Woodcut, 48"x35", 2012

The Devil and Dr. Feynman

Richard Phillips Feynman was born in Hazlehurst, Mississippi in 1918. He was a quiet yet brilliant child who didn't begin speaking until the age of three. Even though he didn't pick up calculus until high school from an early age he demonstrated great talent in engineering while repairing radios for friends and family. By the age of 15 he was solving differential and integral calculus equations. After finishing high school he applied to Columbia University, but his application was rejected. Fortunately he was admitted to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he earned a bachelors Degree in 1939. And of course this is where the legend begins.

It's well documented that Richard Feynman was unhappy with what he believed to be his mediocre progress. His rejection from Columbia University and his 125 IQ, which was deemed "merely respectable", only seemed to reinforce his own doubts in his abilities. Determined to be the world's greatest scientist he met a man named Robert R. Wilson who told him to become the world's greatest scientist, all he needed to do was take his abacus to the crossroads at midnight and make a deal with the devil. Feynman scoffed at the idea at first but processed by the idea of being the best he followed Robert Wilson's instructions. According to legend not long after midnight a custom low-rider pickup truck pulled up out of the darkest. The man who stepped out of it was a tall slender man with thick soda bottle glasses and a bad haircut. With no introduction he took the abacus from Richard's hands tuned it up and used it to explain quantum mechanics and performed a number of other mathematical feats. After about an hour he handed the abacus back to Feynman and started for his truck when Feynman asked, "wait, what do you get out of the deal?" to which the Devil replied, "You'll see." And drove off into the night.

Soon after Richard Feynman started gaining public prowess while preforming Calculus on street corners, in juke joints and small clubs. He was quickly becoming recognized as a master of all subjects; Robert Oppenheimer was once quoted to say, "His grasp of physics is surpassed only by his basket weaving." Perhaps the most prominent display of his supernatural scientific skill is when he aced the math and science portion of the Princeton University Graduate School entry exams. After a successful stay at Princeton he took a job as a part time assistant Professor for the University of Wisconsin-Madison. It was during this time he was offered a chance to participate in the Manhattan Project.

Feynman was wary about getting involved with the project because he expected that it might be the devil out to get his due, but ultimately decided to join the project for fear of the Nazis developing a bomb first. However while working on the bomb Feynman began behaving strange, colleges described him as restless, anxious and paranoid. Often times Feynman would wander off into the desert of Los Alamos and play drums, dance, and chant. Scholars believe he did this in order to keep the Devil away from the project. But after the bomb was dropped it became clear to Feynman that his first instincts about joining the project were correct and that the Devil did indeed get his due.

Feynman suffered a great depression after the bombing and turned down offers from many prestigious schools in an effort to keep from aiding the Devil. Eventually he reentered the academic world determined to thwart the Devil's next enterprise what ever it maybe. It's because of this new resolve that he volunteered to be on the committee to investigate what went wrong with the space shuttle Challenger. Though he was relieved to find that the physics behind the explosion didn't suggest the Devil's involvement. He still wasn't convinced that the Devil didn't have something to do with the decision to launch the shuttle even though every engineer working on the launch said it was to cold to launch.

Feynman was unhappy about getting there to late to help the passengers of Challenger, but did not give up his quest to stop the Devil. He was so committed that his ex-wife remarked at a divorce hearing "He begins working calculus problems in his head as soon as he awakens. He did calculus while driving in his car, while sitting in the living room, and while lying in bed at night."

Richard Feynman spent the rest of his life chasing after the Devil and in doing so fulfilled his dream of winning the Nobel Prize in physics in 1965. He died in 1988 from two rare forms of cancer that most medical scholars believe he contracted from his exposure to bomb testing during the Manhattan Project. Present for his death was his wife Gweneth Howarth. According to most accounts he was regretful of his life of science and asked his wife to hang his abacus above his bed, while she was doing so he remarked "I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring" and then died.

Richard Feynman left behind him a rich legacy filled with hits like the "Feynman Diagram", which is now considered a physics standard. He is also sited as an influence to many of the greatest modern-day thinkers. Eric Clapton once called him "The most important scientist to deal with quantum mechanics that has ever lived." Whether he is remembered for the Faustian myth surrounding his life or for the physics of Super Fluidity of Super Cold Liquid Helium, there is no doubt that he will be remembered.