Melville’s Influence

Richard Feynman, the famous Nobel Prize winner in Physics and a great physics teacher needs little introduction. But, how many of us know that his father who received limited formal education can be considered an equally great teacher – at least to his single pupil, Richard? The following article is adapted from the book ‘Richard Feynman – A Life In Science’ by John Gribbin and Mary Gribbin. It is hoped that this short adaptation will inspire teachers and parents to mould the children into future scientists and perhaps even Nobel Prize winners.

Melville Feynman has to take some of the credit for his son Richard’s success in science. Richard who grew up to be one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century was prepared at a very tender age by Melville who deliberately set out to stimulate his son to think in a ‘scientific’ way. When the boy was still sitting in his high chair, Melville already started to play games with him using a collection of coloured bathroom tiles setting up different patterns.

Melville encouraged his son's interest in science in the obvious ways - buying a set of the Encyclopedia Britannica, taking Ritty (Richard's nickname) to the American Museum of Natural History, and so on. On long weekend walks in the woods, Melville introduced Richard to many of the wonders of nature - but with his typical sideways manner of looking at the world. So when one of the other children pointed out a bird to Richard and asked if he knew its name, he had to reply that he didn't. Triumphantly, the other kid named the bird, sneering 'your father doesn't teach you anything'. 'But', Feynman tells us, 'it was the opposite.' His father had already pointed out that kind of bird:

'.....You can know the name of that bird in all the languages of the world, but when you're finished, you'll know absolutely nothing whatever about the bird......So let's look at the bird and see what it's doing - that's what counts.'

So Richard learned, at a very early age, the difference between knowing the name of something and knowing something.

One day, in Richard's early childhood, he noticed the odd behavior of a ball left lying in his little wagon when he pulled the wagon forward. The ball rolled to the back of the wagon, then, when the wagon stopped the ball rolled to the front. He asked his father why this happened, and got this reply:

'That, nobody knows. The general principle is that things which are moving tend to keep on moving, and things which are standing still tend to stand still, unless you push them hard. This tendency is called 'inertia', but nobody knows why it's true.'

This represents a deep insight into the nature of physics and the nature of the world, and it was examples like this that encouraged Richard Feynman, in later years, to question everything, to search for underlying truths, and never to believe that just because some process had been labeled meant it was understood.