Richard Feynman - Popular Legacy

Popular Legacy

Alan Alda, the stage, screen and television actor, studied writings about Richard Feynman's life during the 1990s in preparation for playing the role of Feynman on stage. Based upon Alda's research, playwright Peter Parnell was commissioned by Alda to write a two-character play about a fictional day in the life of Feynman set two years prior to Feynman's death. The play, entitled QED, premiered at the Mark Taper Forum in Los Angeles, California in 2001. The play was then presented at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre on Broadway, with both presentations starring Alan Alda as Richard Feynman.

On May 4, 2005, the United States Postal Service issued the American Scientists commemorative set of four 37-cent self-adhesive stamps in several configurations. The scientists depicted were Richard Feynman, John von Neumann, Barbara McClintock, and Josiah Willard Gibbs. Feynman's stamp, sepia-toned, features a photograph of a 30-something Feynman and eight small Feynman diagrams. The stamps were designed by artist Victor Stabin under the direction of U.S. Postal Service art director Carl T. Herrman.

The main building for the Computing Division at Fermilab is named the "Feynman Computing Center" in his honor.

The principal character in Thomas A. McMahon's 1970 novel, Principles of American Nuclear Chemistry: A Novel, is modeled on Feynman.

Real Time Opera premiered its opera Feynman at the Norfolk (CT) Chamber Music Festival in June 2005.

In February 2008 LA Theatre Works released a recording of 'Moving Bodies' with Alfred Molina in the role of Richard Feynman. This radio play written by playwright Arthur Giron is an interpretation on how Feynman became one of the iconic American scientists and is loosely based on material found in Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?.

On the twentieth anniversary of Feynman's death, composer Edward Manukyan dedicated a piece for solo clarinet to his memory. It was premiered by Doug Storey, the principal clarinetist of the Amarillo Symphony.

In 2009–11, clips of an interview with Feynman were used by composer John Boswell as part of the Symphony of Science project in the second, fifth, seventh, and eleventh installments of his videos, "We Are All Connected", "The Poetry of Reality", "A Wave of Reason", and "The Quantum World".

In 1998, a photograph of Richard Feynman giving a lecture was part of the poster series commissioned by Apple Computer for their "Think Different" advertising campaign.

In 2011 Feynman was the subject of a biographical graphic novel entitled simply, Feynman, written by Jim Ottaviani and illustrated by Leland Myrick.