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Loading... Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From The Beaten Track: The Letters Of…by Richard Phillips Feynman
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. This is raw Feynman - Feynman as a rational, brilliant, amusing, and genial man, revealed through letters to his family, to supporting fans, and to other physicists. In all his facets, Richard Feynman was a great person. The introductions and occasional notes by his daughter are immensely helpful too.  jabberwockiness | Mar 12, 2009 |  The early letters between him and his first wife are as heartbreaking as the later ones are wry, amusing, and wise. What a man! seabear | Sep 28, 2008 | A selection of letters chosen by his close family. An insight into his private personality and key events in his life. Ranging from a correspondence with a young and dying wife, being torn between doing what she is asking and doing what is best for her, to light hearted asides and truly inspirational responses to members of the public after he achieved his celebrated status as Nobel prize winner. Inspirational, heart warming, full of humour. (  ) psiloiordinary | Jun 22, 2008 | This collection of personal letters written over the lifetime of Richard Feynman was moving and inspiring. From his early letters to his first wife, dying in a hospital near Los Alamos where he was working during WWII, to the final letter in the book, written to a parent concerned over his bright child, Feynman's kindness and humor were touching and apparent. The letters were collected by his daughter, Michelle, and therefore are shown through a veil of love, but I feel this adds, not detracts. (  ) MeganAndJustin | Jun 9, 2008 | Mildy entertaining. The first portion of the letters chosen by his son and daughter describing the coorespondence with his dying wife were a bit tedious, but they did reflect his unconditional love for his wife. The last two thirds of the letters showed the wonderful personality of RPF, and his ability to be a sensitive, caring man who took time to encourage young scientists. The letters reflect a humble man. A polar opposite of Albert Einstein, who was a complete self-centered, non-caring, loveless man. (  ) mhaley | Mar 10, 2008 |  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0738206369, Hardcover)Finding out about someone by reading their correspondence is a fundamentally different thing than reading their biography. Letters offer both more intimacy with the subject and at the same time a crucial distance--the exact distance the letter-writer intended from the people to whom he was writing. In Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track, Michelle Feynman collects her famous father's letters to reveal a warm, honest man with high expectations for himself, his loved ones, and the human race. Long before Richard Feynman won the Nobel Prize, he was a smart, skinny graduate student at Princeton, writing letters to his mother and relating the mundane details of college life. "Dear Mom.... The raincoat came O.K. It is very nice," he writes. By the time he finished his Ph.D., Feynman had fallen for Arline Greenbaum, who had already been diagnosed with tuberculosis. Their tragically short marriage is set in letters against Feynman's first job--working on the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos, New Mexico.Even while working on top secret physics, Feynman was an enthusiastic correspondent, jumping eagerly at the chance to encourage a young scientist, correct a public misperception, or tell a goofy joke to his family. Self-effacing, charmingly down to earth, and occasionally cranky, these letters cover Feynman's entire career, although in the fits and starts one would expect from a collection such as this. His own words to students, spouses, daughters, and fellow scientists reveal Feynman's brilliance far more effectively than any biographical lens ever could. --Therese Littleton (retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:57:57 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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