Gee, I Did Not Know That: Richard Feynman And The Connection Machine

An essay by W. Daniel Hillis on Richard Feynman's contribution to Thinking Machines Corporation's Connection Machine.

So what job do you give to someone like Richard Feynman?

After a hurried private discussion ("I don't know, you hired him..."), we informed Richard that his assignment would be to advise on the application of parallel processing to scientific problems.

"That sounds like a bunch of baloney," he said. "Give me something real to do."

So we sent him out to buy some office supplies.