Do you ever wonder what if the Doctor exists, and walks among us? That ‘Torchwood’ is real and the television show ‘Doctor Who’ is just an elaborate cover up? If the answer to any of those questions is yes, ever wonder who he might be?
Well, in the grand tradition of me not wanting to discern between fact and fiction, let me tell you exactly who I think the Doctor is. Last month I told you who I thought the Fourth Doctor was in real life. This month:
The Fifth Doctor : Richard Feynman
The Fifth Doctor may not be the ladies’ man or the bongo player Dr. Richard Feynman is, but he is definitely as quirky as the lauded physicist. Though, if I want to play fair in all of this, the Fifth Doctor had a very dedicated group of lady fans in the 80s (still does, actually, and they like to call him “Princess Fivey”) so maybe he’s more of a ladies’ man than I give him credit for.
Anyway, aside from my decidedly inane parallel of the “brainy specs” that neither Dr. Feynman or the Fifth Doctor really wore that often, it’s honestly how Dr. Feynman engages with the audience to explain the complexities of physics that struck me as particularly Fifth Doctor-ish. If you have hours to spend on YouTube and watch his lectures, I think you’d agree.
Dr. Feynman’s contributions to the field of science are many, and all of them sound like the sort of thing the Doctor would spout off in a moment of crisis, i.e, “don’t you know the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics?” Basically, as real as the fields Dr. Feynman pioneered are, they still sort of sound made up… like quantum electrodynamics.
The simple truth of the matter is that Dr. Feynman’s contributions, just like the Doctor’s, to this world is unfathomable, and he has and always will deserve a place on this list.
So, show off your time traveling abilities. Who do you think should be the Sixth Doctor?
