The Fantastic Mr Feynman

By Hamish Johnston

Fantastic Feynman at Fermilab. (Courtesy: Fermilab)

If you can’t get enough of Richard Feynman, the BBC has released the second part of its television tribute to the late Nobel laureate.

Called The Fantastic Mr Feynman, the programme opened with black-and-white footage of Feynman playing bongos. My heart sank. “Please don’t let this be more maverick-genius hagiography about Feynman,” I thought to myself.

Thankfully, it isn’t. Instead, it’s a sensitive telling of Feynman’s life with very little sensationalism. He is portrayed as a master communicator of science – and although some of this is ascribed to his genius, it’s obvious to the viewer that much of his natural talent comes from his innate curiosity and love for life.

Readers in the UK can watch the biopic here. The rest of you may have to wait until it is broadcast by a station near you. The programme was produced with the Open University, which also has its own pages dedicated to Feynman.

The first part of the BBC’s Feynman tribute was a dramatization of the Challenger inquiry and it aired back in March.

If you like the animations used in The Fantastic Mr Feynman, the same style is used in 60 Second Adventures in Astronomy, which is also produced by the Open University.