17,394
edits
Changes
cleanup
Feynman liked to tell a story about how when he was a little kid, he asked his father, "Why do things fall?" As an adult, he praised his father for answering, "Nobody knows why things fall. It's a deep mystery, and the smartest people in the world don't know the basic reason for it." Contrast that with the average person's off-the-cuff answer, "Oh, it's because of gravity." Feynman liked his father's answer, because his father realized that simply giving a name to something didn't mean that you understood it. <ref>Lectures in Physics: The Motion of Falling Objects. Lectures on Physics is based on the series by Benjamin Crowell, "Light and Matter". (This is a secondary source.) [http://www.vias.org/physics/bk1_05_01.html]</ref>
Feynman liked to tell a story about how when he was a little kid, he asked his father, "Why do things fall?" As an adult, he praised his father for answering, "Nobody knows why things fall. It's a deep mystery, and the smartest people in the world don't know the basic reason for it." Contrast that with the average person's off-the-cuff answer, "Oh, it's because of gravity." Feynman liked his father's answer, because his father realized that simply giving a name to something didn't mean that you understood it. <ref>Lectures in Physics: The Motion of Falling Objects. Lectures on Physics is based on the series by Benjamin Crowell, "Light and Matter". (This is a secondary source.) [http://www.vias.org/physics/bk1_05_01.html]</ref>
==Challenger investigation==
He had a leading role in the investigation of the crash of the [[space shuttle]] Challenger ("behind-the-scenes descriptions of [[science and policy]] colliding" <ref>Amazon.com - sale page for ''What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character'' (Paperback)
He had a leading role in the investigation of the crash of the [[space shuttle]] Challenger <ref>Feynman ''What Do You Care What Other People Think?: Further Adventures of a Curious Character'' [http://www.amazon.com/What-Care-Other-People-Think/dp/0553347845]</ref>).
Feynman cut through the red tape and figured out what caused the [[Space Shuttle Challenger|Challenger disaster]].
Feynman cut through the red tape and figured out what caused the [[Space Shuttle Challenger|Challenger disaster]].
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Physics]]
[[Category:Nobel laureates in Physics]]
[[Category:Physicists]]
[[Category:Physicists]]