6 reviews for Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman
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Surely You’re Joking Mr Feynman
by Richard Feyman
Description:
Richard Feynman (1918-1988), winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous adventures. Here he recounts in his inimitable voice his experience trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and Bohr and ideas on gambling with Nick the Greek; cracking the uncrackable safes guarding the most deeply held nuclear secrets; painting a naked female toreador and much else of an eyebrow raising nature. In short, here is Feynman’s life in all its eccentric glory a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah.
About The Author
Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as work in particle physics (he proposed the parton model). For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman was a joint recipient of the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965, together with Julian Schwinger and Sin-Itiro Tomonaga. Feynman developed a widely used pictorial representation scheme for the mathematical expressions governing the behavior of subatomic particles, which later became known as Feynman diagrams. During his lifetime and after his death, Feynman became one of the most publicly known scientists in the world.
He assisted in the development of the atomic bomb and was a member of the panel that investigated the Space Shuttle Challenger disaster. In addition to his work in theoretical physics, Feynman has been credited with pioneering the field of quantum computing, and introducing the concept of nanotechnology (creation of devices at the molecular scale). He held the Richard Chace Tolman professorship in theoretical physics at Caltech.
Skryf Review
“Amazing Reading”
Tisha
This book is a jewel. One would be hard pressed to find a more comical and enjoyable book to read – anywhere. Feynman is the scientist who breaks (or should I say, shatters?) the stereotype of the lab-coat physicist who wears thick, taped up glasses. The great Richard P. Feynman is a testament to how great we as a race can me. I like to think of him as a cross between Goethe & Robin Williams (and I do NOT mean that in any sort of deragatory way). As a physicist, he was top notch, but as a person he was something even more. He had a marvelous sense of humor & enjoyed playing pranks on people. His love of life spilled over to all the people he met during his sojourn on the planet. I only wish that I had been one of those lucky few to have met & known him personally. Perhaps what is most remarkable about him is that he had friends from all walks of life. Many were scientists, yes, but many more were “ordinary” people off the street. That is rather noteworthy given the fact that so many Ivy league-calibre professors feel that they too “intellectually gifted” to associate with the rest of we mere mortals. Someone once said that Edwin Hubble wasn’t a humble man, but then again, Hubble didn’t have very much to be humble about. I would argue that one could say the latter of Feynman as well, but not the former. READ THIS BOOK and share the experiences of one of the most extraordinary and yet fun loving personages of the 20th century (if not all time). I guarantee it will make you laugh like few other books you will ever read.
Krushali
This amusing little book of anecdotes had an alarmingly influential role in my life. It convinced me of the odd notion that it would be a good idea to go to Caltech and major in physics. In retrospect, this would have been a better idea had I been born around 1930 and was starting my scientific career around 1940, but nowadays it’s a tough slog in physics, both money-wise and also discovery-wise. I think that people like Bohr and Planck and Einstein and Feynman discovered all the good stuff in physics and that future theory will be more difficult and less beautiful (though perhaps these string-theorists put my foot in my mouth). I wish I had realized all this when I was 17 rather than 24, but all is not lost: physics is wonderful training for all manner of mathematical disciplines, and all has worked out for the best. I retain a deep fondness for this book, and rereading old passages brings me comfort. If you ever have the choice between reading this book and doing something productive and worthwhile, I recommend that you read this book. All will work out for the best for you too.
parth
Everyone has a collection of favorite stories that they enjoy telling; but it’s unusual for the stories to be so good that a friend insists on writing them down, so that other people can appreciate them too. When I read this book, I almost feel that Feynman’s telling the stories himself. Well, when that happens in real life, you always want to join in; here’s my personal best effort at a Feynman-type anecdote. I hope it’s now far enough in the past that the people concerned will see the funny side, if they happen to stumble across this page by accident!
Anmol
There’s presumably a rule where only smart people are awarded Nobel Prizes in Physics. Richard Feynman was no exception. This memoir is filled with anecdotes from his childhood spent fixing radios, his experiences as a young man doing bomb research at Los Alamos up through his days as a renowned professor at Cal Tech. The central theme was always that this is one smart cookie. It was interesting to pick up on his thought processes. It probably didn’t feature as much pure science as most of his other books, but at least you could appreciate his intuition into the physical world’s biggest puzzles. Rather than emphasizing the technical details of physics, most of his stories were focused on his other interests and his geeky humor.He was probably not as bad as I’ve made him sound. Like I said, we can certainly appreciate his intellect. He had a rare ability to explain difficult concepts in laymen’s terms, too. I got a confirmation of this a week after I finished the book when we were interviewing a former student of his from Cal Tech. He mentioned the “Feynman Effect”: a phenomenon whereby someone asking him a question got answered in such a clear and intuitive way that it was only later that they realized they still didn’t know exactly how it all tied to their existing understanding.So, count me as a fan of his scientific contributions and his ability to communicate, but not of his swagger. If it had all been a bit of a joke (you know, physicist … funny hair … limited social skills … but a would-be Lothario in spite of it), I would have laughed along with him, but I don’t think that was his intention.
Shrawan
Feynman is a physicist who taught at Cornell and Princeton, worked on the Manhattan Project and won the Nobel Prize. He’s also a complete hoot. The book is a series of autobiographical stories — pranks pulled as a student at MIT and at Los Alamos, teaching himself to paint, scientific discoveries he made, his three marriages, how he was rejected by the draft board for being mentally suspect (they asked him if he ever heard voices and he said yes he did and then went on to describe what he found interesting about that. He said that sometimes when falling in and out of sleep he’d imagine conversations with his foreign-born colleagues and the voices in his head spoke accurately with their accents — but that if he tried to imitate such accents he could not do so at all. So how was it that one part of his brain had captured accents correctly but another hadn’t? This was entirely typical of Feynman’s wide ranging curiosity and intelligence, but the end result in this case was that the psychologists decided he was nuts. His colleagues at Cornell were vastly amused by this.)What I love about Feynman — first of all, his great interest in everything and his willingness to experiment. The great joy he found in working things through (he said that the reason he’d never tried drugs, though he was tempted, was that he enjoyed thinking too much and didn’t want to risk that.) Also, he’s clearly so very intelligent and reading his book, his thoughts seem so easy to follow — it makes the world of science seem accessible.