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Richard Feynman

Theoretical physicist; Nobel laureate in Physics, 1965

United States · 1918–1988

Theoretical physicist at Cornell and then the California Institute of Technology. Shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for work on quantum electrodynamics, and served on the presidential commission investigating the Challenger accident.

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Recorded · On the billboard

The first principle is that you must not fool yourself—and you are the easiest person to fool. So you have to be very careful about that. After you've not fooled yourself, it's easy not to fool other scientists. You just have to be honest in a conventional way after that.
If you could have a gigantic billboard anywhere, what would it say and why? Caltech commencement address, Pasadena, California, Caltech Engineering and Science (Caltech Library archive), 1 June 1974 source
What are bad recommendations you hear in your profession or area of expertise?
For example, I was a little surprised when I was talking to a friend who was going to go on the radio. He does work on cosmology and astronomy, and he wondered how he would explain what the applications of this work were. "Well," I said, "there aren't any." He said, "Yes, but then we won't get support for more research of this kind." I think that's kind of dishonest. If you're representing yourself as a scientist, then you should explain to the layman what you're doing—and if they don't want to support you under those circumstances, then that's their decision.

Recorded Caltech commencement address, Pasadena, California, Caltech Engineering and Science (Caltech Library archive), 1 June 1974 source

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