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Summary: A fascinating look at a fascinating individual.
Review: A nobel-prize winning physicist who plays the bongos and paints, both hobbies at a high if unprofessional level, a man with a self-admitted anti-"cultural" bias whose bongo playing was almost good enough to win a prestigious Parisian award, a supreme intellectual who comes from blue-collar origins and never stopped being a "regular person", Richard Feynman demonstrates yet another high-level talent with this book: he's a fascinating storyteller as well. This book is an episodic autobiography; he makes no attempt to give us an in-depth story of his life. He simply tells us many of the interesting things he's seen and done in a long, varied, and interesting life. And he does so with wit and humor that most professional writers should envy.I wish I'd had the chance to meet the man; after reading this book, I almost feel that I did.
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Summary: The Really Curious guy!!!
Review: Richard Feynman is the greatest hero in my heart!, not only beacuase his great scientific achievement and his great ability of teaching, but also a really interesting man! This book show us how interesting he is! I read it four times, and laugh aloud every time! There are so many interesting anecdotes in the book that I can't help thinking Feynman is a lovely imp.
This book haven't terrible mathematical equation and formula. But It tells us how Richard Feynman think, how he do physics? it also tells us the really Feynman, maybe the greatest physicist in his generation. I especially appreciate the way of Feynman do physics, that is, he do physics just like play games, not for Nobel prizer, not for reputation, but just for enjoyment!
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Summary: Nothing short of inspiring!
Review: Feynman was truly a renaissance man. The giant intellect this man possessed didn't stifle his curiosity in the least. This man exudes inspiration. His curiosity and competence blended into one of the greatest minds I've ever had the chance to read about.
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Summary: Accessible, Interesting and Amusing. Makes Feynman Seem Real
Review: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman: the Adventures of a Curious Character provides insight into some of the thinking processes of a great man. The book is organized as a series of generally short chapters that each serve to illustrate elements of Feynman's personality and thinking style through different stories and experiences. He downplays the details of physics and math where he made serious contributions that resulted in a Nobel Prize and comes across as a thinking everyman (albeit a true polymath) who applied his organized thinking to every situation. He nearly always questioned that status quo and could learn something about topics ranging from hard science to human behavior. Some of the chapters in Surely You're Joking made me laugh out loud. Others were interesting, how to pick locks for example, still others were unexpected and a little racy, how he enjoyed nightlife and music, and the story of his first wife could even be described as romantic. I recommend this book as great reading, particularly for high school and college students, because it is interesting enough to hold one's attention, it gives a biography of a great thinker, and suggests that there are legitimate perspectives for looking at the world beyond those demonstrated in the popular press and media.
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Summary: The perfect catalyst for a Feynman reading spree
Review: This book actually MAKES you want to be a physicist! Feynman recounts his funniest and liveliest moments in his life, from his early days as a kid radio fixer to the world of one physicist. His book is written in an easy, flowing style with no physics nor math weaved into its pages. Extremely colloquial, Feynman thus reflects his light-hearted view on life and his love for physics. This part science/physics/biography of Feynman practically shatters all the stereotypes of the usual scientist. This book, or satire, should I say, not only allows the reader to laugh out loud bad crazy, but to give up reading and devote life to rereading. Richard Feynman [1918-1988] was the winner of the Nobel Prize in Physics, and 'thrived on outrageous adventures'. This book is the treasured collection of those outrageous adventures, in which one would never imagine to have happened to a single person in a single lifetime. Feynman not only gives the reader a good laugh and a bawdy time, he also runs a semi-invisible commentary on what makes 'authentic' knowledge: learning by understanding, and not by rote; refusal to give up on seeminly unsolvable problems; and total disrespect towards weird ideas that possess no firm grounding in the real world.
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Summary: Entertaining read
Review: This is a fine book if you are looking for something light. The style is witty and entertaining. Feynman is a curious character, who loves to discover and experiment, and this nature of his provides for much adventure. The book is also motivating at times. Through his experiences, Feynman encourages you to experiment (not just study), to explore and to have a good time on the way.
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Summary: Great Gift for High School Graduates
Review: I have given this book to several high school graduates and plan to continue that tradition this year. This is especially humorous for those in the hard sciences (physics, math, engineering). Such a brilliant guy and so funny! Some of the adventures are just a hair unusual, but that is typical of college students, so it opens the mind of high school students to future possibilities (and possibly what to avoid!). Definitely recommended and a great gift that will be devoured.
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Summary: An Open Palm
Review: A late relative of mine, a world-renowned physicist, once said: "One has to be an open palm. As soon as it clenches into a fist, the person looses the ability to learn and to enjoy new things. And that is the onset of old age". Looking at our parents and grandparents, older colleagues, and now increasingly often at my own contemporaries and at myself, I am beginning to understand what a hard task it is - to remain an open palm. Almost no one avoids the nostalgic illusion - in our better days snow was whiter and girls prettier, and what we've been taught is the only correct doctrine. One only sees how ridiculous such claims are when confronted with a different, higher breed of people, who remain curious and young at heart at any age. Richard Feynman was one of such people. In case someone does not know, Richard Feynman was a physicist, a Nobel prize winner, a participant of the Manhattan project, the founder of quantum mechanics. I have no idea what it is; they say, though, that a new race of computers will shortly change our world and our perception of it; these computers will be supposedly built on principles foreseen by Feynman. Feynman's book, subtitled "Adventures of a Curious Character", is his memoir - not written down, but narrated in conversations with a close friend. It is very clear that nothing surpassed his ardent passion for physics. When Feynman spoke about his subject, he rejected all notions of etiquette and subordination; Nils Bohr and Einstein could discuss their new ideas only with him - other colleagues just gaped in awe at any dictum of theirs. Feynman writes about the very *process* of discovery - this is probably the only sincere and authentic description of scientific creativity of such scale in literature. In the closing chapter, Feynman speaks about the scientist's responsibility - not to society or colleagues, but rather to himself and his science; all his recollections, serious and jocular, clearly demonstrate how serious it was to him. They say a gifted person is gifted in anything. Feynman was unusually eager to prove this dubious statement. He came to Brazil to lecture on physics, and ended up playing frigideira and winning, with his fellow musicians, the annual competition at a street parade in Rio. He recorded a percussion-only soundtrack for a ballet, and the performance won a second place at a prestigious competition in Paris. He tackled pencils and brushes without any knowledge or experience in paining, and soon became a hot commodity on the art market. In "alien" domains Feynman always acted incognito or under an alias - he never wanted to be the proverbial Dr. Johnson's dog, whose ability to walk on its hind legs was judged by the fact that it was a dog, not because it walked well. Feynman's free-time undertakings were usually perfected to a degree which would be the crowning glory of many a professional career. He spent one of his summer holidays working under James Watson, the discoverer of the DNA, and soon was able to read a sound lecture about his own findings to Harvard professors of biology. All this seems improbable; but Feynman never admires himself too much, his boasting is good-natured, and he laughs at himself at least as much as at others. He was a master of that, of course. Almost half the book is devoted to his practical jokes. During his work in top-secret labs of Los Alamos, he developed a taste for cracking safes; the pinnacle of his burglar's career was the simultaneous cracking of three safes containing *all* US nuclear secrets. A womaniser without narcissism, a braggart without pomp, a jester without malice, a unique, but amiable character - Feynman is the most loveable memoir writer that could ever be. He never took anything for granted - having read an article about the bloodhounds' phenomenal olfactory abilities, he set to investigate humans and found out that ours are not much worse, just underused. He hated pompous fools; the description of an "interdisciplinary" conference, where the narrator's common sense and logic fail in a combat with "intellectuals", is a real tragic comedy. He was open to any new experience (unless it threatened to damage the thinking mechanism - which explains his abstinence from alcohol and drugs of any sort). Since his childhood, when he fixed radios by thought, to his old age, he remained an open palm. An excellent lesson for any of us.
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Summary: A nuclear physicist who took the scientific approach to life
Review: "Surely You're Joking" frankly and unabashedly has the sole purpose of explaining what its like to be Feynman. It reads as if you've cornered him at a party, and asked him to explain just why he acted so weird, then transcribed what he said for five hours. For those who are unfamiliar with Feynman's particular brand of eccentricity, his unwillingness to accept anything he's told as gospel, this should be an eye-opener. For those who consider themselves the same, if not in intelligence but in approach to life, it's an egotistical trip wherein one has the guilty pleasure of saying "Yes, the Universe really is so stupid, isn't it?"
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Summary: In his own words
Review: Although I'd heard of Feynman for years now--people I know were excited by the Feynman Lectures volumes--I didn't really know who he was. Oh, I could probably have given you the fact that he was a physicist, and maybe that he had won the Nobel prize, and just recently Jill told me about a Feynman anecdote that she had read by Stephen Jay Gould. After Surely You're Joking, I know much more about Feynman, and why he interests people. As far from the stereotype of the scientist that you can get, yet still having some geeky characteristics that he wasn't afraid to admit to, Surely You're Joking is a portrait of the man in his own words. In fact, the best way to approach this book is as if you had stumbled on to it in a dimly-lit bar, sat down next to it, exchanging turns buying drinks and talking about each other. Just like a conversation, some things are funny, some things don't make sense, and--as a one-sided conversation--they all revolve around a singe subject.
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