Richard Feynman: The Man Who Only Used His Intellect to Enjoy Life

Ali
19 min readMar 23, 2024
Richard Feynman | Source: Caltech Digital Collections

It was a decade ago that I met Richard Feynman when I happened to be casually spending some time at a library. My reason for being there was to peacefully watch the rain behind the comfort of one of the library windows. The library was indeed a perfect location for this purpose of mine, and as the rain began to subside, my eyes wandered over the book which I had selected purely for the sake of its beautiful cover and title. As I quickly skimmed over its pages, I noticed a particularly interesting sentence at the bottom of one page: “I have to understand the world, you see.”

That was a rare moment where I found myself saying “aha” as I was ecstatic with this remarkable discovery. In my excitement, I had wished to order a round of tea for all of the patrons of the library and endlessly speak to them about the book which I held in my hands and its author, Richard Feynman.

“I have to understand the world, you see.” Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman!, p.231

I, unfortunately, met Richard Feynman later than I would’ve liked, as no one had mentioned him to me until that point. That is why I wished to close this metaphorical gap by reading all of his works that I could get my hands on, as well as watching all documentaries…

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Ali

Math Teacher. Content Curator. Soccer player. Maradona fan. Mostly write about the lectures I love to learn better. alikayaspor@gmail.com