What award did Richard Feynman receive in 1972 for his teaching?

Richard Feynman received the Oersted Medal in 1972 for his contributions to the teaching of physics. The award was presented by the American Association of Physics Teachers, which established the medal in 1936 to recognize exceptional physics educators.

Feynman was an unusually influential teacher and science communicator. At Caltech, he helped reshape introductory physics education and delivered the lectures that became The Feynman Lectures on Physics, written with Robert Leighton and Matthew Sands. Those books became famous for explaining foundational subjects through physical intuition rather than rote formulas.

The award is sometimes confused with Feynman’s other major honors. He won the Albert Einstein Award in 1954, shared the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for work on quantum electrodynamics, and received the National Medal of Science in 1979. The Oersted Medal specifically recognized his teaching and communication of physics, making it the fitting answer to this question.