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My undergraduate thesis gave the Hellmann–Feynman theorem, and my 1942 Princeton doctorate applied the principle of stationary action to quantum mechanics — the research basis for path integrals and my diagrams.

My Caltech research spanned electromagnetism, the weak force, the strong force and gravity: superfluid helium, the V–A theory of weak decay with Gell-Mann, partons, gravity ghosts and early quantum computing.

In my 1959 Caltech lecture I described machines built at atomic scale, chemical synthesis by mechanical manipulation, and a swallowable surgical robot — a talk now frequently cited in nanotechnology and microtechnology research.

Asked in the early 1960s to "spruce up" Caltech's undergraduate teaching, I spent three years building an introductory physics course that became The Feynman Lectures on Physics, still selling for its deep understanding of the science.

I chalked this line on my blackboard at Caltech. It sums up how I do physics: I understand a result only when I can rebuild it myself.

When SLAC's late-1960s deep inelastic scattering experiments showed point-like particles inside protons and neutrons, my parton model read the research data without extra hypotheses — including the 45% of momentum carried by neutral particles.

At the Oak Ridge enrichment plant I helped engineers devise storage procedures so enriched uranium could not reach criticality, and I insisted on teaching the workers the nuclear physics behind the rules.