Nobel Winner Feynman

The untimely death of Richard Feynman has plunged our house into mourning (Part I, Feb. 16). None of us had ever met him in person, but we knew him from his book, his Nova interview, the reports in the press. We had “adopted” Feynman as a sort of distant, benevolent, mentor, particularly since our undergraduate son is following in his scientific footsteps, though not at Caltech.

He was one of the most original thinkers the world has yet produced, not just in his specialized realm of physics, but in the way he lived out his philosophy--his profound skepticism, his perception of the hollowness in awards, and especially his genius for teaching an impossibly difficult science in the simplest, most direct, friendliest and most amusing manner. We felt very close to Feynman’s turn of mind and shall remember him to the end of our days. Even if he left us too soon, we are grateful that he was here at all.

GEORGE GAYNES

Studio City