Richard Feynman was born in New York City on May 11, 1918. He was educated in the public schools of New York City and rapidly impressed his teachers with his remarkable grasp of difficult concepts. It is reported that his high school physics teacher allowed Feynman to sit in the back of the room and solve assigned problems using calculus while other students struggled along with simple algebra.

Feynman attended the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, from which he received a bachelor's degree in 1939. His doctoral work was completed at Princeton University in 1942. Along with nearly all physicists of the time, Feynman spent World War II working in the Manhattan Project on the development of the first nuclear weapons. After the war, he accepted a teaching position at Cornell University. In 1950, Feynman became professor of theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology, where he remained until his death.

Feynman's special...