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Loading... Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!by Richard Phillips Feynman (otherwise under Richard P. Feynman)
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will love Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. A funny collection of anecdotes by one of the physics world's most colorful characters. Katya0133 | Jul 8, 2009 |   Surprisingly funny, give insights to this great mind and also how everyone and everything in this world is actually all very interesting if one cares to observe and "curious". Love this book. Read it so many times!!! (  )thiennguyen | Jun 23, 2009 | This is an edited collection of reminiscences by Dr Richard P. Feynman, the (in)famous physicist, Nobel Prize winner, and author of The Feynman Lectures. It runs in vaguely chronological order, from his childhood, through to the years he spent working on the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos, through to his controversial Cargo Cult Science lecture at Caltech. It's an entertaining read, and often a very funny one, especially when Feynman lets his enthusiasm for physics, life, and partying shine through. It's also (perhaps unusually for an edited biography) interesting in that the way Feynman says (or does not say) certain things reveals an awful lot about the kind of man he was. I'm not sure he was a man I would have liked, myself, but I'm pretty sure he's a man I would have been amused by. I'd recommend it if you have even a passing interest in physics, the scientific method, and their history during the mid-twentieth century. (  )siriaeve | Jun 13, 2009 | This book was a collection of anecdotes by Richard Feynman. By turns extremely funny and accessible, then technical and confusing, it was still a fun read. It was just a little uneven. Then there was the long story involving a topless bar near his house. It wasn't explicit or anything, but since I was listening to this as an audiobook with my kids in the car, it made things a little tricky. I wasn't completely crazy about the reader either, but I still enjoyed it. ( )cmbohn | Jun 10, 2009 | Wonderful anecdotes (some even true) from the master of 20th century physics. ( )brianclegg | May 8, 2009 | 0.353 seconds to build listing  no reviews | add a review
Amazon.com (ISBN 0393316041, Paperback)A series of anecdotes shouldn't by rights add up to an autobiography, but that's just one of the many pieces of received wisdom that Nobel Prize-winning physicist Richard Feynman (1918-88) cheerfully ignores in his engagingly eccentric book, a bestseller ever since its initial publication in 1985. Fiercely independent (read the chapter entitled "Judging Books by Their Covers"), intolerant of stupidity even when it comes packaged as high intellectualism (check out "Is Electricity Fire?"), unafraid to offend (see "You Just Ask Them?"), Feynman informs by entertaining. It's possible to enjoy Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman simply as a bunch of hilarious yarns with the smart-alecky author as know-it-all hero. At some point, however, attentive readers realize that underneath all the merriment simmers a running commentary on what constitutes authentic knowledge: learning by understanding, not by rote; refusal to give up on seemingly insoluble problems; and total disrespect for fancy ideas that have no grounding in the real world. Feynman himself had all these qualities in spades, and they come through with vigor and verve in his no-bull prose. No wonder his students--and readers around the world--adored him. --Wendy Smith(retrieved from Amazon Fri, 24 Apr 2009 07:58:22 -0400) The first test round has been closed. Visit the Open Shelves Classification group for details. |
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