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CLASSIC FEYNMAN All the Adventures of A Curious Character With a Commemorative CD
Richard Feynman (1918-1988) thrived on outrageous adventures. In the phenomenal national bestsellers "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" and "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" the Nobel Prize-winning physicist recounted in an inimitable voice his adventures trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and Bohr and ideas on gambling with Nick the Greek, painting a naked female toreador, accompanying a ballet on his bongo drums, solving the mystery of the Challenger disaster, and much else of an eyebrow-raising, hugely entertaining, and astounding nature. One of the most influential and creative minds of recent history, Feynman also possessed an unparalleled ability as a storyteller, a delightful coincidence celebrated in this special omnibus edition of his classic stories. Now packaged with an hour-long audio CD of the 1978 "Los Alamos from Below" lecture, Classic Feynman offers readers a chance to finally hear a great tale in the orator's own voice.
Paperback
First published January 1, 1991
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About the author
Freeman Dyson
69 books391 followersFreeman Dyson was a physicist and educator best known for his speculative work on extraterrestrial civilizations and for his work in quantum electrodynamics, solid-state physics, astronomy and nuclear engineering. He theorized several concepts that bear his name, such as Dyson's transform, Dyson tree, Dyson series, and Dyson sphere.
The son of a musician and composer, Dyson was educated at the University of Cambridge. As a teenager he developed a passion for mathematics, but his studies at Cambridge were interrupted in 1943, when he served in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. He received a B.A. from Cambridge in 1945 and became a research fellow of Trinity College. In 1947 he went to the United States to study physics and spent the next two years at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and Princeton, where he studied under J. Robert Oppenheimer, then director of the Institute for Advanced Study. Dyson returned to England in 1949 to become a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, but he was appointed professor of physics at Cornell in 1951 and two years later at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he became professor emeritus in 2000. He became a U.S. citizen in 1957.
The son of a musician and composer, Dyson was educated at the University of Cambridge. As a teenager he developed a passion for mathematics, but his studies at Cambridge were interrupted in 1943, when he served in the Royal Air Force Bomber Command. He received a B.A. from Cambridge in 1945 and became a research fellow of Trinity College. In 1947 he went to the United States to study physics and spent the next two years at Cornell University, Ithaca, N.Y., and Princeton, where he studied under J. Robert Oppenheimer, then director of the Institute for Advanced Study. Dyson returned to England in 1949 to become a research fellow at the University of Birmingham, but he was appointed professor of physics at Cornell in 1951 and two years later at the Institute for Advanced Study, where he became professor emeritus in 2000. He became a U.S. citizen in 1957.
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September 4, 2020
کتاب خیلی جالبی بود و بهنظرم ارزش خوندن داره. البته چون از روی نسخهی الکترونیکی میخوندمش خیلی بهطول انجامید:دی
اما مزیت کتاب روند داستانیشه و اینکه هر بخشش مثل یه داستان کوتاهه که شروع و تموم میشه و وقفه افتادن تو مطالعه مشکلی ایجاد نمیکنه.
داستان زندگی فاینمن انقدر بالا و پایین داشته و انقدر متنوع بوده که آدمو اصلا خسته نمیکنه و بسیار لذت بخشه.
"به همین جهت یک آرزو برایتان دارم. آرزو دارم این شانس را داشته باشید که درجایی کار کنید که بتوانید در اعمال صداقت علمی که به توصیف آن پرداختم آزاد باشید. امیدوارم در محلی قرار نگیرید که به خاطر حفظ سِمت یا نیازمالی یا هرچیز دیگر این صداقت را از دست دهید. با آرزوی برخورداری از چنین آزادی برای همه."
اما مزیت کتاب روند داستانیشه و اینکه هر بخشش مثل یه داستان کوتاهه که شروع و تموم میشه و وقفه افتادن تو مطالعه مشکلی ایجاد نمیکنه.
داستان زندگی فاینمن انقدر بالا و پایین داشته و انقدر متنوع بوده که آدمو اصلا خسته نمیکنه و بسیار لذت بخشه.
"به همین جهت یک آرزو برایتان دارم. آرزو دارم این شانس را داشته باشید که درجایی کار کنید که بتوانید در اعمال صداقت علمی که به توصیف آن پرداختم آزاد باشید. امیدوارم در محلی قرار نگیرید که به خاطر حفظ سِمت یا نیازمالی یا هرچیز دیگر این صداقت را از دست دهید. با آرزوی برخورداری از چنین آزادی برای همه."
October 22, 2017
This 500-plus-page volume contains all the material from the 1985 book, "Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)," and its 1988 sequel, "What Do You Care What Other People Think? Further Adventures of a Curious Character." The two books are not simply juxtaposed but their essays and chapters are merged to form a new arrangement of the material.
The nine parts of the book, each containing 1-18 chapters/essays, are:
Prologues [pp. 1-9]: Ralph Leighton’s “To the Reader” and Freeman Dyson’s “Foreword”
From Far Rockaway to MIT [pp. 11-55]
The Princeton Years [pp. 57-88]
Arlene (actually spelled “Arline”; Feynman’s first wife, lost to tuberculosis at age 25) [pp. 89-119]
Feynman, the Military, and the Bomb [pp. 121-179]
From Cornell to Caltech, with a Touch of Brazil [pp. 181-248]
The World of One Physicist [pp. 249-378]
Mr. Feynman Goes to Washington: Investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster [pp. 379-478]
Epilogues [pp. 479-506]: Reflections on the value of science and the perils of cult science
The book comes with a commemorative audio CD containing a February 1975 talk by Feynman at UC Santa Barbara, entitled “Los Alamos from Below.” I listened to this talk before beginning to read the book. The talk, available on-line as a 69-minute audio file
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ogSC6...),
is enjoyable and enlightening. Hearing the Nobel Laureate’s voice adds another dimension to the understanding provided by the textual description of his adventures. The phrase “from Below” signifies the fact that Feynman talks about a time period when he was a low-level researcher who observed the goings on at Los Alamos, without being privy to reasons behind various decisions made higher up.
While autobiographical, this book does not list and discuss events in chronological order. Rather, it jumps back and forth among Feynman’s childhood, his college days, his early career (when his wife Arline was still alive, though quite sick most of the time), and his later affiliation with Caltech. Each chapter/essay has a theme that is reflected in its title. Some of these cover not a particular time slice in Feynman’s life, but rather mix memories from his childhood and youth with events later in his life.
Feynman emerges as a collection of contradictions. He comes across as a bright scientist, who worked with intensity for extended periods of time on problems that fascinated him, but who also showed a lack of interest in pursuing the traditional path of scientific research. He worked in fits and starts, highly inspired at times and getting bored at others. According to physicist Freeman Dyson, who wrote the book’s foreword, there were two great creative periods in Feynman’s life: the 10 years between 1939 and 1949 and the 1960s decade.
Feynman was curious, playful, and quite a prankster. At parties, he would emulate a bloodhound, attempting to tell through his sense of smell which guest had touched which object. He became quite good at this; he was convinced that the human sense of smell, though way inferior to that of bloodhounds, isn’t as bad as most people think. Of course, party guests never believed him, given his reputation for making things up; they usually thought that he did a magic trick with help from an accomplice. Socially, he was more comfortable with street people than with top-notch scientists and academic administrators. In women, too, he preferred to befriend barflies and Las Vegas showgirls, hinting that his upbringing and early nerdiness may have played a role in shaping his social quirks.
I found reading this book an educational experience and a reaffirmation of some of my unconventional beliefs about how scientific work should be pursued; that having fun doing science leads both to more rewarding research experiences and more important discoveries. I was reassured to learn that, in the end, people value and respect someone who knows what s/he is talking about, even if the said person’s opinions are stated bluntly and not always in politically correct (PC) terms.
Speaking of PC, there are two aspects of Feynman’s life and character that bothered me a lot. Let me try to get these disturbing aspects out of the way, so that I can devote the rest of my review to his amazing and endearing qualities.
Feynman loved women and went out of his way to impress and attract them. He would meet many at bars, dances, Las Vegas shows, and they would immediately take a liking to him and confide in him. It appears, however, that he did not respect women and viewed them only as amusement and objects of conquest. Examples that confirm this impression abound in the book. He comments about women’s physical attributes first, on several occasions (such as on p. 338, where he writes, “She was really cute, a beautiful blonde”), when he introduces female characters he has encountered. He writes at length about how to get women interested by pretending that you don’t care much about them and treating them poorly. Perhaps, Feynman shouldn’t be blamed for this line of thinking, which was the norm during his days as a young man, but then, this is such a contrast with the rest of his character that one can’t help but wonder.
Feynman was also judgmental at times, yet dismissive of those who would judge him or others. He blamed people or called them names, without knowing much about them. A striking example appears on p. 407, where he, justifiably, makes fun of the NASA bureaucracy after receiving a reply to a simple question (asked as part of his research for the commission to investigate the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster), with the reply sheet sandwiched between memos in the management hierarchy sending the question down the chain and the reply back up, he refers to the person at the end of the chain (the one person who actually did some work), as “the poor bastard at the bottom.”
Feynman was an excellent amateur scientist in areas outside his physics expertise, a talent he picked up from his not-very-educated father, who would explain to him some basic principles of science; not what something was called, but how it behaved, why it was the way it was, and so on. These interactions with his father led Feynman to seek deeper understanding and not stop when a reasonable explanation had been found. He would observe ants for hours, conducting various experiments about their sense of direction or geometry.
Whereas most students mingled with their own kinds (physicists sitting at the “physics” table at the dining hall, for example), Feynman, the college student, tried to learn about others, so he would venture to the “philosophy” or “biology” table and listen to them, was easily persuaded to attend classes or seminars in those areas, and often ended up teaching a thing or two about their discipline by simply raising important questions that occur only to outsiders.
He discovered that in biology, “it was very easy to find a question that was very interesting, and that nobody knew the answer to.” This curiosity and desire to work and learn in other disciplines persisted even after he became an established physicist. In the chapter entitled “But Is It Art?” [pp. 298-316], he describes his interactions, and mutual learning experiences, with an artist friend. Feynman learned quickly and produced some impressive paintings (even managing to sell some of them and to have his works exhibited in a fancy department store), but the artist friend never learned any physics! Feynman questioned the conventional wisdom that a scientist sees less beauty in a flower than an artist does. He believed that there is beauty not just in colors and shapes but also at the underlying cellular level. So, a scientist sees more beauty, not less.
In a short chapter entitled “The Chief Research Chemist of the Metaplast Corporation” [pp. 50-55], Feynman describes his trials and tribulations as the “chief chemist” for a company that had only 4 other employees: the President, a VP, a salesperson, and a bottle washer. The title of another short chapter, “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!” [pp. 59-64], refers to a social blunder he made at the Dean’s tea at Princeton, when he answered the question “Would you like cream or lemon in your tea?” by saying “I’ll have both, thank you.” Then there’s the story of Feynman’s first technical talk that was attended by Einstein and other “monster minds” [pp. 65-68]. He was understandably nervous, but the talk went well.
The fairly long, and touchingly personal, chapter entitled “What Do You Care What Other People Think?” [pp. 91-119] is about his relationship with his first wife, Arline, who died at a young age. He struggled with the doctors’ ideas of not telling his wife about her being afflicted with Hodgkin’s disease. His wife’s parents were for the idea, and he went along with it for a while. But Feynman suffered greatly from keeping something so important from the woman he loved.
At some point in his career, Feynman began feeling disgust for physics; it wasn’t fun any more. He realized that physics was fun when he played with it, regardless of whether the problem he examined was fashionable or important for the future of science; when he did it simply because he was curious and didn’t care about someone else already having studied or invented the concept.
Feynman does not hide his contempt for scientists who report their results in complicated ways. When he couldn’t make sense of a sociologist’s research paper, he decided to take it one sentence at a time and try to understand it fully before moving on to the next sentence. He then read this sentence: “The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels.” After struggling with the meaning of this sentence, understanding finally came when he translated it to “People read.” Later in the book (p. 276), Feynman explains further that things appear complicated to us, because we don’t read carefully enough.
Feynman lambasts a number of misguided efforts to develop high-school science textbooks and the way in which school boards choose them. He relates an experience when he was helping a school board evaluate candidate physics textbooks. One book described stars of various colors and the relationship of those colors with the star’s temperature. So far, so good! The book’s authors then proceeded to describe a boy and his father observing a number of such stars of various given colors, asking the reader to figure out the total temperature of the stars they saw. The total temperature has no physical significance; had they asked about the average temperature of the stars, it would have made sense, but would still fall short of being an interesting or enlightening exercise.
Actor/director Alan Alda provides a touching essay in the “Epilogues” part, bearing the title “Finding Feynman” [pp. 499-506]: Alda worked for many years to stage the play “QED” (which portrayed a day in the life of Richard Feynman), despite finding it difficult to muster support for the project. Later, in 1996, the movie “Infinity” based on material in this book was released that chronicles the early life of Feynman, portrayed by Matthew Broderick, with Patricia Arquette playing his wife Arline.
I read the part of the book dealing with Feynman’s role in investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster [pp. 379-478] with even greater interest, as I teach in one of my graduate-level courses about the use of redundant computers on the Shuttle as a way of dealing with hardware and software imprefections. Reading Feynman’s account of the Challenger disaster and the political posturing and power struggles in preparing and releasing the Commission’s final report, was particularly eye-opening.
When Feynman noticed that the official Space Shuttle report was moving in the wrong direction, not being specific enough about what went wrong and who was to blame, he tried to have his name removed from the list of authors/signatories. Eventual compromises in wording of the report’s final recommendations, and an opportunity to voice his concerns in an appendix under his own name, persuaded Feynman to leave his signature on the report.
Feynman complains that many people talk about failure probabilities that do not make sense. When he asked a number of “specialists” about the failure probability for the Space Shuttle, he often got the response “1 in 100,000.” Such a failure probability would mean that you can fly the Shuttle every day an average of 300 years between accidents. There is no way the Shuttle was this reliable. A failure rate of about 4% had been observed for rockets and even a couple of orders of magnitude improvement on this figure, to account for the greater care exercised for manned missions, would only get us to 1 in 1000 at best. This book reproduces Appendix F of the investigation’s report [pp. 465-478], containing Feynman’s analysis of Space Shuttle’s reliability, including his disagreement with NASA management’s exaggerated figures. He also comments on the 4-way and 5-way redundant computers for the Shuttle and on the difficulties arising from the use of obsolete hardware and software, given that operational experience with existing systems would be difficult to reproduce in replacement systems.
In line with the observations I made earlier about Feynman’s weakness for pretty women, he confesses to giving his as yet unreleased observations on the Challenger disaster to two blonde reporters and then regretting his action.
To summarize, I truly enjoyed this book and emerged from reading it with even greater respect for Feynman and his abilities. The negative character traits notwithstanding, Feynman is one of the very few human beings who have contributed both to expanding the frontiers of science and to explaining science and its importance to the masses. He showed us that a scientist at the pinnacle of his field can/must still find time to explain his work to ordinary mortals, to explore other disciplines, and to pay attention to ethical implications of his own work and of science/technology in general.
The nine parts of the book, each containing 1-18 chapters/essays, are:
Prologues [pp. 1-9]: Ralph Leighton’s “To the Reader” and Freeman Dyson’s “Foreword”
From Far Rockaway to MIT [pp. 11-55]
The Princeton Years [pp. 57-88]
Arlene (actually spelled “Arline”; Feynman’s first wife, lost to tuberculosis at age 25) [pp. 89-119]
Feynman, the Military, and the Bomb [pp. 121-179]
From Cornell to Caltech, with a Touch of Brazil [pp. 181-248]
The World of One Physicist [pp. 249-378]
Mr. Feynman Goes to Washington: Investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger Disaster [pp. 379-478]
Epilogues [pp. 479-506]: Reflections on the value of science and the perils of cult science
The book comes with a commemorative audio CD containing a February 1975 talk by Feynman at UC Santa Barbara, entitled “Los Alamos from Below.” I listened to this talk before beginning to read the book. The talk, available on-line as a 69-minute audio file
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0ogSC6...),
is enjoyable and enlightening. Hearing the Nobel Laureate’s voice adds another dimension to the understanding provided by the textual description of his adventures. The phrase “from Below” signifies the fact that Feynman talks about a time period when he was a low-level researcher who observed the goings on at Los Alamos, without being privy to reasons behind various decisions made higher up.
While autobiographical, this book does not list and discuss events in chronological order. Rather, it jumps back and forth among Feynman’s childhood, his college days, his early career (when his wife Arline was still alive, though quite sick most of the time), and his later affiliation with Caltech. Each chapter/essay has a theme that is reflected in its title. Some of these cover not a particular time slice in Feynman’s life, but rather mix memories from his childhood and youth with events later in his life.
Feynman emerges as a collection of contradictions. He comes across as a bright scientist, who worked with intensity for extended periods of time on problems that fascinated him, but who also showed a lack of interest in pursuing the traditional path of scientific research. He worked in fits and starts, highly inspired at times and getting bored at others. According to physicist Freeman Dyson, who wrote the book’s foreword, there were two great creative periods in Feynman’s life: the 10 years between 1939 and 1949 and the 1960s decade.
Feynman was curious, playful, and quite a prankster. At parties, he would emulate a bloodhound, attempting to tell through his sense of smell which guest had touched which object. He became quite good at this; he was convinced that the human sense of smell, though way inferior to that of bloodhounds, isn’t as bad as most people think. Of course, party guests never believed him, given his reputation for making things up; they usually thought that he did a magic trick with help from an accomplice. Socially, he was more comfortable with street people than with top-notch scientists and academic administrators. In women, too, he preferred to befriend barflies and Las Vegas showgirls, hinting that his upbringing and early nerdiness may have played a role in shaping his social quirks.
I found reading this book an educational experience and a reaffirmation of some of my unconventional beliefs about how scientific work should be pursued; that having fun doing science leads both to more rewarding research experiences and more important discoveries. I was reassured to learn that, in the end, people value and respect someone who knows what s/he is talking about, even if the said person’s opinions are stated bluntly and not always in politically correct (PC) terms.
Speaking of PC, there are two aspects of Feynman’s life and character that bothered me a lot. Let me try to get these disturbing aspects out of the way, so that I can devote the rest of my review to his amazing and endearing qualities.
Feynman loved women and went out of his way to impress and attract them. He would meet many at bars, dances, Las Vegas shows, and they would immediately take a liking to him and confide in him. It appears, however, that he did not respect women and viewed them only as amusement and objects of conquest. Examples that confirm this impression abound in the book. He comments about women’s physical attributes first, on several occasions (such as on p. 338, where he writes, “She was really cute, a beautiful blonde”), when he introduces female characters he has encountered. He writes at length about how to get women interested by pretending that you don’t care much about them and treating them poorly. Perhaps, Feynman shouldn’t be blamed for this line of thinking, which was the norm during his days as a young man, but then, this is such a contrast with the rest of his character that one can’t help but wonder.
Feynman was also judgmental at times, yet dismissive of those who would judge him or others. He blamed people or called them names, without knowing much about them. A striking example appears on p. 407, where he, justifiably, makes fun of the NASA bureaucracy after receiving a reply to a simple question (asked as part of his research for the commission to investigate the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster), with the reply sheet sandwiched between memos in the management hierarchy sending the question down the chain and the reply back up, he refers to the person at the end of the chain (the one person who actually did some work), as “the poor bastard at the bottom.”
Feynman was an excellent amateur scientist in areas outside his physics expertise, a talent he picked up from his not-very-educated father, who would explain to him some basic principles of science; not what something was called, but how it behaved, why it was the way it was, and so on. These interactions with his father led Feynman to seek deeper understanding and not stop when a reasonable explanation had been found. He would observe ants for hours, conducting various experiments about their sense of direction or geometry.
Whereas most students mingled with their own kinds (physicists sitting at the “physics” table at the dining hall, for example), Feynman, the college student, tried to learn about others, so he would venture to the “philosophy” or “biology” table and listen to them, was easily persuaded to attend classes or seminars in those areas, and often ended up teaching a thing or two about their discipline by simply raising important questions that occur only to outsiders.
He discovered that in biology, “it was very easy to find a question that was very interesting, and that nobody knew the answer to.” This curiosity and desire to work and learn in other disciplines persisted even after he became an established physicist. In the chapter entitled “But Is It Art?” [pp. 298-316], he describes his interactions, and mutual learning experiences, with an artist friend. Feynman learned quickly and produced some impressive paintings (even managing to sell some of them and to have his works exhibited in a fancy department store), but the artist friend never learned any physics! Feynman questioned the conventional wisdom that a scientist sees less beauty in a flower than an artist does. He believed that there is beauty not just in colors and shapes but also at the underlying cellular level. So, a scientist sees more beauty, not less.
In a short chapter entitled “The Chief Research Chemist of the Metaplast Corporation” [pp. 50-55], Feynman describes his trials and tribulations as the “chief chemist” for a company that had only 4 other employees: the President, a VP, a salesperson, and a bottle washer. The title of another short chapter, “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman!” [pp. 59-64], refers to a social blunder he made at the Dean’s tea at Princeton, when he answered the question “Would you like cream or lemon in your tea?” by saying “I’ll have both, thank you.” Then there’s the story of Feynman’s first technical talk that was attended by Einstein and other “monster minds” [pp. 65-68]. He was understandably nervous, but the talk went well.
The fairly long, and touchingly personal, chapter entitled “What Do You Care What Other People Think?” [pp. 91-119] is about his relationship with his first wife, Arline, who died at a young age. He struggled with the doctors’ ideas of not telling his wife about her being afflicted with Hodgkin’s disease. His wife’s parents were for the idea, and he went along with it for a while. But Feynman suffered greatly from keeping something so important from the woman he loved.
At some point in his career, Feynman began feeling disgust for physics; it wasn’t fun any more. He realized that physics was fun when he played with it, regardless of whether the problem he examined was fashionable or important for the future of science; when he did it simply because he was curious and didn’t care about someone else already having studied or invented the concept.
Feynman does not hide his contempt for scientists who report their results in complicated ways. When he couldn’t make sense of a sociologist’s research paper, he decided to take it one sentence at a time and try to understand it fully before moving on to the next sentence. He then read this sentence: “The individual member of the social community often receives his information via visual, symbolic channels.” After struggling with the meaning of this sentence, understanding finally came when he translated it to “People read.” Later in the book (p. 276), Feynman explains further that things appear complicated to us, because we don’t read carefully enough.
Feynman lambasts a number of misguided efforts to develop high-school science textbooks and the way in which school boards choose them. He relates an experience when he was helping a school board evaluate candidate physics textbooks. One book described stars of various colors and the relationship of those colors with the star’s temperature. So far, so good! The book’s authors then proceeded to describe a boy and his father observing a number of such stars of various given colors, asking the reader to figure out the total temperature of the stars they saw. The total temperature has no physical significance; had they asked about the average temperature of the stars, it would have made sense, but would still fall short of being an interesting or enlightening exercise.
Actor/director Alan Alda provides a touching essay in the “Epilogues” part, bearing the title “Finding Feynman” [pp. 499-506]: Alda worked for many years to stage the play “QED” (which portrayed a day in the life of Richard Feynman), despite finding it difficult to muster support for the project. Later, in 1996, the movie “Infinity” based on material in this book was released that chronicles the early life of Feynman, portrayed by Matthew Broderick, with Patricia Arquette playing his wife Arline.
I read the part of the book dealing with Feynman’s role in investigating the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster [pp. 379-478] with even greater interest, as I teach in one of my graduate-level courses about the use of redundant computers on the Shuttle as a way of dealing with hardware and software imprefections. Reading Feynman’s account of the Challenger disaster and the political posturing and power struggles in preparing and releasing the Commission’s final report, was particularly eye-opening.
When Feynman noticed that the official Space Shuttle report was moving in the wrong direction, not being specific enough about what went wrong and who was to blame, he tried to have his name removed from the list of authors/signatories. Eventual compromises in wording of the report’s final recommendations, and an opportunity to voice his concerns in an appendix under his own name, persuaded Feynman to leave his signature on the report.
Feynman complains that many people talk about failure probabilities that do not make sense. When he asked a number of “specialists” about the failure probability for the Space Shuttle, he often got the response “1 in 100,000.” Such a failure probability would mean that you can fly the Shuttle every day an average of 300 years between accidents. There is no way the Shuttle was this reliable. A failure rate of about 4% had been observed for rockets and even a couple of orders of magnitude improvement on this figure, to account for the greater care exercised for manned missions, would only get us to 1 in 1000 at best. This book reproduces Appendix F of the investigation’s report [pp. 465-478], containing Feynman’s analysis of Space Shuttle’s reliability, including his disagreement with NASA management’s exaggerated figures. He also comments on the 4-way and 5-way redundant computers for the Shuttle and on the difficulties arising from the use of obsolete hardware and software, given that operational experience with existing systems would be difficult to reproduce in replacement systems.
In line with the observations I made earlier about Feynman’s weakness for pretty women, he confesses to giving his as yet unreleased observations on the Challenger disaster to two blonde reporters and then regretting his action.
To summarize, I truly enjoyed this book and emerged from reading it with even greater respect for Feynman and his abilities. The negative character traits notwithstanding, Feynman is one of the very few human beings who have contributed both to expanding the frontiers of science and to explaining science and its importance to the masses. He showed us that a scientist at the pinnacle of his field can/must still find time to explain his work to ordinary mortals, to explore other disciplines, and to pay attention to ethical implications of his own work and of science/technology in general.
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March 10, 2017همهی این داستانها واقعی هستند و راوی آنها خود فاینمن است. بیتردید ریچارد فاینمن نگینی درخشان و اسطورهای بی همتا در تاریخ علم است. روزنامهی نیویورک تایمز مینویسد، فاینمن ناب- شوخ طبع، باهوش، گاهی هم هرزه… این کتاب چقدر خواندنی است.
و روزنامهی واشنگتن پست در نقد این کتاب مینویسد، او انسانی مبتکر، باهوش، کنجکاو، پرانرژی، التقاطی، و تمام عیار سنت شکن بود که به علم عشق میورزید، علاقهی سیری ناپذیری به اصول اولیه
و روزنامهی واشنگتن پست در نقد این کتاب مینویسد، او انسانی مبتکر، باهوش، کنجکاو، پرانرژی، التقاطی، و تمام عیار سنت شکن بود که به علم عشق میورزید، علاقهی سیری ناپذیری به اصول اولیه
November 28, 2020
Read as part of my ongoing shelf audit. Verdict: Oh yeah, this is a keeper.
My first encounter with Richard Feynman's work was in the mid 2000s, when my family was moving about halfway across the U.S. and my dad checked out the audiobook of "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character for the drive. I don't remember a lot of particulars, except for 'A Map of the Cat' and Feynman's story about lighting the back of his hand on fire in college, but I remember enjoying the mixture of science and humor, and feeling like it was a cool thing to share with my engineer father. I was, at the time, going into middle school.
Years later, someone gave me a Barnes and Noble gift card as a high school graduation gift, and I bought this compilation thinking a) it would be an appropriate thing to read in college and b) it would make me look very Sophisticated and Smart to have this on the shelf in my freshman dorm room. I then... did not read it. For nine more years. (I really should have, or at least the Los Alamos parts; my freshman colloquium course was all about the making of the atomic bomb.)
I'm glad that my current attempt to actually read everything on my shelf has brought me back to this, though, because Feynman's perspective is fascinating. Stylistically, these essays feel like stories you're being told by your grandfather or great uncle; there's a friendliness and openness which invites the reader in and makes you feel welcome, even when the details go right over your head. The content is... fascinating, even the parts I didn't understand, because you can feel Feynman's incredible intelligence on every page. Physics isn't my jam, but I don't need to understand exactly what he's saying to get something of value from the enthusiasm and wonder with which he approached his work. The way in which he approached science is... 'idyllic' is really the best word I have for it; he had both incredible ability and childlike curiosity, and he was always pursuing his passions and excited about wherever he was. I find myself wondering, in this time of crushing student debt and diminished research funding, if it's possible to live that way now. I hope it is, at least for some people.
There's also something fascinating about seeing ordinary facets of the world through the lens of an extraordinary person. The same curiosity that Feynman applied to physics problems was extended to many other things in his life - attending a dance organized by a club for deaf and mute people, for instance, or learning how to play the drums, or life drawing. He seems to have gone through life with this... incorrigible energy, with very little fear of failure, and I find myself wondering if maybe that's the real secret of genius - not some baked-in capability of the brain, but the desire to just keep trying new things and fiddling with problems, regardless of the potential outcomes. So many of Feynman's decisions, at least as he describes them himself, seem so simple and free of anxiety or second-guessing.
Even with that, he did experience impostor syndrome at least once - at his first teaching job, at Cornell, after WWII. Feynman's response to that, too, is startlingly simple:
As someone who struggles with anxiety and self-esteem frequently, it's comforting to know that even a guy who argued physics with Niels Bohr and won a Nobel Prize felt inadequate and like a fraud at one point; that's as clear a demonstration as possible that impostor syndrome thought processes have no bearing on reality. It's... something I'll try to keep in mind.
I was also deeply touched by the way Feynman talks about his first wife, Arlene, who died of tuberculosis while he was working on the Manhattan Project. While he doesn't really dig deeply into his emotions, it's still clear by the way he describes their relationship that they really loved each other. His phrasing is so simple, and yet in that simplicity is something complex: when they got married, Arlene was already sick and they knew she would be in and out of the hospital for the rest of her fairly short life expectancy. That's far from a simple situation, and yet Feynman always treats it as a foregone conclusion: "We were in love, and were already married, emotionally." Discussing her death, just five years later, he is matter-of-fact:
It's that last line - "We had a hell of a good time together" - which strikes me as somehow infinitely tender.
There's a lot of humor here, too, of course. Feynman followed his curiosity into odd situations and incongruous escapades, and he relates them with complete honesty, never afraid to acknowledge his own misconceptions or moments of utter absurdity. I think the most absurd is the chapter titled 'Safecracker Meets Safecracker', in which he describes learning to pick locks and open safes while working at Los Alamos which is just... I can't even imagine deciding 'hey, why don't I develop a reputation for bypassing security while working on the most high-security military project the world has known to date?' It worked out for him, but damn. Couple that decision with the revelation at the end of the chapter that 20% of the safe combinations at the installation were still set to their factory defaults... the Manhattan Project is a serious topic, but that's just ridiculous.
One aspect of the book did make me consistently uncomfortable, and that's the way Feynman talks about women in aggregate. Specific women he knew well are discussed like anyone else, but there's a strong through-line of women, in general, existing primarily as eye candy and/or potential sexual partners. It's not creepy, per se, but there is a through-line of casual objectification which is, at best, an artifact of the times. (Though from some of the quotes I've seen from the new Obama autobiography, maybe not as much of the times as I would like to think.)
Ultimately, I think this book is a reminder to me of an ethos worth striving for in science. My Bachelor's is in biology, though I'm not currently working in the field, and I think Feynman's example - of approaching science with wonder, of questioning everything, and of extending that same curiosity to the rest of life - is one worth emulating. I don't know if I'll be very good at it, but I want to give it a try, and I'll probably come back to this book in the future for a reminder.
My first encounter with Richard Feynman's work was in the mid 2000s, when my family was moving about halfway across the U.S. and my dad checked out the audiobook of "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character for the drive. I don't remember a lot of particulars, except for 'A Map of the Cat' and Feynman's story about lighting the back of his hand on fire in college, but I remember enjoying the mixture of science and humor, and feeling like it was a cool thing to share with my engineer father. I was, at the time, going into middle school.
Years later, someone gave me a Barnes and Noble gift card as a high school graduation gift, and I bought this compilation thinking a) it would be an appropriate thing to read in college and b) it would make me look very Sophisticated and Smart to have this on the shelf in my freshman dorm room. I then... did not read it. For nine more years. (I really should have, or at least the Los Alamos parts; my freshman colloquium course was all about the making of the atomic bomb.)
I'm glad that my current attempt to actually read everything on my shelf has brought me back to this, though, because Feynman's perspective is fascinating. Stylistically, these essays feel like stories you're being told by your grandfather or great uncle; there's a friendliness and openness which invites the reader in and makes you feel welcome, even when the details go right over your head. The content is... fascinating, even the parts I didn't understand, because you can feel Feynman's incredible intelligence on every page. Physics isn't my jam, but I don't need to understand exactly what he's saying to get something of value from the enthusiasm and wonder with which he approached his work. The way in which he approached science is... 'idyllic' is really the best word I have for it; he had both incredible ability and childlike curiosity, and he was always pursuing his passions and excited about wherever he was. I find myself wondering, in this time of crushing student debt and diminished research funding, if it's possible to live that way now. I hope it is, at least for some people.
There's also something fascinating about seeing ordinary facets of the world through the lens of an extraordinary person. The same curiosity that Feynman applied to physics problems was extended to many other things in his life - attending a dance organized by a club for deaf and mute people, for instance, or learning how to play the drums, or life drawing. He seems to have gone through life with this... incorrigible energy, with very little fear of failure, and I find myself wondering if maybe that's the real secret of genius - not some baked-in capability of the brain, but the desire to just keep trying new things and fiddling with problems, regardless of the potential outcomes. So many of Feynman's decisions, at least as he describes them himself, seem so simple and free of anxiety or second-guessing.
Even with that, he did experience impostor syndrome at least once - at his first teaching job, at Cornell, after WWII. Feynman's response to that, too, is startlingly simple:
Then I thought to myself, "You know, what they think of you is so fantastic, it's impossible to live up to it. You have no responsibility to live up to it!"
It was a brilliant idea: You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be; it's their mistake, not my failing.
As someone who struggles with anxiety and self-esteem frequently, it's comforting to know that even a guy who argued physics with Niels Bohr and won a Nobel Prize felt inadequate and like a fraud at one point; that's as clear a demonstration as possible that impostor syndrome thought processes have no bearing on reality. It's... something I'll try to keep in mind.
I was also deeply touched by the way Feynman talks about his first wife, Arlene, who died of tuberculosis while he was working on the Manhattan Project. While he doesn't really dig deeply into his emotions, it's still clear by the way he describes their relationship that they really loved each other. His phrasing is so simple, and yet in that simplicity is something complex: when they got married, Arlene was already sick and they knew she would be in and out of the hospital for the rest of her fairly short life expectancy. That's far from a simple situation, and yet Feynman always treats it as a foregone conclusion: "We were in love, and were already married, emotionally." Discussing her death, just five years later, he is matter-of-fact:
The only difference for me and Arlene was, instead of fifty years, it was five years. It was only a quantitative difference - the psychological problem was just the same. The only way it would have become any different is if we had said to ourselves, "But those other people have it better, because they might live fifty years." But that's crazy. Why make yourself miserable by saying things like, "Why do we have such bad luck? What has God done to us? What have we done to deserve this? - all of which, if you understand reality and take it completely into your heart. There are just things that nobody can know. Your situation is just an accident of life.
We had a hell of a good time together.
It's that last line - "We had a hell of a good time together" - which strikes me as somehow infinitely tender.
There's a lot of humor here, too, of course. Feynman followed his curiosity into odd situations and incongruous escapades, and he relates them with complete honesty, never afraid to acknowledge his own misconceptions or moments of utter absurdity. I think the most absurd is the chapter titled 'Safecracker Meets Safecracker', in which he describes learning to pick locks and open safes while working at Los Alamos which is just... I can't even imagine deciding 'hey, why don't I develop a reputation for bypassing security while working on the most high-security military project the world has known to date?' It worked out for him, but damn. Couple that decision with the revelation at the end of the chapter that 20% of the safe combinations at the installation were still set to their factory defaults... the Manhattan Project is a serious topic, but that's just ridiculous.
One aspect of the book did make me consistently uncomfortable, and that's the way Feynman talks about women in aggregate. Specific women he knew well are discussed like anyone else, but there's a strong through-line of women, in general, existing primarily as eye candy and/or potential sexual partners. It's not creepy, per se, but there is a through-line of casual objectification which is, at best, an artifact of the times. (Though from some of the quotes I've seen from the new Obama autobiography, maybe not as much of the times as I would like to think.)
Ultimately, I think this book is a reminder to me of an ethos worth striving for in science. My Bachelor's is in biology, though I'm not currently working in the field, and I think Feynman's example - of approaching science with wonder, of questioning everything, and of extending that same curiosity to the rest of life - is one worth emulating. I don't know if I'll be very good at it, but I want to give it a try, and I'll probably come back to this book in the future for a reminder.
August 6, 2018
این کتاب شبیهِ یک سریالِ طولانیِ هفت فصلی هست که هر فصل اون مربوط به یک دوره از زندگیِ فیزیکدان نظریِ آمریکایی ریچارد فاینمن هست.این کتاب رو خودِ فاینمن ننوشته ولی تمامی خاطرات دقیقا از روی گفته های فاینمن که بر روی نوار ضبط شده نوشته شده.
متن کتاب خیلی خوبه و ترجمه ی فارسی هم بد نیست.
ترتیب فصل های کتاب به شکل زیر هست
1. از فار راک اِوِی تا دانشگاه ام آی تی
2. سال های پرینستون
3. آرلین
4. فاینمن،بمب اتمی و ارتش
5. از کورنل تا کلتک با گشت و گذاری در برزیل
6. دنیای منِ فیزیکدان
7. آقای فاینمن به واشینگتن می رود تا علل فاجعه ی شاتل فضایی چلنجر را بررسی کند.
8. پس درآمد ها(افکار،ارزش علم، شبه علم)
فصل یک خاطرات سنین نوجوانی، فصل دو جوانی و دوران دانشجویی، فصل سه رابطه عاشقانه و ازدواج و الی آخر.
یکی از ویژگی های خوب این کتاب اینه که خواننده مجبور نیست کتاب رو از ابتدا شروع کنه و به ترتیب همه ی فصل ها و داستان هارو بخونه هر فصل از چندین داستان تشکیل شده که چندان هم ربطی به هم ندارن، خواننده میتونه از فهرست یک داستانی رو انتخاب کنه و در چند صفحه فقط اون داستان رو بخونه و نیازی نیست که حتما ترتیب فصل ها و داستان هارو رعایت کنه.
متن کتاب خیلی خوبه و ترجمه ی فارسی هم بد نیست.
ترتیب فصل های کتاب به شکل زیر هست
1. از فار راک اِوِی تا دانشگاه ام آی تی
2. سال های پرینستون
3. آرلین
4. فاینمن،بمب اتمی و ارتش
5. از کورنل تا کلتک با گشت و گذاری در برزیل
6. دنیای منِ فیزیکدان
7. آقای فاینمن به واشینگتن می رود تا علل فاجعه ی شاتل فضایی چلنجر را بررسی کند.
8. پس درآمد ها(افکار،ارزش علم، شبه علم)
فصل یک خاطرات سنین نوجوانی، فصل دو جوانی و دوران دانشجویی، فصل سه رابطه عاشقانه و ازدواج و الی آخر.
یکی از ویژگی های خوب این کتاب اینه که خواننده مجبور نیست کتاب رو از ابتدا شروع کنه و به ترتیب همه ی فصل ها و داستان هارو بخونه هر فصل از چندین داستان تشکیل شده که چندان هم ربطی به هم ندارن، خواننده میتونه از فهرست یک داستانی رو انتخاب کنه و در چند صفحه فقط اون داستان رو بخونه و نیازی نیست که حتما ترتیب فصل ها و داستان هارو رعایت کنه.
Read
August 30, 2018البته که اگر ما چیزهای خوبی بسازیم، تمام اعتبار آن متعلق به علم نخواهد بود، بلکه به خاطر انتخاب اخلاقی ما که منجر به آن کار خوب شده است نیز خواهد بود. آموختههای علمی قدرتی به ما میدهد که کارهای نیک یا شر انجام دهیم، ولی دستورالعملی برای نحوه انجام آن به ما نمیدهد. چنین قدرتی به خودی خود ارزشمند است، حتی اگر این قدرت به دلیل نحوه استفاده آن توسط شخصی ناچیز شمرده شود.
من راهی را برای بیان این مشکل مشترک بشری در یکی از سفرهایم به هنولولو (یکی از جزایر هاوایی) آموختهام. در یکی از معابد بودایی راهبی که در آنجا برای توریستها اندکی در مورد آیین بودایی توضیح میداد، گفت حرفهاییش را با جملهای پایان خواهد داد، که آنها هیچگاه فراموش نخواهند کرد - و من هم هیچ گاه آن را فراموش نکردم. این جمله مثلی است در ایین بودایی:
به هر شخصی کلید درب بهشت داده شده است، همان کلید درب جهنم را نیز باز خواهد کرد.
پس ارزش کلید بهشت در چه خواهد بود؟ مشخص است که اگر ما دستورالعمل مشخصی نداشته باشیم که مشخص کند کدام درب به بهشت میرود و کدام یک به جهنم، استفاده از این کلید میتواند خطرناک باشد.
اما واضح است که این کلید دارای ارزش است: بدون آن چگونه ما میتوانیم وارد بهشت شویم؟
من راهی را برای بیان این مشکل مشترک بشری در یکی از سفرهایم به هنولولو (یکی از جزایر هاوایی) آموختهام. در یکی از معابد بودایی راهبی که در آنجا برای توریستها اندکی در مورد آیین بودایی توضیح میداد، گفت حرفهاییش را با جملهای پایان خواهد داد، که آنها هیچگاه فراموش نخواهند کرد - و من هم هیچ گاه آن را فراموش نکردم. این جمله مثلی است در ایین بودایی:
به هر شخصی کلید درب بهشت داده شده است، همان کلید درب جهنم را نیز باز خواهد کرد.
پس ارزش کلید بهشت در چه خواهد بود؟ مشخص است که اگر ما دستورالعمل مشخصی نداشته باشیم که مشخص کند کدام درب به بهشت میرود و کدام یک به جهنم، استفاده از این کلید میتواند خطرناک باشد.
اما واضح است که این کلید دارای ارزش است: بدون آن چگونه ما میتوانیم وارد بهشت شویم؟
August 21, 2021
نسخه انگلیسی کامل تره
September 14, 2014
A collection of life anecdotes from one of history's most over-the-top characters. Classic Feynman is the autobiographical retelling of various vignettes from Feynman's life,. The vignettes themselves are interesting and often hilarious as Feynman is a keen wit and unfailingly curious about the world and its inhabitants. While the stories themselves make for an entertaining read the final essays of the collection elevate the book to required reading. The final story details his time spent as a member of the commission tasked with investigating the space shuttle Discovery while the epilogue consists of two speeches given at a Cal-Tech commencement speech (one given by Feynman himself, one given about him).
Feynman's experience on the Challenger commission is a master class in interacting with the press, dealing with government workers, and translating technical issues for a general audience. Feynman's self-effacing humility allows him to glean information from a wide variety of individuals and his commitment to telling the truth without malice or finger-pointing could stand to be emulated across the political spectrum.
His commencement speech is a love letter to the scientific method but where many scientists speak about science in quasi-religious tones, Feynman's commitment to truth requires him to question everything, including main-stream science, until he's had a chance to deconstruct it himself and reached his own conclusions. In a world where political ideology and religious belief (or lack thereof) seem to dictate our positions on a host of issues Feynman's call to search for truth, wherever it leads, is both refreshing and an important wake up call.
Feynman's experience on the Challenger commission is a master class in interacting with the press, dealing with government workers, and translating technical issues for a general audience. Feynman's self-effacing humility allows him to glean information from a wide variety of individuals and his commitment to telling the truth without malice or finger-pointing could stand to be emulated across the political spectrum.
His commencement speech is a love letter to the scientific method but where many scientists speak about science in quasi-religious tones, Feynman's commitment to truth requires him to question everything, including main-stream science, until he's had a chance to deconstruct it himself and reached his own conclusions. In a world where political ideology and religious belief (or lack thereof) seem to dictate our positions on a host of issues Feynman's call to search for truth, wherever it leads, is both refreshing and an important wake up call.
March 6, 2020
با نوشتههای چارلی با فاینمن آشنا شدم و ازش ممنونم بابت آشنایی با همچین شخصیتی.
فاینمن کسی بود که براش هیچ کدوم از هنجارهای اجتماعی مزخرف مهم نبود. جایزهی نوبل گرفت؛ ولی با گروههای موسیقی طبل میزد و هر کاری که باهاش حال میکرد رو انجام میداد و اصلا براش مهم نبود که مردم در بارهش چی میگن.
به طور خلاصه فاینمن شخصیتی هست که خیلی میشه ازش یاد گرفت :)
از خوندن کتاب لذت بردم. از اینکه چقدر راحت و بیپرده خاطراتشو میگه برامون. فقط قسمتهای از فصل آخر رو که خیلی تخصصی در مورد تحقیقاتش در مورد سانحهی چلنجر توضیح داده بود رو رها کردم و با بقیهی کتاب زندگی کردم :)
فاینمن کسی بود که براش هیچ کدوم از هنجارهای اجتماعی مزخرف مهم نبود. جایزهی نوبل گرفت؛ ولی با گروههای موسیقی طبل میزد و هر کاری که باهاش حال میکرد رو انجام میداد و اصلا براش مهم نبود که مردم در بارهش چی میگن.
به طور خلاصه فاینمن شخصیتی هست که خیلی میشه ازش یاد گرفت :)
از خوندن کتاب لذت بردم. از اینکه چقدر راحت و بیپرده خاطراتشو میگه برامون. فقط قسمتهای از فصل آخر رو که خیلی تخصصی در مورد تحقیقاتش در مورد سانحهی چلنجر توضیح داده بود رو رها کردم و با بقیهی کتاب زندگی کردم :)
July 17, 2014
Richard Feynman is da shit. The end.
January 2, 2022
از تهش ده صفحه مونده بود از خیلی وقت پیش و از اون موقع تا الان یه عالمه اتفاق عجیب افتاد که باعث شد نرسم کتاب رو سر وقت تموم کنم.
فقط برای اینکه به چلنج برسم، گفتم عکس ده صفحه آخرشو برام بفرستن که بخونم تموم شه بره!
خیلی یادم نمیاد ازش قاعدتا ولی حدودا کتاب خوبی بود! من کلا مخلص فاینمن بودم همیشه.
فقط برای اینکه به چلنج برسم، گفتم عکس ده صفحه آخرشو برام بفرستن که بخونم تموم شه بره!
خیلی یادم نمیاد ازش قاعدتا ولی حدودا کتاب خوبی بود! من کلا مخلص فاینمن بودم همیشه.
August 1, 2019
همیشه دوست داشتم خاطرات و زندگی انسان های موفق و آکادمیک رو دنبال کنم. نه تنها بعد اجتماعی بلکه زندگی شخصی، روحیات و خلقیات این آدم ها هم برام مهم و ارزشمند بوده.
ریچارد فاینمن جزو معدود آدم هایی محسوب میشه که بدون احساس شرمندگی و با صداقت کامل همه چیز در مورد خودش رو در اختیارمون قرار داده. بله دانشمندان هم میتونن عضو گروه موسیقی باشن، به کلوپ های شبانه برن، عاشق سفر و گشت و گذار باشند یا حتی تمرین رقص کنند.
وجه جذاب دیگر فایمن تعهدش نسبت به علم و دانش هست. در این مورد توصیه های نابی داره که میتونه برای هر آدم محققی به عنوان قسم نامه سرلوحه کار قرار بگیره.
به چهره فاینمن دقت کنید خیلی پرانرژی و گیراست. ساخته شده برای معلم بودن، ریسرچ کردن و گیر دادن. این اولین چیزی بود که من رو به سمت این کتاب هدایت کرد
ریچارد فاینمن جزو معدود آدم هایی محسوب میشه که بدون احساس شرمندگی و با صداقت کامل همه چیز در مورد خودش رو در اختیارمون قرار داده. بله دانشمندان هم میتونن عضو گروه موسیقی باشن، به کلوپ های شبانه برن، عاشق سفر و گشت و گذار باشند یا حتی تمرین رقص کنند.
وجه جذاب دیگر فایمن تعهدش نسبت به علم و دانش هست. در این مورد توصیه های نابی داره که میتونه برای هر آدم محققی به عنوان قسم نامه سرلوحه کار قرار بگیره.
به چهره فاینمن دقت کنید خیلی پرانرژی و گیراست. ساخته شده برای معلم بودن، ریسرچ کردن و گیر دادن. این اولین چیزی بود که من رو به سمت این کتاب هدایت کرد
November 25, 2021
خاطرات پروفسور و استاد دانشگاه. برنده جایزه نوبل فیزیک و از افرادی که روی اولین بمب اتم کار کرده.
خب با این معرفی یک خطی تصویری از او در ذهن شکل میگیرد که به شدت ناقص است. او به شدت خلاق و کنجکاو بود. برای باز کردن گاوصندوقها پیش او میآمدند. بانگو مینواخت تا جایی که در یک اجرای باله به عنوان نوازنده حضور پیدا کرد. نقاشی میکشید و نمایشگاهی برگزار کرد و برخی از آثارش را فروخت. لوحههای به جا مانده از مایاها را رمز گشایی میکرد و میتوانست لوحه اصل از تقلبی را تشخیص دهد. برای رفتن به برزیل پرتغالی یاد گرفت و در آن جا مشغول به تدریس شد. در کنفرانسی که اساتید پرتغالی، به انگلیسی صحبت میکرد، سخنرانی خود را به زبان پرتغالی ارائه داد. و خیلی چیزهای دیگر.
فکر میکنم او خیلی زندگی کرد. تجربیات گوناگونی کسب کرد. پروفسور بودنش، به او قدرت داد و گزینههای پیش رویش را گسترش داد، نه این که خود را اسیر این عنوان ببیند و این عنوان گزینههایش را محدود کند. این درسی است که میشود از زندگی او گرفت.
منظورم این نیست که داشتن تجربههای گوناگون لزوما خوب است، تاکیدم قسمت دوم بود. چیزی که یاد میگیریم، افتخاری که کسب میکنیم و چیزهای دیگر باید در خدمت ما باشند، نه این که ما خودمان را به آنها محدود کنیم.
دیگر نکتهٔ جالب زندگی او برای من، تاکیدش روی صداقت و صراحت علمی بود. فکر کنم نیاز به توضیح بیشتر نیست.
کتاب حاوی خاطرات پراکنده و نسبتا کوتاه است. همهٔ آنها به یک اندازه جذاب نیستند. قسمتهای خوب کتاب، ۴ ستاره است ولی حجم ۳ ستارهاش بیشتر است.
خب با این معرفی یک خطی تصویری از او در ذهن شکل میگیرد که به شدت ناقص است. او به شدت خلاق و کنجکاو بود. برای باز کردن گاوصندوقها پیش او میآمدند. بانگو مینواخت تا جایی که در یک اجرای باله به عنوان نوازنده حضور پیدا کرد. نقاشی میکشید و نمایشگاهی برگزار کرد و برخی از آثارش را فروخت. لوحههای به جا مانده از مایاها را رمز گشایی میکرد و میتوانست لوحه اصل از تقلبی را تشخیص دهد. برای رفتن به برزیل پرتغالی یاد گرفت و در آن جا مشغول به تدریس شد. در کنفرانسی که اساتید پرتغالی، به انگلیسی صحبت میکرد، سخنرانی خود را به زبان پرتغالی ارائه داد. و خیلی چیزهای دیگر.
فکر میکنم او خیلی زندگی کرد. تجربیات گوناگونی کسب کرد. پروفسور بودنش، به او قدرت داد و گزینههای پیش رویش را گسترش داد، نه این که خود را اسیر این عنوان ببیند و این عنوان گزینههایش را محدود کند. این درسی است که میشود از زندگی او گرفت.
منظورم این نیست که داشتن تجربههای گوناگون لزوما خوب است، تاکیدم قسمت دوم بود. چیزی که یاد میگیریم، افتخاری که کسب میکنیم و چیزهای دیگر باید در خدمت ما باشند، نه این که ما خودمان را به آنها محدود کنیم.
دیگر نکتهٔ جالب زندگی او برای من، تاکیدش روی صداقت و صراحت علمی بود. فکر کنم نیاز به توضیح بیشتر نیست.
کتاب حاوی خاطرات پراکنده و نسبتا کوتاه است. همهٔ آنها به یک اندازه جذاب نیستند. قسمتهای خوب کتاب، ۴ ستاره است ولی حجم ۳ ستارهاش بیشتر است.
June 12, 2015
"There are the rushing waves
mountains of molecules
each stupidly minding its own business
trillions apart
yet forming white surf in unison.
Ages on ages
before any eyes could see
year after year
thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?
On a dead planet
with no life to entertain.
Never at rest
tortured by energy
wasted prodigiously by the sun
poured into space.
A mite makes the sea roar.
Deep in the sea
all molecules repeat
the patterns of one another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves
and a new dance starts.
Growing in size and complexity
living things
masses of atoms
DNA, protein
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
Out of the cradle
onto dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea,
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe."
mountains of molecules
each stupidly minding its own business
trillions apart
yet forming white surf in unison.
Ages on ages
before any eyes could see
year after year
thunderously pounding the shore as now.
For whom, for what?
On a dead planet
with no life to entertain.
Never at rest
tortured by energy
wasted prodigiously by the sun
poured into space.
A mite makes the sea roar.
Deep in the sea
all molecules repeat
the patterns of one another
till complex new ones are formed.
They make others like themselves
and a new dance starts.
Growing in size and complexity
living things
masses of atoms
DNA, protein
dancing a pattern ever more intricate.
Out of the cradle
onto dry land
here it is
standing:
atoms with consciousness;
matter with curiosity.
Stands at the sea,
wonders at wondering: I
a universe of atoms
an atom in the universe."
June 6, 2013
This book is incredible, though not for the reasons I had really anticipated.
The portions of the book I really thoroughly enjoyed had nothing to do with physics. The parts I'll remember from this book are his exploits as a lockpick, a safecracker, a figure artist, a bongo player, a prankster, a polyglot, and a traveler. I'll remember his determination in working on only things that interest him, even if they don't appear to be useful (the wobbling plate). I'll remember his hours observing ants form trails.
This book didn't leave me with a strong desire to become a brilliant, meticulous scientist, but rather to live several different lives with incredible experiences in each. I didn't appreciate until almost half way through the book that the subtitle "All the Adventures of a Curious Character" has a double meaning - he was a very strange man with an intense desire to learn about the world around him.
The portions of the book I really thoroughly enjoyed had nothing to do with physics. The parts I'll remember from this book are his exploits as a lockpick, a safecracker, a figure artist, a bongo player, a prankster, a polyglot, and a traveler. I'll remember his determination in working on only things that interest him, even if they don't appear to be useful (the wobbling plate). I'll remember his hours observing ants form trails.
This book didn't leave me with a strong desire to become a brilliant, meticulous scientist, but rather to live several different lives with incredible experiences in each. I didn't appreciate until almost half way through the book that the subtitle "All the Adventures of a Curious Character" has a double meaning - he was a very strange man with an intense desire to learn about the world around him.
April 29, 2023
یادمه تو دوران راهنمایی، انداخته بودن تو کلهمون که آیا اینشتین بخاطر تاثیرگذاری در ساخت بمب اتم، میره جهنم یا نه؟
فاینمن یکی از اون کساییه که تو ساخت بمب اتم، نقش جدی داشته. توی کتاب هم میگه چه حسی داشته نسبت بهش. زندگی جالبی داشته. چون برخلاف بقیه، نگاهش به زندگی خیلی روتین و شاید منطقی بوده؛ چه توی تصمیم گیریش در مورد شرکت توی پروژه ساخت بمب اتم، چه رفتن سراغ دخترهای مختلف برای رابطه و چه امتحان کردن عرفان و توهم و...
تهشم توی یک صحبت خیلی مهم، میگه که «هیچ انسان خارق العاده ای وجود نداره» به این اشاره میکنه که فضیلت خاصی نداشته. فقط نشسته کوانتوم خونده و حالا به عنوان دانشمند فیزیک کوانتوم شناخته میشه.
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کتاب تو برخی فصل ها به شدت خسته کننده میشه. توی فصل یکی مونده به آخر که اختصاص داره به حادثه شاتل فضایی، اطلاعات خیلی تخصصی و دور از روند عادی کتاب میشن.
در مجموع، زندگینامه جذابیه برای خوندن. اگر خودتونو ملزم به خوندن تمام فصل هاش نکنین.
فاینمن یکی از اون کساییه که تو ساخت بمب اتم، نقش جدی داشته. توی کتاب هم میگه چه حسی داشته نسبت بهش. زندگی جالبی داشته. چون برخلاف بقیه، نگاهش به زندگی خیلی روتین و شاید منطقی بوده؛ چه توی تصمیم گیریش در مورد شرکت توی پروژه ساخت بمب اتم، چه رفتن سراغ دخترهای مختلف برای رابطه و چه امتحان کردن عرفان و توهم و...
تهشم توی یک صحبت خیلی مهم، میگه که «هیچ انسان خارق العاده ای وجود نداره» به این اشاره میکنه که فضیلت خاصی نداشته. فقط نشسته کوانتوم خونده و حالا به عنوان دانشمند فیزیک کوانتوم شناخته میشه.
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کتاب تو برخی فصل ها به شدت خسته کننده میشه. توی فصل یکی مونده به آخر که اختصاص داره به حادثه شاتل فضایی، اطلاعات خیلی تخصصی و دور از روند عادی کتاب میشن.
در مجموع، زندگینامه جذابیه برای خوندن. اگر خودتونو ملزم به خوندن تمام فصل هاش نکنین.
January 3, 2016
Loved it! One of my favorite scientist autobiographies, the interesting stories from Feynman's life, and they show how fascinating a character he was.
March 8, 2024
برای اولین بار که کتاب رو باز کردم، یادم هست که بیست دقیقه بیشتر وقت نداشتم و برای سرگرمی از اولش شروع کردم به خوندن.
متوجه زمانی که گذشت نشدم.
بعد از اون بیست دقیقه با خودم گفتم این کتابی هست که باید بخونمش.
نحوه تعریف داستان هایی که برای فاینمن بوجود اومده حتی اگر هم که داستان های ساده ای باشند، طوری به نگارش در اومده که خواننده جذب اون میشه و دوست داره تا آخر به اون داستان ادامه بده.
فصل های آخر یک مقداری برام خسته کننده شده بود که فکر میکنم دلیلش پشت سر گذاشتن حدود ۳۰۰ ۴۰۰ صفحه از نوشته هایی بود که نحوه تعریف داستانش برام تکرار شده بود و این قضیه داشت برام فرسایشی میشد و یکجورایی ادامه کتاب برام خسته کننده بود.
فصلهای اول رو که داستانهای فاینمن در کودکی و نوجوانیش هست رو خیلی دوست داشتم.
دلیلش هم اون اتفاقات سادهتر و قابل لمستر برای من بود که بنظرم خیلی جالب تعریف شده بود. خیلی جاها تونست من رو بخندونه.
شاید یکی دیگه از دلایلی که فصلهای اول رو بیشتر دوست داشتم، امید و انتظاری بود که برای رسیدن به فصل "بمب اتم و پروژه لوس آلاموس" داشتم.
نکته جالبی که از زندگی این مرد برام جالب بود این بود که: پروفسور بودنش و حتی بردن جایزه نوبل، اون رو محدود نکرد، نذاشت که این افتخارات و جایگاهی که داره اون رو از بعضی کارها و به طور کلی، زندگی کردن منع بکنه. فاینمن بانگو مینواخت (سازی که نواختنش برای یک پروفسور و برنده جایزه نوبل دور از ذهنه)، نقاشی میکرد و در نمایشگاه، نقاشی های خودش رو میفروخت، در برزیل به فستیوالها میرفت و خیلی چیزهای دیگه.
فاینمن خیلی تاکید داشت بر روی صداقت در علم و معتقد بود که نباید یک گزارش علمی بهخاطر شرایط و عوامل بیرونی سمتوسو بگیره.
مثالی که درباره این مورد زد تبلیغ روغنی بود که از تلویزیون دیده بود، در تبلیغ اینطور عنوان شده بود که این روغن در غذا نفوذ نمیکنه. فاینمن میگفت این جمله درست هست که این اتفاق نمیافته، اما در شر��یطی که دما در یک بازه خاصی باشه. این تبلیغات همهی حقیقت رو بیان نمیکنه و میبایست که همهی شرایط بازگو بشه. معتقد بر این بود که یک گزارش علمی باید از همهی جوانب بررسی بشه و هر جایگشتی که بر صحت اون تحقیق شبهه ایجاد میکنه و حتی باعث بیاعتبار شدن اون گزارش میشه، بیان بشه. اگر اینطور نباشه، اون گزارش علمی بیشتر شبیه تبلیغی هست که برای یک هدف خاص نوشته شده و برای این که به اون هدف برسه بخشهایی از واقعیت ویرایش و یا پنهان شده.
مثال دیگهای هم زد از دوستش که قرار بود به رادیو بره و درباره پژوهشی که زمینهی نجوم و کیهانی داره، صحبت بکنه. مطلبی که تحقیق شده بود، در دنیای واقعی کاربردی نداشت و اون دوست نگران بود که دیگران بفهمند که این چیزهایی که دربارش تحقیق شده کاربردی ندارن، اون موقع دیگه از اون پشتیبانی نمیشه و نمیتونه در این زمینه کار بکنه.
فاینمن بر این باور بود که هر چند اگر این واقعیت گفته بشه، این اتفاق میافته، اما نباید شرایط بر این واقعیت تاثیر بذاره. واقعیت هر آنچه که هست باید گفته بشه.
بنظرم بند آخر این فصل و کتاب، گویای تفکر و باور اصلی فاینمن هست:
"به همین جهت یک آرزو برایتان دارم. آرزو دارم که این شانس را داشته باشید که در جایی کار بکنید که بتوانید در اعمال صداقت علمی که به توصیف آن پرداختم، آزاد باشید. امیدوارم در محلی قرار نگیرید که بهخاطر حفظ سمت یا نیاز مالی و یا هر علت دیگر این صداقت را از دست بدهید. با آرزوی برخورداری از چنین آزادی برای همه."
متوجه زمانی که گذشت نشدم.
بعد از اون بیست دقیقه با خودم گفتم این کتابی هست که باید بخونمش.
نحوه تعریف داستان هایی که برای فاینمن بوجود اومده حتی اگر هم که داستان های ساده ای باشند، طوری به نگارش در اومده که خواننده جذب اون میشه و دوست داره تا آخر به اون داستان ادامه بده.
فصل های آخر یک مقداری برام خسته کننده شده بود که فکر میکنم دلیلش پشت سر گذاشتن حدود ۳۰۰ ۴۰۰ صفحه از نوشته هایی بود که نحوه تعریف داستانش برام تکرار شده بود و این قضیه داشت برام فرسایشی میشد و یکجورایی ادامه کتاب برام خسته کننده بود.
فصلهای اول رو که داستانهای فاینمن در کودکی و نوجوانیش هست رو خیلی دوست داشتم.
دلیلش هم اون اتفاقات سادهتر و قابل لمستر برای من بود که بنظرم خیلی جالب تعریف شده بود. خیلی جاها تونست من رو بخندونه.
شاید یکی دیگه از دلایلی که فصلهای اول رو بیشتر دوست داشتم، امید و انتظاری بود که برای رسیدن به فصل "بمب اتم و پروژه لوس آلاموس" داشتم.
نکته جالبی که از زندگی این مرد برام جالب بود این بود که: پروفسور بودنش و حتی بردن جایزه نوبل، اون رو محدود نکرد، نذاشت که این افتخارات و جایگاهی که داره اون رو از بعضی کارها و به طور کلی، زندگی کردن منع بکنه. فاینمن بانگو مینواخت (سازی که نواختنش برای یک پروفسور و برنده جایزه نوبل دور از ذهنه)، نقاشی میکرد و در نمایشگاه، نقاشی های خودش رو میفروخت، در برزیل به فستیوالها میرفت و خیلی چیزهای دیگه.
فاینمن خیلی تاکید داشت بر روی صداقت در علم و معتقد بود که نباید یک گزارش علمی بهخاطر شرایط و عوامل بیرونی سمتوسو بگیره.
مثالی که درباره این مورد زد تبلیغ روغنی بود که از تلویزیون دیده بود، در تبلیغ اینطور عنوان شده بود که این روغن در غذا نفوذ نمیکنه. فاینمن میگفت این جمله درست هست که این اتفاق نمیافته، اما در شر��یطی که دما در یک بازه خاصی باشه. این تبلیغات همهی حقیقت رو بیان نمیکنه و میبایست که همهی شرایط بازگو بشه. معتقد بر این بود که یک گزارش علمی باید از همهی جوانب بررسی بشه و هر جایگشتی که بر صحت اون تحقیق شبهه ایجاد میکنه و حتی باعث بیاعتبار شدن اون گزارش میشه، بیان بشه. اگر اینطور نباشه، اون گزارش علمی بیشتر شبیه تبلیغی هست که برای یک هدف خاص نوشته شده و برای این که به اون هدف برسه بخشهایی از واقعیت ویرایش و یا پنهان شده.
مثال دیگهای هم زد از دوستش که قرار بود به رادیو بره و درباره پژوهشی که زمینهی نجوم و کیهانی داره، صحبت بکنه. مطلبی که تحقیق شده بود، در دنیای واقعی کاربردی نداشت و اون دوست نگران بود که دیگران بفهمند که این چیزهایی که دربارش تحقیق شده کاربردی ندارن، اون موقع دیگه از اون پشتیبانی نمیشه و نمیتونه در این زمینه کار بکنه.
فاینمن بر این باور بود که هر چند اگر این واقعیت گفته بشه، این اتفاق میافته، اما نباید شرایط بر این واقعیت تاثیر بذاره. واقعیت هر آنچه که هست باید گفته بشه.
بنظرم بند آخر این فصل و کتاب، گویای تفکر و باور اصلی فاینمن هست:
"به همین جهت یک آرزو برایتان دارم. آرزو دارم که این شانس را داشته باشید که در جایی کار بکنید که بتوانید در اعمال صداقت علمی که به توصیف آن پرداختم، آزاد باشید. امیدوارم در محلی قرار نگیرید که بهخاطر حفظ سمت یا نیاز مالی و یا هر علت دیگر این صداقت را از دست بدهید. با آرزوی برخورداری از چنین آزادی برای همه."
December 30, 2019
3 1/2 stars. I will go back and list the chapters I liked.
I imagine Feynman is the kind of person that comes to mind when people think all science majors are pompous assholes.
I was entertained, for the most part. I was encouraged to not be a lazy scientist (my whole reason for reading this, and the reason it gets at least 3 stars. It achieved its purpose for me).
I was annoyed though. And I can’t explain how without me seeming envious. I think there’s a way to exemplify how genius you are without practically saying “I’m a genius “.
I think of Sacks’ Everything in Its Place. I never got an arrogant feel, even though Sacks was continuously listing off his knowledge, his experiences, his way of thinking, etc.
I’m not sure what separates the two, why I was rolling my eyes with Feynman, but not with Sacks. Very curious.
Also (correct me if I’m wrong), but Feynman seemed like one of those people that shit on non-science majors. I’m not too hot about humanities either, but I refuse to judge how other choose to dedicate their lives.
Feynman’s bluntness is something I can respect, thought I’m not sure he knew just how blunt he was. For example, when it came to detailing his affairs to/attraction to women, it came off slimy sometimes (most the time).
I can’t believe he admitted to verbally abusing women to get them to sleep with him. It was funny to think he said “let me tell everyone this”. So on one hand I have to applaud him for being that honest, but then on the other hand I’m thinking “does he even know what’s wrong with saying this out loud?”
And I couldn’t even dig “Arlene”, which was supposed to be the more humanizing look at Feynman, according to the foreword.
I don’t know. I respect the scientist, but I think I’ll pass on the person.
I imagine Feynman is the kind of person that comes to mind when people think all science majors are pompous assholes.
I was entertained, for the most part. I was encouraged to not be a lazy scientist (my whole reason for reading this, and the reason it gets at least 3 stars. It achieved its purpose for me).
I was annoyed though. And I can’t explain how without me seeming envious. I think there’s a way to exemplify how genius you are without practically saying “I’m a genius “.
I think of Sacks’ Everything in Its Place. I never got an arrogant feel, even though Sacks was continuously listing off his knowledge, his experiences, his way of thinking, etc.
I’m not sure what separates the two, why I was rolling my eyes with Feynman, but not with Sacks. Very curious.
Also (correct me if I’m wrong), but Feynman seemed like one of those people that shit on non-science majors. I’m not too hot about humanities either, but I refuse to judge how other choose to dedicate their lives.
Feynman’s bluntness is something I can respect, thought I’m not sure he knew just how blunt he was. For example, when it came to detailing his affairs to/attraction to women, it came off slimy sometimes (most the time).
I can’t believe he admitted to verbally abusing women to get them to sleep with him. It was funny to think he said “let me tell everyone this”. So on one hand I have to applaud him for being that honest, but then on the other hand I’m thinking “does he even know what’s wrong with saying this out loud?”
And I couldn’t even dig “Arlene”, which was supposed to be the more humanizing look at Feynman, according to the foreword.
I don’t know. I respect the scientist, but I think I’ll pass on the person.
June 14, 2021
This is the version of Feynman, Richard stories you want to own. This is because the very nicely added the audio from the Los Alamos from Below lecture. I was there. I know the 2 other voices which appear on the recording. Give away your copies of"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character and"What Do You Care What Other People Think?": Further Adventures of a Curious Character.
Also note that an audio version spoken in proper English (boring) exists, and that Matthew Broderick and his mother made the Los Alamos from Below lecture into a movie titled Infinity. It doesn't quite have the impact. But you can get these for yourself.
One should really read his lectures (the Red books).
Also note that an audio version spoken in proper English (boring) exists, and that Matthew Broderick and his mother made the Los Alamos from Below lecture into a movie titled Infinity. It doesn't quite have the impact. But you can get these for yourself.
One should really read his lectures (the Red books).
December 29, 2020
p. 223 "It's not science, but memorizing, in every circumstance... Triboluminescence is the light emitted when crystals are crushed..." I said, "And there, have you got science? No - you have only told what a word means in terms of other words. You haven't told anything about nature - which crystals produce light when you crush them, why they produce light. Did you see any student go home and try it? He can't. But if, instead, you were to write, 'When you take a lump of sugar and crush it with a pair of pliers in the dark, you can see a bluish flash. Some other crystals do that, too. Nobody knows why. The phenomenon is called "triboluminescence."' Then someone will go home and try it; then there's an experience of nature." [O Americano, outra vez!]
p. 489 "Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on. It is our responsibility to leave the people of the future a free hand. In the impetuous youth of humanity, we can make grave errors that can stunt our growth for a long time... ... It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations." [The value of science]
p. 489 "Our responsibility is to do what we can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on. It is our responsibility to leave the people of the future a free hand. In the impetuous youth of humanity, we can make grave errors that can stunt our growth for a long time... ... It is our responsibility as scientists, knowing the great progress which comes from a satisfactory philosophy of ignorance, the great progress which is the fruit of freedom of thought, to proclaim the value of this freedom; to teach how doubt is not to be feared but welcomed and discussed; and to demand this freedom as our duty to all coming generations." [The value of science]
June 26, 2018
I don't usually read biographies. This isn't really a tradition biography, but it is a sort of memoir, one of stories recounted over the years by Richard Feynman. As I read, I got a good sense of him as a person, I think. Extremely smart, with a sense of humor tilted towards practical jokes. He was deeply invested in his work, had a deep curiosity and love of learning. But he was a man of his time, even if he tried not to be. I was caught off guard by his opinions on women and his treatment of them. The misogyny seems sort of out of step with the rest of him.
I enjoyed this book because it gave me that insight into him as a person. I'd always thought of him as this great physics god. In this book, he was equal parts hilarious, likeable and charismatic, and unintentionally disturbing.
I enjoyed this book because it gave me that insight into him as a person. I'd always thought of him as this great physics god. In this book, he was equal parts hilarious, likeable and charismatic, and unintentionally disturbing.
March 6, 2020
"From bongoing to biology, from painting to poetry, from computing to cracking safes; Feynmans facination with the world knew no bounds." (BBC)
As mine with him; his magnificent worldview, love and of science, humor and pedagogic skills is awesome. The pleasure of finding Feynman is immense - and neverending!
This book is a collection of all the stories from "Surley You're joking, Mr. Feynman" and "What do you care what other people think", along with some new entries and a CD(!).
It is hilarious, touching, and mind blowing. Beautiful, as always.
As mine with him; his magnificent worldview, love and of science, humor and pedagogic skills is awesome. The pleasure of finding Feynman is immense - and neverending!
This book is a collection of all the stories from "Surley You're joking, Mr. Feynman" and "What do you care what other people think", along with some new entries and a CD(!).
It is hilarious, touching, and mind blowing. Beautiful, as always.
July 29, 2017
I loved this book. Super engaging, interesting, and educational wrt history and science. Philosophy of science was fascinating - some of which I agreed with (the importance of acknowledging ignorance) and others not as much (the falsity and non-necessity of espousing broader impacts). It's surprising that with someone as outspoken as Feinman, I was never offended at all, even in his discussions of women (some with adjacent editorial apology).
August 13, 2025
This book has a special place in my heart, because one of my favorite high school teachers awarded it to me for being the "most likely to win a nobel prize in physics." Lack of nobel prize aside, Feynman's perspective on the world is so intriguing that you'll find yourself asking "why" to everything. Could help or hurt your friendships depending on who you associate with.
July 1, 2024
More great stories as told by one of the most interesting minds in science. A good delve into the thinking of a great scientist. He may come off as arrogant to some, but how many Nobel prizes have they one?
February 13, 2018
Classic book, classic character. Very, very good.
February 26, 2018
Collates Surely You're Joking and What Do You Care What Other People Think. My copy came with a CD recording of Feynman, but I think you can find that content on youtube now.
February 21, 2019
Reread as many times needed. Feynman rocks 👀
June 23, 2019
Very inspiring stories. I enjoyed sneaking into the way he thought about both small things and those big huge topics. I read and burst into laugh from time to time.
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