Manhattan Project scientists Richard Feynman and John von Neumann are getting their own postage stamps. The United States Post Office is hosting a ceremony Friday afternoon in Los Alamos to dedicate the new stamps.
The 37-cent stamps will be dedicated at the ceremony at 1 p.m., at the Los Alamos Post Office downtown. The dedication is free and open to the public.
Dramatic readings from both Feynman and von Neumann will entertain audience members who are encouraged to share their own memories. Commemorative cards will be available as well as refreshments, postage stamps and other free items.
Feynman was a major contributor to the Manhattan Project through physics and his theory of the interaction of photons and electrons. In 1965, he won the Nobel Prize for his work in physics and with the theory of quantum electrodynamics.
Von Neumann was one of the initiators of game theory and published the classic book “Theory of Games and Economic Behavior” with Oskar Morgenstern in 1944. As a consultant to the Laboratory, Von Neumann played an important role in developing the implosion bomb theory. The implosion bomb was first tested near Alamogordo on July 16, 1945; the bomb was dropped on Japan the next month.
More information about the history of the Laboratory can be found at http://www.lanl.gov/history/index.shtml online.
