In mid-1947 friends of Feynman persuaded him—threats and cajoling were required—to write for publication the theoretical ideas they kept hearing him explain. When he finally did, he used no diagrams. The result was partly a reworking of his thesis, but it also showed the maturing and broadening of his command of the issues of quantum electrodynamics. He expressed the tenets of his new vision with an unabashed plainness. For some physicists this would be the most influential set of ideas Feynman ever published.
