Richard Feynman shared the 1965 Nobel Prize in Physics for quantum electrodynamics (QED), the theory of how light and charged particles such as electrons interact.
QED is among the most precisely tested theories in all of science, its predictions matching experiment to many decimal places. Feynman's lasting contribution was a way of *picturing* the maths: Feynman diagrams, simple sketches that track how particles exchange energy, turning fearsome calculations into something physicists can reason about visually.
Beyond QED, he became one of the great explainers of science, insisting that if you can't explain an idea simply, you don't yet understand it.
Why it matters: Feynman gave physicists both a supremely accurate theory of light and matter and an intuitive language to work in it.
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