Book details of '"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character'

Title	"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character
Author(s)	Edward Hutchings, Ralph Leighton, Richard Phillips Feynman, Albert Hibbs
ISBN	0393316041
Language	English
Published	April 1997
Publisher	W.W. Norton & Company

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Amazon.com info for "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character

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virtualbookcase.com score: 5.0   Vote for this book

The Virtual Bookcase Reviews of '"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character':

Reviewer Koos van den Hout wrote:
Feynman is a great story-teller and it shows in this book. This is also one of the most accessible books about science. Advised as a book to start with if you want to read some of Feynmans books. Other books he wrote will repeat some things you'll read in this book. In Part 1 of the book he describes how he got interested in science in his young years. How he got interested in science, in thinking about matters in a scientific way. How he started a company in chemistry. In Part 2 of the book he describes his education at Princeton university. The fun he had there, and how he got interested in subjects outside of his studies, and was able to master several non-related subjects. In Part 3 he goes on to tell about his years at the Los Alamos laboratories, his work in helping design and build the first US nuclear bomb and how he at the same time tried to make the environment more friendly to work in by bending the rules a little and being good at opening safes. And how he got drafted to serve 'normal' army duty and was found to be psychiatrically unfit. In Part 4 he describes his work at Cornell and Caltech, with things elsewhere. And bits of his private life where people still see him as a peculiar person. In Part 5 he describes his views on physics. He feels like "I'm just one guy in this subject" but has some great views (he did not receive a Nobel price for being just one guy) on science and its influence on society. A great book. Recommended for everyone with an interest in science. In Part 4
Reviewer amazon.com wrote:
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.
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