<i>"Feynman was a pure genius, possibly the greatest scientist to grace the earth."</i><p>Feynman was certainly a pure genius, on that we agree, but saying that he was the greatest scientist is somewhat distasteful, imho. For starters, there's no metric that allows one to measure scientists. And Feynman himself thought that Gell-Mann was smarter than him.<p>There were various geniuses in the last 200 years. Most did not write their own biographies including lock-picking and doing physics at strip clubs, so the general public forgot about them. Truman once said that the U.S. Marine Corps' propaganda machine was second only to Stalin's. I would claim that Feynman's propaganda machine comes 3rd.<p>It's not that Feynman was not a genius, it's just that he was not the only one. What about Pauling, for instance? Why is that everytime I go to the Caltech bookstore I see an entire section dedicated to Feynman, a cult of personality that is almost nauseating, while there are virtually no books on Pauling, or Gell-Mann? Feynman was a pure genius not only in Physics, but also in marketing...