I well remember Richard Feynman’s performance on the federal commission studying why the Challenger space shuttle blew up on takeoff in 1986. How simply he explained what no one else seemed to know, and thus wrapped up the precise cause spectacularly. On his own.
He died a year later, just 69. So I enjoyed this essay about Feynman, one of the men who built the first atomic bomb and later said of it: “It wasn’t a lion hunt, it was a rabbit shoot.” Just what you’d expect from the man who demonstrated, with a piece of rubber and a glass of ice water, why the Challenger went down.
Via A Brief History.
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 
I read a bit about Feynman, a biography written by I don’t remember. The man, Feynman, that is, was truly impressive in many ways. The USA’s very own Einstein, and largely unappreciated, while our science-challenged boobs worship jerks like Tyson.
I was impressed by Tyson for a while. Until I watched the first two episodes of his update of Sagan’s Cosmos. When he got to the part where he was pimping for global warming, I bailed out and have not paid attention to him since.