Rebutting remarks on Feynman and Wheeler

Christensen replies: Regarding John Wheeler’s “freak of fate” quote, there is other evidence to consider. I refer Paul Halpern to a series of Wheeler interviews conducted by Ken Ford. ¹ At one point, Ford asked Wheeler to name his best graduate students. Wheeler listed five names, none of them Richard Feynman. As a follow-up, Ford asked specifically about Feynman. Wheeler recalled Feynman’s fun-loving personality.

My concern about adequate credit to other physicists is that the overselling of the Wheeler–Feynman contribution trivialized the contributions of others who were not part of Wheeler’s intellectual lineage—Steven Weinberg, for example. The physicists Halpern named in his response were former Wheeler students, collaborators with Wheeler, or collaborators with former Wheeler students.

Halpern’s contention that Feynman had “numerous” graduate students is surprising. Feynman’s aversion to supervising PhD students is well documented and, indeed, was articulated by Feynman himself. ² Moreover, in 2001 I attempted to determine the number of PhD students Feynman had supervised. Personal communications with David Goodstein, Kip Thorne, and Feynman’s long-term secretary, Helen Tuck, were not terribly fruitful. In the end, only five names surfaced, and not all could be verified.

Goodstein’s own research suggests that in the mid to late 20th century, a professor at a major research university would, on average, supervise 15 PhD students. ³ Julian Schwinger is reported to have supervised 13; Wheeler, among the most prolific of mentors, supervised 52. At most, it seems that Feynman supervised 7.

There is more to say, but space here is limited. In sum, I stand by my review.