The story of how Feynman found out about the Challenger disaster is quite interesting. It is not that he was a clever detective ferreting out the facts -- it&#x27;s just that he tried something different and let himself be nudged along in the process.<p>To quote from his book &quot;What do you care what other people think?&quot;...<p><i>Well, a few days after the accident, I get a telephone call from the head of NASA, William Graham, asking me to be on the committee investigating what went wrong with the shuttle! [...] When I heard the investigation was going to be in Washington, my immediate reaction was not to do it: I have a principle of not going anywhere near Washington or having anything to do with government, so my immediate reaction was -- how am I going to get out of this? [Gweneth, his wife says] &quot;If you don&#x27;t do it, there will be twelve people, all in a group, going around from  place to place together. But if you join in the commission, there will be eleven people -- all in a group going around from place to place together -- while the twelfth one runs around all over the place, checking all kinds of unusual things. There probably won&#x27;t be anything, but if there is, you&#x27;ll find it.&quot; She said, &quot;There isn&#x27;t anyone else who can do that like you can.&quot;</i>