I co-wrote the formula for a fission bomb's yield
At Los Alamos I led a group in Hans Bethe's Theoretical Division, developed the Bethe–Feynman formula for fission yield, and helped set up IBM punched-card computing for the project's science and engineering calculations.
nuclear physicsscientific computingmanhattan project+1 more
I showed on live TV why Challenger's O-rings failed
On the 1986 Rogers Commission I clamped a sample of the shuttle's O-ring material, dropped it in ice water, and showed on a televised hearing that it lost resilience in the cold — the engineering cause the commission confirmed.
engineeringfailure analysisexperiment+2 more
I made quantum electrodynamics calculable with diagrams
Between 1947 and 1951 I reworked the infinite integrals of quantum electrodynamics with my path integral method, introduced Feynman diagrams, and published the theory in a series of Physical Review papers that became standard physics research tools.
quantum electrodynamicsfeynman diagramspath integrals+2 more
I am a theoretical physicist of light and matter
I do theoretical physics research: I built a working quantum electrodynamics, invented the diagrams physicists now use to calculate with it, and shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for that science.
theoretical physicsquantum electrodynamicsfeynman diagrams+2 more