Richard Feynman and the Importance of Asking Questions 

On May 11, 1918, renowned physicist and educator Richard Feynman was born in New York City. Instilled with a desire to understand, Feynman questioned what he didn’t know and sought the answers to his questions. This simple habit of critical thinking prevented him from remaining biased toward and trapped in the scientific knowledge of his day. His integrity and search for truth helped him discover new theories that continue to aid modern scientists. As with Feynman, fostering honest critical thinking among young Americans today is essential to producing this generation’s new wave of scientific progress. 

From a young age, Feynman was taught how to understand by asking critical questions. His father, eager to form his son into a scientist, encouraged him not simply to memorize and accept conventional facts but rather to focus on what remained unknown. He also showed Feynman the important difference between knowing and understanding through a curious exercise: reading the Encyclopedia Britannica.  

And we would read, say, about dinosaurs . . . and he would say something like, “This thing is 25 feet high, and the head is 6 feet across.” And so, he’d stop always and say, “Let’s see what that means. That means that if he stood in our front yard, he would be high enough to put his head through the window, but not quite because the head is a little bit too wide. . . .” Everything we read would be translated as best we could, into some reality. 

These readings ignited Feynman’s boundless imagination and his desire to truly understand the world around him. If something piqued his interest, he vigorously read all he could find on the subject. As a physics major at MIT, Feynman took every physics course the school offered, and during his graduate study at Princeton, his skills in mathematics and theoretical science were unmatched. In 1965, he won the Nobel Prize in Physics for successfully developing a sound relativistic theory on quantum electrodynamics. His new model included his own Feynman Diagrams, a tool that visually represented the interactions between subatomic particles.  

Despite his popularity and success, Feynman never allowed others’ opinions to affect the integrity of his work. While assisting with the Manhattan Project in 1943, he was frequently sought out by famed physicist Niels Bohr for his straightforward thoughts on various issues. His search for the truth also led him to discover the cause of the Challenger disaster in 1986, which he traced to serious flaws within NASA’s safety protocols. Unlike his associates, Feynman had no ties to NASA’s bureaucracy, allowing him to unbiasedly sift through the events leading up to the tragedy. Status and recognition were unimportant to him. In an interview he explained, “I don’t like honors. . . . I’ve already got the prize. The prize is the pleasure of finding the thing out, the kick in the discovery, the observation that other people use it.” What mattered was the discovery itself and sharing it with others, which he did, not just as a scientist, but also as an educator. 

Considered one of the greatest teachers of physics, Feynman taught at both Cornell University and Caltech. Like his father, his primary goal was for his students to understand the material and not just memorize equations and theories. His emphasis on understanding through simplification is known as the Feynman Technique. According to New World Encyclopedia, “his principle was that if a topic could not be explained in a freshman lecture, it was not yet fully understood.” Feynman also took on the responsibility of improving all of Caltech’s undergraduate physics courses. After three years, he produced what is called the Feynman Lectures on Physics, which introduced the principles of physics in a clear and accessible manner. 

Honest, principled individuals like Richard Feynman are needed in today’s scientific community. With technology rapidly advancing and information easily available, new scientific discoveries are waiting to be unearthed. However, in an age characterized by complacent acceptance, they cannot come to light unless young scientists choose to follow Feynman’s method: to question the unknown through an unbiased lens. The American Council of Trustees and Alumni seeks to foster this same skill of critical thinking through its What Will They Learn?^® project. As Feynman once concisely stated, “There is no learning without having to pose a question.”