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Everyday science

Everyday science

Surely you're joking?

22 Apr 2009 Hamish Johnston
atomic.jpg
One too many Brits

By Hamish Johnston

One of the things that makes the British great is their love of eccentricity.

Which is why I was not particularly surprised when I came across a reference in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph to “the British physicist Richard Feynman”. The passage was in a review of Jim Baggot’s book Atomic: The First War of Physics.

Feynman was as American as they come — he was born in New York City and spent most of his career at Caltech near Los Angeles.

However, he was famously eccentric so I can understand why a Brit reading about his antics would assume Feynman is British.

I don’t think I am the only person to have spotted the error — but for some reason it has yet to be corrected in the online version

By the way, Physics World will be publishing its own review of the book shortly.

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