Feynman’s stamp of approval

Persistence has paid off in a push to put late Caltech professor Richard Feynman on the face of a postage stamp. The Nobel Prize–winning physicist is scheduled to appear in a May rollout of the American Scientists stamp series.

Caltech plans to celebrate with a commemorative event Friday, May 20, timed to coincide with the Alumni Association’s annual Seminar Day / Reunion Weekend. For that day, the Caltech post office will be officially designated the Feynman Station at Caltech, and it will issue a special limited-edition commemorative envelope bearing the four stamps that compose the American Scientists series, and a special cancellation stamp from the Feynman Station. Stamps and cachets, as well as Feynman books and memorabilia, will be available for purchase.

Starting at 4 p.m., the classic documentary on Feynman, The Pleasure of Finding Things Out, will be screened in Ramo Auditorium. The program at 5 p.m. features guest speakers including Feynman Professor of Theoretical Physics Kip Thorne ’62, Professor of Theoretical Physics Steve Frautschi, and Tolman Professor of Theoretical Physics and 2004 Nobel Laureate David Politzer. Also on hand will be Michelle Feynman, the daughter of Richard Feynman and editor of newly published Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track: The Letters of Richard P. Feynman, as well as the Pasadena postmaster.

Feynman’s selection was championed by a 1995 petition and letter-writing campaign by his friend and collaborator Ralph Leighton; Thorne and other faculty members supported it. 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.” The series also includes the likenesses of geneticist Barbara McClintock, mathematician John von Neumann, and thermodynamicist Josiah Willard Gibbs. (Interestingly, McClintock spent 1931–1933 at Caltech as a postdoc in the biology division.) The first-day issue of the American Scientists stamp series was May 4 at Yale.

The Feynman-stamp citation reads: “Richard P. Feynman (1918–1988) developed a new formulation of quantum theory based, in part, on diagrams he invented to help him visualize the dynamics of atomic particles. In 1965, this noted theoretical physicist, enthusiastic educator, and amateur artist was awarded the Nobel Prize in Physics.”
The commemorative Feynman postmark will be available through June 20 and can be ordered by contacting Mail Service’s Darrel Goudeau at 626/395-6359 or via e-mail at darrell.goudeau@caltech.edu. For more information, visit www.usps.com/communications/news/stamps/2004/sr04_076.htm.

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