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

“I have a friend who’s an artist that has sometimes taken a view of which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say, ‘Look how beautiful it is,’ and I’ll agree. Then he says, ‘I, as an artist, can see how beautiful this is, but you, as a scientist, take this all apart, and it becomes a dull thing,’ And I think that he’s kind of nutty.

es, Feynman dabbled in physics purely for the sake of entertainment. He had decided to go down this route in a bid to come out of the state of depression he had fallen into following the passing of his wife, Arline Greenbaum, where he found himself no longer able to enjoy life.

- So I got this new attitude. Now that I am burned out, and I’ll never accomplish anything, I’ve got this nice position at the university teaching classes which I rather enjoy, and just like I read the Arabian Nights for pleasure, I’m going to play with physics, whenever I want to, without worrying about any importance whatsoever.

“If we have understood the essence of something, we can explain it on all levels.”