I'm re-reading Richard Feynmans "The character of Physical Law". Why isn't this a standard text book on the curriculum of every school? Although this is really a transcript of a series of lectures given by Feynman, his style of delivery still comes across in print. I can see him in my minds eye and the the smile that would have been on his face. I remember watching one of the lectures in the Douglas Robb Memorial Lectures series in New Zealand. The way he reacted when the audience laughed when he described that "Theoretical Chemistry is really Physics at the deepest level". He got quite upset and said "it wasn't a joke". He would have been talking about a particular topic and get carried away and become very excited, agitated and sidetracked. Finding someone with that level of passion is rare these days. To be able to talk about things in an understandable way and not in the least tied up with how others think you should be explaining something.
He was not afraid to say he did not understand some aspect or other. He had a strong belief that Mathematics was the real way to "visualise" physics where human experience let you down. You cannot visualise the strangeness of the Quantum world or more then 3 dimensions for example, so don't even try. Although he was fond of using everyday analogies to re-enforce a point, he had a knack of doing it without clouding your view of the world. I have always hated the fact that the Rutherford-Bohr model of atomic structure made me see the atom as a set of electrons orbiting a central nucleus rather like the planets orbit the Sun. It's an image I can never erase from my mind whenever I read or hear about an atom.
I also have an affinity with Richard Feynman for purely sentimental reasons. He reminds me of my father both physically and in his actions. We also share a name Richard PHILLIPS Feynman.
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