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Loading... Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character) (1985)by Richard Feynman
Kindle edition. Eclectic, slightly confusing, but highly entertaining. ( )Nobel Prize-winning physicist, Richard Feynman, is terminally curious. From a young age he was always figuring out how things worked, what made things happen. He also likes to tease his friends and pull pranks. From the waitress in a coffee shop when he was a college student to the people at Los Alamos, no one was safe. One of my favorite sections was when he was asked to review math books for schools. He took it very seriously and did his job thoughtfully even though the other people did less so. At one point, he found the third of a series of books was full of empty pages. He was shocked to learn that others had actually rated this book! The only part of the book that grated on my nerves was when he won the Nobel Prize and could not be bothered to meet with reporters and others who wanted to congratulate him. It bordered on false modesty. I recommend that one has an interest and basic knowledge of science or this book will be extremely tedious. Funny stories that demonstrate that Feynman wasn't some cookie cutter physics geek. He was a real person: insatiably curious, unabashedly goofy, somewhat chauvinistic, and invariably looking to solve a problem. Except for the chauvinism, I'd say those are mighty good traits, not just for a physicist, but for a person in any profession. First sentence: "When I was about eleven or twelve I set up a lab in my house." An autobiographical account of the life of Nobel Prize winning theoretical physicist R. P. Feynman. The title of the book really says it all... A somewhat random collection of anecdotes (some interesting, others tedious) that left me scratching my head, wondering about their significance. A little irritating to me personally was the author's writing style. -> I did this and then I did that and then... and so on. Maybe I had expected something different, more along the lines of the last chapter "Cargo Cult Science" (about the integrity of science) which ends the book on a high note. (6/10) I read it in 1984 or '85, so it isn't fresh in my mind. However, I remember looking up to him as a role model but being aware that his lockpicking and topless bar hopping wouldn't be the best habits for me to emulate. Still, good memories of this as well as the sequel published in the late 80s. no reviews | add a review
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