Ralph Leighton (born November 13, 1949)^{[citation needed]} is an American biographer, film producer, and friend of the late physicist Richard Feynman. He recorded Feynman relating stories of his life. Leighton has released some of the recordings as The Feynman Tapes. These interviews became the basis for the books Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?, which were later combined into the hardcover anniversary edition Classic Feynman: All the Adventures of a Curious Character. Leighton is an amateur drummer and founder of the group Friends of Tuva. In 1990 he wrote Tuva or Bust! Richard Feynman's Last Journey.

He is credited as associate producer & originator of the concept for the academy-award nominated documentary film Genghis Blues (2000) which came about through the nexus provided by Friends of Tuva. With Feynman & Michael A. Gottlieb he is co-author of the supplement to The Feynman Lectures on Physics, Feynman's Tips on Physics (2005).

He is the son of the late Caltech physicist Robert B. Leighton, who was also a close personal friend of Feynman. He is married to Phoebe Kwan; they have two children, Nicole and Ian.

Stephen Collins, more commonly known as Steve Collins, (born 21 July 1964, Cabra, Dublin, Ireland) is a former professional boxer. Known as the "The Celtic Warrior", Collins is the former WBO middleweight and super middleweight champion.

Collins began his professional career in America, and lost two world title fights on points. It was not until Collins reached his 30's that he fulfilled his potential. Having competed against the best boxers on both sides of the Atlantic, Collins tends to be linked more to the era in the UK when there was a great rivalry between British boxers Chris Eubank and Nigel Benn. He fought and beat both, twice.

He is the brother of former footballer and current (June 2011) manager of Monaghan United football club, Roddy Collins.

Collins won 26 Irish titles at middleweight, light-heavyweight and cruiserweight as an amateur before turning professional in Massachusetts, U.S. in October 1986. His debut fight was against Julio Mercado on the undercard of a bill that featured his future trainer Freddie Roach and the future Fight of the Year winner Micky Ward. Collin's beat Mercado by way of knockout in the third round.

Lyle Mays (born November 27, 1953) is an American jazz pianist and composer from Wausaukee, Wisconsin. He is best known for his work with guitarist Pat Metheny as a member of the Pat Metheny Group. Along with Metheny, Mays has been a co-composer and arranger of almost all of the group's music and has won eleven Grammy Awards.

Growing up Mays had four main interests: chess, mathematics, architecture and music. His parents were musically inclined – his mother was a pianist, his father was a guitarist – and he was able to study the piano with the help of instructor Rose Barron. She allowed Mays the opportunity to practice improvisation after the structured elements of the lesson were completed. At age 9 he played organ at a family member's wedding, and at age 14 he began to play organ in church. In summer camp he was introduced to important jazz artists.

Bill Evans' album Live in Montreux and Miles Davis' album Filles de Kilimanjaro were important influences on his formation as a jazz musician. He graduated from the University of North Texas after attending the University of Wisconsin-Eau Claire. He composed and arranged for the world renowned One O'Clock Lab Band and was the composer and arranger of their highly regarded and Grammy nominated Lab 75 album.

Richard Phillips Feynman ( /ˈfaɪnmən/; May 11, 1918 – February 15, 1988) was an American physicist known for his work in the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics, and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as in particle physics (he proposed the parton model). For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman, jointly with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga, received the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965. He developed a widely used pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions governing the behavior of subatomic particles, which later became known as Feynman diagrams. During his lifetime, Feynman became one of the best-known scientists in the world. In a 1999 poll of 130 leading physicists worldwide by the British journal Physics World he was ranked as one of the ten greatest physicists of all time.

He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb and was a member of the panel that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. In addition to his work in theoretical physics, Feynman has been credited with pioneering the field of quantum computing, and introducing the concept of nanotechnology. He held the Richard Chace Tolman professorship in theoretical physics at the California Institute of Technology.

Hans Albrecht Bethe (German pronunciation: [ˈhans ˈalbʁɛçt ˈbeːtə]; July 2, 1906 – March 6, 2005) was a German-American nuclear physicist, and Nobel laureate in physics for his work on the theory of stellar nucleosynthesis. A versatile theoretical physicist, Bethe also made important contributions to quantum electrodynamics, nuclear physics, solid-state physics and astrophysics. During World War II, he was head of the Theoretical Division at the secret Los Alamos laboratory which developed the first atomic bombs. There he played a key role in calculating the critical mass of the weapons, and did theoretical work on the implosion method used in both the Trinity test and the "Fat Man" weapon dropped on Nagasaki, Japan. For most of his career, Bethe was a professor at Cornell University.

During the early 1950s, Bethe also played an important role in the development of the larger hydrogen bomb, though he had originally joined the project with the hope of proving it could not be made. Bethe later campaigned together with Albert Einstein in the Emergency Committee of Atomic Scientists against nuclear testing and the nuclear arms race. He influenced the White House to sign the ban of atmospheric nuclear tests in 1963 and the 1972 Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty, SALT I. His scientific research never ceased even into the later years of his life and he was publishing papers well into his nineties. He is one of the few scientists who can claim a major paper in his field every decade of his career, which spanned nearly 70 years. Freeman Dyson called Bethe the "supreme problem solver of the 20th century."