Nik Grant

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Genius: The Life and Science of Richard Feynman

by James Gleick (Goodreads Author)

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Nik Grant said: " A bit of a long book for me, over 500 pages. I have a bad habit of reading several books at once and thus progress slowly or not at all. So far, 2/5ths through!

Richard Feynman is a colorful character, and often this book brings me inside the little e A bit of a long book for me, over 500 pages. I have a bad habit of reading several books at once and thus progress slowly or not at all. So far, 2/5ths through!

Richard Feynman is a colorful character, and often this book brings me inside the little episodes that gave Feynman his reputation, leaving me awestruck and wishing I had known about Feynman sooner. Well, I read "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman," ages ago, but I wish I knew about him at the time he was in High School, failing in some subjects, and advanced beyond his teachers in others, not knowing his destiny. And at college and during the Manhattan project, exhibiting his brilliant genius and wild eccentricities that I perhaps could identify with, if only at 1% of his level.

This biography reminds me of Tom Wolfe's, The Electric Kool Aid Acid Test. Tom has perfected the art of putting the reader into the scene as if an informed participant, in possession of the inside knowledge enabling a wink at the unfortunate outsiders who just aren't able to get it. I wish I had the same feeling for the Feynman book, but I find myself on the outside too many times, as I unsuccessfully grapple trying to understand the science. Is it because Gleick can't properly explain? Or is it me? It's not much fun being on the outside, but I'm reading on, looking forward to his Sausalito Bongo Playing stories, and hope the book describes the time he went to a bar and as an experiment deliberately employed techniques to pick up a woman.

The way he participated in life was influenced by his father. A walk in the woods, Feynman the boy asking questions. Instead of just giving a name to the tree or the bird, the father would question Feynman what value for the tree were the leaf shapes, or direct Feynman to speculate about the journey the bird undertook migrating.

Feynman had a reputation as a master locksmith during the Manhattan project, but his approach wasn't the sanded down fingerprints sensing the tumbler clicks. Approaching the task logically, he thought about people's habits of setting lock combinations to something they could remember, like birth dates, thus giving him some numbers to try. From experimenting he found that combination locks were not precise, and that the number "3" could be selected anywhere from 1 - 5. This reduced number of combinations he would have to try so that even a random combination could be discovered by a methodical 2 hours work.

It has been great fun hanging out with Feynman getting interested in Quantum Mechanics back in the day, to hear tales of people who rivaled Einstein, and watch Feynman glance at an equation that someone had been working on for months and declare it wrong - and be right!

If this sort of thing thrills you, check it out. Well worth $4, used. Remember, "If you think you understand quantum mechanics, you don't understand quantum mechanics." Now that I understand. ...more "

Nov 05, 2016 02:32PM · see review