Richard Feynman's Grave at Mountain View Cemetery (Photo:Tim Jones)
Today I paid my respects at the grave of physicist Richard Feynman, interred with his wife Gweneth at the Mountain View Cemetery in Altadena, California. Feynman died of cancer in 1988 and his wife died the following year.
Richard Feynman at Fermilab. Image in public domain and available via Wikicommons
The grave is marked by a very simple plaque, which my wife and I would never have found without the help of the cemetery staff. Even then, until we brushed it off, the plaque was barely visible among the leaves and twigs - fallout from the Santa ana winds that have just ripped through the region.
Today was calm and sunny though, and the cemetery is a beautiful spot to find yourself. Lots of trees with birds and squirrels running about, the whole overlooked by the San Gabriel Mountains and Mount Wilson (of 100 inch telescope fame).
Feynman researched and taught as Professor of Physics at the nearby California Institute of Technology in Pasadena from 1950 until his death.
Here are some more photos at the cemetery:
If you don’t know about Richard Feynman, I recommend in addition to his Wikipedia page you check out the biographies Genius
More recently, here’s physicist Leonard Susskind’s personal insight on the man in his January 2011 TED talk ‘My friend Richard Feynman’
and the BBC Horizon ‘No Ordinary Genius’:
Monkey Brand Comes Clean
Charles Dickens’s Mudfrog Homeopathy
Darwin’s Many Origins
Getting Cute at Disneyland
A Century of Southern California Aerospace
Charlie’s Rose
Richard Feynman’s Grave
Total Lunar Eclipse 10th December 2011
Steven Pinker in conversation with A.C.Grayling at the Wellcome Collection
David Attenborough – Darwin Lecture 2011, ‘Alfred Russel Wallace and the Birds of Paradise’
Matt Melis Shares 30 Years of the Space Shuttle at the London Science Festival
Lawrence Krauss Sprinkles Stardust at the School of Life
Since the mid 1980s, I've worked in university and industrial research, as a manager and editor in technology and environment for an international industry association, and held senior business development, strategy, and procurement posts in industry. I hold a PhD in chemical engineering from Birmingham University, an MBA from Warwick University Business School, and an MSc in Science Communication from Imperial College. In 2008, I left industry to focus full-time on my passion for science and technology, and to share that enthusiasm with others as a freelance science communicator. I live in London with my wife Erin.
Contact me at timjones(at)communicatescience.com or through the tab above.
