Caltech Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman Honored on 2005 U.S. Commemorative Stamp

http://pr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR12688.html

Caltech News Release
For Immediate Release
May 4, 2005

Caltech Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman Honored on 2005 U.S.
Commemorative Stamp

For Photos, go to:
http://www.usps.com/communications/n...4/sr04_076.htm

Contact: Deborah Williams-Hedges
(626) 395-3227


PASADENA, Calif. - Widely regarded as one of the most influential
physicists of the 20th Century, Nobel laureate and Caltech professor
Richard P. Feynman will be honored on a 2005 U.S. postage
commemorative stamp. The stamp will be unveiled locally at a
celebration on Friday, May 20, at 5 p.m. in Ramo Auditorium on the
California Institute of Technology campus. The public is invited to
attend this free event. Caltech will offer a limited-edition special
commemorative envelope bearing the four stamps that compose the
American Scientists series, and a special cancellation stamp from the
Feynman Station at Caltech. Stamps and cachets, as well as Feynman
books and memorabilia, will be available for purchase.

At 4 p.m. there will be a screening of the classic documentary
featuring Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, also in Ramo
Auditorium. The program at 5 p.m. will highlight guest speakers,
including Caltech physicists, the Pasadena postmaster, and Michelle
Feynman, the daughter of Richard Feynman and editor of Perfectly
Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard
P. Feynman.

The American Scientist series features the likenesses of four
scientists: Nobel Prize-winning geneticist and 1930s Caltech
postdoctoral scholar Barbara McClintock, mathematician John von
Neumann, and thermodynamicist Josiah Willard Gibbs, along with
Feynman. The American Scientist series will be issued this month.

"U.S. commemorative stamps portray individuals, subjects, and events
that are instrumental to the American experience," says David Failor,
executive director of stamp services for the U.S. Postal Service.
For each stamp in this series of four, artist Victor Stabin has
created a collage featuring a portrait of the scientist along with
drawings that are associated with major contributions made by the
scientist. Text on the back of the stamps highlights their
achievements. The Feynman text says, "Richard P. Feynman (1918-1988)
developed a new formulation of quantum theory based, in part, on
diagrams he invented to help him visualize the dynamics of atomic
particles. In 1965, this noted theoretical physicist, enthusiastic
educator and amateur artist was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics."
The Feynman diagrams featured on the stamp represent the interaction
between certain subatomic particles. Feynman diagrams, which helped
to simplify calculations, are a fundamental of modern physics and are
still in common use today.

Feynman's academic career at Caltech spanned almost 30 years. Friend
and colleague Barry Barish, the Linde Professor of Physics and
director of Caltech's Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave
Observatory, who worked with Feynman for approximately 25 years at
Caltech, says, "After Einstein, Dick Feynman was, perhaps, the
smartest man of the 20th Century. He helped to reshape and reinvent
methods of modern particle physics. His contributions to science
were extremely significant and essential."

Perhaps Feynman's greatest legacy at Caltech was not only his
pioneering research, but also his passion for teaching; Feynman was
revered as a professor. He had an extraordinary ability to inspire
and motivate his students, and to share his excitement about science
and physics. His lively personality and fun-loving sense of humor
were almost as renowned as his research. Feynman was an avid
drummer, artist, and actor, and he had a great affinity for
languages, even teaching himself Japanese, Portuguese, and Mayan. He
was legendary for his colorful yet brilliant character.

In 1965 Feynman won the Nobel Prize in Physics for his work in the
field of quantum electrodynamics. Feynman made major contributions
to the development of the atomic bomb while at the Los Alamos
National laboratory during his 20s. In 1986, at the request of
President Reagan, he served on the committee to investigate the
explosion of the space shuttle Challenger.

In February 1988, at the age of 69, Feynman died of cancer.

###

wrote:

http://pr.caltech.edu/media/Press_Releases/PR12688.html

Caltech News Release
For Immediate Release
May 4, 2005

Caltech Nobel Laureate Richard Feynman Honored on 2005 U.S.
Commemorative Stamp

For Photos, go to:
http://www.usps.com/communications/n...4/sr04_076.htm

Contact: Deborah Williams-Hedges
(626) 395-3227


PASADENA, Calif. - Widely regarded as one of the most influential
physicists of the 20th Century, Nobel laureate and Caltech professor
Richard P. Feynman will be honored on a 2005 U.S. postage
commemorative stamp.
[snip]

Also Mickey Mouse and Kermit the Frog. Sic gloria transit.


--
Uncle Al
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/
(Toxic URL! Unsafe for children and most mammals)
http://www.mazepath.com/uncleal/qz.pdf