Feynman

This was an incredibly fun biography of arguably the biggest personality in physics. Feynman the joker; Feynman the sage; Feynman the lover... Feynman the man.

Failings, successes, ideas, the man's life is well-covered in an engaging, interesting way. The writing is accessible, although I must note that you will get some science. You won't have to parse any equations (though you'll see some), but you will be exposed to some philosophical and scientific concepts that aren't... light-weight. But with visuals!

Anyway, this was one of the most engaging biographies that I've ever read and I am supremely happy that it turned up (I hadn't even been looking for anything like it). A graphic novel biography of a physicist! Huh.

If you find this, show more open to the first scene, titled "Some Fool Physicist" (just before the scene with the Tyrannosaurus Rex crashing through the little boy's bedroom wall) and give it a read. Just a few pages of comic book. For me, those first few pages hooked me into Feynman's life's adventure. show less

Before I picked up this book I didn't really know who Richard Feynman was. I mean I heard the name, but it didn't really mean lot to me. And then...I picked up this book. And within 4 pages I was captivated by him and what he meant not only to our understanding of science, but our understanding of the world at large. I didn't even get 15 pages in the book and I started looking to see what other books my library owned about Feynman, just so that I could learn more about him. That's how well this book is put together.

Ottaviani weaves together this coherent and captivating story from Feynman's own words. Instead of feeling like we're being talked to by some anonymous narrator, Feynman himself talks to us. It feels like we're sitting next show more to him, maybe with a good meal or a couple of drinks, just shooting the breeze. It's a masterful way of letting us hear Feynman's story. And the artwork works perfectly. We can see the frustration on Feynman & other scientists faces as they face the challenges before them, from the atomic bomb to why one wheel of color seems to move faster than the other on a spinning plate.

I can't imagine a better book to hand a high school student to help them understand the world around them better. Or a better book to give to anyone. This book needs to be on every library's shelf. show less

Huge Feynman fans like me won't find much new here- but there's so much worth revisiting that it's well worth picking up. I loved the stories, I loved the recreations, and I frankly loathed the illustrations. This loathing took away no little enjoyment for me, but since it's a book about RPF, well, I still loved it. 3.5

What is most interesting about this book, the biography of one of the world’s greatest scientific minds, is how little science it actually contains. It presents the story of a brilliant physicist in an accessible, and user-friendly manner. The medium, using a graphic novel, is particularly beneficial to this cause, because it allows all the ideas to be accompanied by pictures, and it humanizes the subjects by drawing them in ridiculous settings. While the context of the novel is scientific discovery, it is in fact a book about romance, identity, love of learning, morality, finding joy in life, and the heroic journey.
What stands out most to me is how, unlike many biographies, which detail the accomplishments and tribulations of its show more subject, this book is about a person, and it contains real human emotion, to which the reader can directly relate.

I have only read a short number of scholarly graphic novels, but this book stands out among them. Not because it is a graphic novel, but because it is a compelling story. Many people would find this more complex than a standard book, but for the right audience, it is a definite winner. show less

Feynman is a cultural icon; known as much for his practical jokes and lock-picking as his Nobel Prize-winning work in physics, he is a scientist seemingly driven by the sheer joy of knowing. Not scientifically educated, I can follow very little of his work, but having read some of his writing before I know him to be an approachable, friendly, and humorous narrator: he's just plain likeable.

In their graphic novel Feynman, Ottaviani and Myrick present a brief biography of one of the greatest minds in recent history, and their work is just as lively and enthralling as the man himself. Presenting a collection of stories from his college days through his death, the authors allow readers to gain at least a general understanding of the man show more and his work, without losing a general audience in science that may be impenetrable for some (such as I - but there is physics involved).

I wasn't always pleased with the artwork (which is probably an odd thing to say for a five-star rating of a graphic novel), but the work as a whole is completely charming. show less

A graphic novel biography of the quirky, brilliant, much-beloved physicist Richard Feynman. Although I'm not sure "biography" is quite the right word, as the text consists, as far as I can tell, entirely of snippets of Feynman's own words, talking about his life and his work and delivering general-audience lectures on science. They're good words, and the illustrations are fairly charming, but, structurally, it doesn't all hang together in a particularly coherent fashion. I did enjoy reading it; as a little dip back into the world of Feynman, it made me smile. But I think that, unless you're really, really into the graphic novel format, you're better off going to the source material, especially Feynman's two collections of thoughts and show more anecdotes, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think?, neither of which I can recommend highly enough. show less

This graphic novel about physicist Richard Feynman is beautiful and bittersweet. It's easy to read, but you'll probably learn a few things as well. It's obviously a labor of love. You get a sense of Feynman's life that is distilled down to some of his essential stories.

I have a special place in my heart for Feynman because my Dad (a physics professor) did too. And if you read this book, you might be tempted to jump into other Feynman books as well. I'd recommend "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" as your next Feynman book. You never know--it might lead all the way to his book QED about Quantum electrodynamics, which is more readable than you'd expect.

If more people could teach and explain like Feynman did, the world would be a better show more place. show less