Feynman honored on stamp

Among the people who will appear on new postage stamps in 2005 will be the late Caltech professor Richard Feynman, one of four American scientists to be honored.

The Nobel Prize–winning physicist will appear in an April rollout of stamps that will also bear the likenesses of geneticist Barbara McClintock, mathematician John von Neumann, and thermodynamicist Josiah Willard Gibbs.

Each year, the U.S. Postal Service receives thousands of stamp suggestions, from which a few dozen stamps are issued each year. Says David Failor, executive director of stamp services, commemorative stamps portray individuals and subjects “that are instrumental to the American experience.”

Feynman’s appearance may be due in part to a 1995 petition and letter-writing campaign by his friend and collaborator Ralph Leighton that was supported by Caltech professor Kip Thorne and other faculty members. Leighton also attended a Citizens’ Stamp Advisory Committee meeting in 1997 and stayed in contact with committee members. He says, “I’m not sure what exactly triggered approval for the scientist stamps—persistence, probably, and perhaps the fact that scientists have not been recognized on stamps for decades, while cartoon characters and movie actors have had plenty of commemoratives.”

Caltech’s Mail Services is working with the Postal Service on a first-day cover—a special commemorative envelope bearing the stamp that will receive a postmark on the day of issue. An official date of issue has not yet been set by the Postal Service, says Chris Henderson, director of Graphic Resources and Mail Services, but Caltech is planning to hold an event on the day after the national release.

Other people and topics to receive portrayals this year will be opera singer Marian Anderson, who will be part of the Black Heritage series; former president Ronald Reagan; the Muppets and their creator, Jim Henson; Mickey Mouse and other Disney pals; and the civil rights movement, in a set titled “To Form a More Perfect Union.”

For more information, visit www.usps.com/communications/news/stamps/2004/sr04_076.htm.

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