Editing Richard Feynman (section)

== Early life ==
Feynman was born on May 11, 1918, in New York City,<ref name="nobelbio">{{cite web |url=https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-bio.html |title=Richard P. Feynman – Biographical |publisher=[[The Nobel Foundation]] |access-date=April 23, 2013 |archive-date=July 1, 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060701224503/https://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/physics/laureates/1965/feynman-bio.html |url-status=live}}</ref> to Lucille ({{nee|Phillips}}; 1895–1981), a homemaker, and Melville Arthur Feynman (1890–1946), a sales manager.<ref name="turnbull">{{cite web |last1=O'Connor |first1=J. J. |last2=Robertson |first2=E. F. |date=August 2002 |title=Richard Feynman (1918–1988) – Biography – MacTutor History of Mathematics |url=https://mathshistory.st-andrews.ac.uk/Biographies/Feynman/ |access-date=June 10, 2023 |publisher=University of St. Andrews}}</ref> Feynman's father was born in [[Minsk]], [[Russian Empire]],{{sfn|Oakes|2007|p=231}} and immigrated with his parents to the United States at the age of five. Feynman's mother was born in the United States. Lucille's father had emigrated from Poland, and her mother also came from a family of Polish immigrants. She trained as a primary school teacher but married Melville in 1917, before taking up a profession.<ref name="nobelbio" /><ref name="turnbull" /> Feynman was a [[late talker]] and did not speak until after his third birthday. As an adult, he spoke with a [[New York accent]]{{sfn|Chown|1985|p=34}}{{sfn|Close|2011|p=58}} strong enough to be perceived as an affectation or exaggeration,{{sfn|Sykes|1994|p=54}}{{sfn|Friedman|2004|p=231}} so much so that his friends [[Wolfgang Pauli]] and [[Hans Bethe]] once commented that Feynman spoke like a "bum".{{sfn|Sykes|1994|p=54}}

The young Feynman was heavily influenced by his father, who encouraged him to ask questions to challenge orthodox thinking, and who was always ready to teach Feynman something new. From his mother, he gained the sense of humor that he had throughout his life. As a child, he had a talent for engineering,{{sfn|Feynman|1985|p=18}} maintained an experimental laboratory in his home, and delighted in repairing radios. This radio repairing was probably the first job Feynman had, and during this time he showed early signs of an aptitude for his later career in theoretical physics, when he would analyze the issues theoretically and arrive at the solutions.{{sfn|Feynman|1985|p=20}} When he was in grade school, he created a home burglar alarm system while his parents were out for the day running errands.{{sfn|Henderson|2011|p=8}}

When Richard was five, his mother gave birth to a younger brother, Henry Phillips, who died at age four weeks.{{sfn|Gleick|1992|pp=25–26}} Four years later, Richard's sister [[Joan Feynman|Joan]] was born and the family moved to [[Far Rockaway, Queens]].<ref name="turnbull" /> Though separated by nine years, Joan and Richard were close, and they both shared a curiosity about the world.<ref name="nytimes2020-09-10">{{cite news |author=Seelye |first=Katharine Q. |date=September 10, 2020 |title=Joan Feynman, Who Shined Light on the Aurora Borealis, Dies at 93 |work=[[The New York Times]] |url=https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/10/science/joan-feynman-dead.html |access-date=September 13, 2020}}</ref> Though their mother thought women lacked the capacity to understand such things, Richard encouraged Joan's interest in astronomy, taking her to see the [[aurora borealis]] in Far Rockaway.{{sfnp| Gleick| 1992| p=27}} As an astrophysicist, Joan would help to explain what caused the northern lights.<ref>{{cite magazine |url=https://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2002-04/my-mother-scientist/|title=My Mother, the Scientist |access-date=June 10, 2023 |first=Charles |last=Hirshberg |author-link=Charles Hirshberg |date=April 18, 2002 |magazine=Popular Science}}</ref><ref name="nytimes2020-09-10"/> 

===Religion===
Feynman's parents were both from Jewish families,<ref name="turnbull"/> and his family went to the [[synagogue]] every Friday.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Haynie |first=D. T. |title=And the award goes to... |journal=International Journal of Nanomedicine |issn=1176-9114 |year=2007 |volume=2 |issue=2 |pages=125–127 |pmid=17722541 |pmc=2673976 }}</ref> However, by his youth, Feynman described himself as an "avowed [[atheist]]".{{sfn|Feynman|1988a|p=25}}{{sfn|Brian|2001|p=49|ps=: "Interviewer: Do you call yourself an agnostic or an atheist? Feynman: An atheist. Agnostic for me would be trying to weasel out and sound a little nicer than I am about this."}} Many years later, in a letter to [[Tina Levitan]], declining a request for information for her book on Jewish Nobel Prize winners, he stated, "To select, for approbation the peculiar elements that come from some supposedly Jewish heredity is to open the door to all kinds of nonsense on racial theory", adding, "at thirteen I was not only converted to other religious views, but I also stopped believing that the Jewish people are in any way 'the [[chosen people]]'".<ref name="Harrison">{{cite news|last=Harrison|first=John|title=Physics, bongos and the art of the nude|url=https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3643596/Physics-bongos-and-the-art-of-the-nude.html |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/archive/20220110/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/books/3643596/Physics-bongos-and-the-art-of-the-nude.html |archive-date=January 10, 2022 |url-access=subscription |url-status=live|newspaper=[[The Daily Telegraph]]|access-date=April 23, 2013}}{{cbignore}}</ref>

Later in life, during a visit to the [[Jewish Theological Seminary of America|Jewish Theological Seminary]], Feynman encountered the [[Talmud]] for the first time. He saw that it contained the original text in a little square on each page, and surrounding it were commentaries written over time by different people. In this way the Talmud had evolved, and everything that was discussed was carefully recorded. Despite being impressed, Feynman was disappointed with the lack of interest for nature and the outside world expressed by the rabbis, who cared about only those questions which arise from the Talmud.{{sfn|Feynman|1985|pp=284–287}}