Abstract
Two of the principal aims of this study were to reconstruct the route that led Feynman, between approximately 1946 and 1948, to devise his new method of diagrams and to evaluate what was achieved. In the preceding sections I showed how Feynman developed his diagrams in a series of comprehensible steps, and that his primary consideration was to solve important theoretical problems of the theory of quantum electrodynamics (QED) as it then stood. This goal was finally achieved to a satisfactory extent by Freeman J. Dyson’s systematization of Feynman’s results.
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Notes
- 1.
Dirac Equation a, 12, see Fig. 4.16.
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- 3.
- 4.
- 5.
Cf. Galison (1998).
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- 7.
- 8.
For example, “simply rewriting expressions in a simpler form” (STQED, p. 776); “using no new ideas” (SM, p. 1754); “[Tomonaga, Schwinger, and Feynman] kept the physical basis of the theory precisely as it had been laid down by Dirac, and only changed the mathematical superstructure” (Dyson 1965, p. 589).
References
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Wüthrich, A. (2010). The Development of a New Means of Representation: Goals and Milestones. In: The Genesis of Feynman Diagrams. Archimedes, vol 26. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-90-481-9228-1_7
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