynman PhDs. — Richard Sherman  [ 2 ]

From theses and PhD dissertation examination documents wherein it was either explicitly stated or otherwise clear that Feynman was the advisor ∗ or co-advisor ∗∗ , I find the 𝟑𝟓 35 \boldsymbol{35} doctoral students listed here, the first three at Cornell, the others at Caltech:

Michel Baranger ∗∗ (1951) Relativistic Corrections to the Lamb Shift

Laurie Brown ∗ (1951) Radiative corrections to the Klein-Nishina formula

Giovanni Lomanitz ∗ (1951) Second order effects in the electron-electron interaction

Carl Wilhelm Hellstrom ∗∗ (1951) Production and Annihilation of Antiprotons

Howard Murray Robbins ∗∗ (1952) I. Retardation Corrections … II. Self Energy …

Albert Hibbs ∗ (1955) The growth of water waves due to the action of the wind

William Karzas ∗∗ (1955) The effects of atomic electrons on nuclear radiation

Koichi Mano ∗ (1955) The self-energy of the scalar nucleon

Gerald Speisman ∗ (1955) The neutron-proton mass difference

Truman Woodruff ∗∗ (1955) On the orthogonalized plane wave method for calculating …

Michael Cohen ∗ (1956) The energy spectrum of the excitations in liquid helium

Samuel Berman ∗ (1959) Radiative corrections to muon and neutron decay

Frank Vernon ∗ (1959) The theory of a general quantum system interacting … dissipative system

Willard Wells ∗ (1959) Quantum theory of coupled systems having application to masers

Henry Hilton ∗∗ (1960) Comparison of the beta-spectra of boron 12 and nitrogen 12

Carl Iddings ∗ (1960) Nuclear size corrections to the hyperfine structure of hydrogen

Philip Platzman ∗∗ (1960) Meson theoretical origins of the non-static two nucleon potential

Marvin Chester ∗∗ (1961) Some experimental and theoretical observations on … EMF

Elisha Huggins ∗ (1962) Quantum mechanics of the interaction of gravity …

Harold Yura ∗ (1962) The quantum electrodynamics of a medium

Michael Levine ∗∗ (1963) Neutrino processes of significance in stars

George Zweig ∗∗ (1964) Two topics in elementary particle physics …

James Bardeen ∗∗ (1965) Stability and dynamics of spherically symmetric masses …

Richard William Griffith ∗∗ (1969) Chiral Symmetry Breaking: Meson and Nucleon Masses

Howard Arthur Kabakow ∗∗ (1969) A perturbation procedure for nonlinear oscillations …

Robert Carlitz ∗∗ (1970) Elimination of parity doubled states from Regge amplitudes [ 5 ]

Mark Kislinger ∗∗ (1970) Elimination of parity doublets in Regge amplitudes

E. William Colglazier, Jr. ∗∗ (1971) Two Topics in Elementary Particle Physics

Finn Ravndal ∗∗ (1971) A relativistic quark model with harmonic dynamics [ 6 ]

Richard Sherman ∗ (1971) Surface impedance theory for superconductors in … magnetic fields

Arturo Cisneros ∗∗ (1973) I. Baryon-Antibaryon phase transition …  II. … the Parton Model

Steven Kauffmann ∗ (1973) Ortho-positronium annihilation … first order radiative corrections

Robert Wang ∗∗ (1976) A Study of Some Two-Dimensional Field Theory Models

Frank (Ted) Barnes ∗∗ (1977) Quarks, gluons, bags, and hadrons

Thomas L. Curtright ∗ (1977) Stability and Supersymmetry

From theses where Feynman was not described as an advisor or co-advisor, but was a member of the PhD examination committee although not the committee chairman, and/or was acknowledged in the work for moderate influence and/or general advice, I find in addition:

Fredrik Zachariasen (1956) Photodisintegration of the deuteron

Paul Craig (1959) Observations of perfect potential flow and critical velocities in superfluid …

James Mercereau (1959) Diffraction of Thermal Waves in Liquid Helium II

Kenneth Wilson (1961) An investigation of the Low … and the Chew-Mandelstam equations

John Andelin (1966) Superfluid drag in helium II

Karvel Thornber (1966) I. Electronic Processes … II. Polaron Motion …

Lorin Vant-Hull (1967) Verification of long range quantum phase coherence …

William Press (1973) Applications of black-hole perturbation techniques

Don Page (1976) Accretion into and emission from black holes

Stephen Wolfram (1980) Some topics in theoretical high-energy physics

All of these were Caltech students.  Originally I included Platzman in this second list.  But upon looking at other documents I became convinced that his thesis was effectively co-supervised by Feynman to the extent that he belonged in the first list.  (Indeed, as I document later, Platzman’s personal listing in the Mathematics Genealogy Project states that Feynman was a co-advisor.)  Similar remarks apply for Robert Carlitz [ 5 ] and Finn Ravndal [ 6 ] .  If so, that would justify my head count of 𝟑𝟓 35 \boldsymbol{35} “Feynman PhDs” to be a lower bound.

Finally, I find several less compelling cases where Feynman was only a member of the dissertation examination committee at Caltech and was not particularly influential for the research, so far as I can tell.  I suspect there are many more such cases that I have not found, since on this point documentation is quite often incomplete and all committee members are not listed.  For example:

Lipes, Richard Gwin (1969) I. Application of multi-Regge theory … II. High energy model … .

Hill, Christopher Thaddeus (1977) Higgs scalars and the nonleptonic weak interactions .

Dally, William J. (1986) A VLSI architecture for concurrent data structures .  (restricted)

Wawrzynek, John (1987) VLSI concurrent computation for music synthesis .  (restricted)

For the last two cases given above, I cannot access the theses to see if Feynman was acknowledged for significant influence.

At the time of this writing, wikipedia lists only six students to have officially received PhDs with Feynman as the advisor, in alphabetical order:  James M. Bardeen, Laurie Brown, Thomas Curtright, Al Hibbs, Giovanni Rossi Lomanitz, and George Zweig.  However, this list is obviously far from complete, as documented by the Math Genealogy Project (MGP) and by the Caltech library archives.

According to the MGP , also at the time of this writing, there were at least thirteen other doctoral degrees completed under Feynman’s supervision in addition to those listed in wikipedia.  In particular, Philip Platzman is in the MGP list but not in wikipedia. I suppose that is because he requested MGP to classify him as a doctoral student of Feynman.   Platzman’s personal listing in MGP supports my supposition.  By way of comparison, and as a measure of the completeness of their database, Schwinger has only 21 of his students listed by the MGP.

In any case, the mother lode of information about Feynman’s doctoral students can be found at the Caltech library .   A direct search of their online database produces a list of 31 PhD theses where Feynman is described as the advisor or co-advisor, at the time of this writing [ 8 ] .  By way of comparison, a direct search for Gell-Mann as advisor turns up 18 theses in the Caltech library database.  Among these, Hilton and Levine are shown to be co-advised by Feynman and Gell-Mann.  Remarkably, Zweig is not listed as a Gell-Mann advisee.

Beyond these publicly accessible sources, the largest amount of documentation that is available to me concerns Thomas Curtright, who has provided this succinctly amusing excerpt from his thesis examination committee papers [ 3 ] :

From looking at many theses and papers by Caltech students, my overall impression is simply this:  Feynman played a major role through his mentoring and supervision of doctoral students.  He exerted tremendous influence on graduate student research conducted at Caltech during his four decades there — perhaps even more than his widely perceived influence on Caltech undergraduate studies.  I conclude that it is not true Richard Feynman “had a few students, but not many.”

Acknowledgements:   I thank Professor Curtright for suggesting that there could very well be a widespread misunderstanding about the extent of Feynman’s mentoring of doctoral students.  Finally, I thank Cosmas Zachos for his comments on various drafts of this manuscript.

• [1] M Kac, Enigmas of Chance: An Autobiography , University of California Press (1987).
• [2] J Mehra, The Beat of a Different Drum:  The Life and Science of Richard Feynman , Oxford University Press (1994)
• [3] T Curtright, private communication.
• [4] Regarding my subjectivity, see [ 5 , 6 , 8 ] .
• [5] Robert Carlitz’s thesis was not available from the Caltech library when I originally compiled a list of Feynman’s doctoral students, but now it is .  Therein I see that Carlitz’s advisor was Steven Frautschi and Feynman was not described as a co-advisor.  In fact, Carlitz did not acknowledge Feynman for discussions at any point in his thesis — he only cited Feynman for an unpublished 1967 lecture.  However, the main points of Carlitz’s thesis involve research that was carried out in collaboration with Mark Kislinger and published jointly with him in two papers .  Now, in his thesis , Kislinger does acknowledge Feynman as his primary advisor.  Moreover, in the second of his two papers with Carlitz, Kislinger “thanks R. P. Feynman for suggesting investigating this problem and for numerous helpful discussions.”  Therefore, I consider Carlitz to have been co-advised by Feynman.
• [6] Finn Ravndal’s advisor was also Steven Frautschi, officially.  Frautschi was the chairman of Ravndal’s dissertation examination committee, while Feynman was only a member of the committee.  On the other hand, upon reading the acknowledgements in Ravndal’s thesis and considering what the entire thesis is about, it is clear that Feynman provided considerable guidance to Ravndal (also see [ 7 ] ).  Indeed, much of the research in the thesis was published jointly with Feynman and also Kislinger.  In addition, Feynman appears as the advisor in Ravndal’s personal listing in the MGP , presumably because Ravndal wanted it so.
• [7] F Ravndal, “ How I Got to Work with Feynman on the Covariant Quark Model ” Int. J. Mod. Phys. A30 (2015) 1530009, arXiv:1411.0509 [physics.hist-ph]
• [8] At the time of writing, the Caltech library lists the following additional students having Feynman as either advisor or co-advisor. Pochi Albert Yeh (1978) Stark-Induced Optical Nonlinearity … (restricted) George Siopsis (1987) Some Aspects of the Quantization of Theories … Gauge Invariance (restricted) However, I cannot judge how much influence Feynman had on the doctoral studies of either Siopsis or Yeh, since both of their theses are not available to me.  For this reason, I have not listed them in the text.  But of course, this is a subjective decision on my part.

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Successful Thesis Defense from Dr. Kwok Sun Tang

We want to congratulate the successful thesis defense of the newly minted Dr. Kwok Sun Tang. He has successfully defended his thesis. He is pictured with Professor Paul Ricker, Professor Gautham Narayan, and his advisor Professor Matthew Turk.