"Feynman loved doing physics. I think what he loved most was the process of it. Of calculating. Of figuring things out.


It didn't seem to matter to him so much if what came out was big and important. Or esoteric and weird. What mattered to him was the process of finding it. And he was often quite competitive about it.

Some scientists (myself probably included) are driven by the ambition to build grand intellectual edifices. I think Feynman--at least in the years I knew him--was much more driven by the pure pleasure of actually doing the science. He seemed to like best to spend his time figuring things out, and calculating. "

"I remember often when we were both consulting for Thinking Machines in Boston, Feynman would say, "Let's hide away and do some physics." This was a typical scenario. Yes, I think we thought nobody was noticing that we were off at the back of a press conference about a new computer system talking about the nonlinear sigma model. Typically, Feynman would do some calculation. With me continually protesting that we should just go and use a computer. Eventually I'd do that. Then I'd get some results. And he'd get some results. And then we'd have an argument about whose intuition about the results was better."