"Surely You`re Joking, Mr. Feynman!" – Adventures a Curious Character - Softcover

Feynman, Richard P.; Leighton, Ralph

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0393316041 ISBN 13: 9780393316049

Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company, 1997

Synopsis

Title: Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman( Adventures of a Curious Character) <>Binding: Paperback <>Author: RichardPhillipsFeynman <>Publisher: W.W.Norton&Company

About this title

Review:

A series of anecdotes, such as are included in Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman, 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 this engagingly eccentric book. 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, a bestseller ever since its initial publication in 1985, simply as a bunch of hilarious yarns with the author as know-it-all hero. At some point, however, attentive readers realise 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 vigour and verve in his no-bull prose. No wonder his students--and readers around the world--adored him. --Wendy Smith

Review:

Proves once again that it is possible to laugh out loud and scratch your head at the same time.

Quintessential Feynman--funny, brilliant, bawdy . . . enormously entertaining.

A storyteller in the tradition of Mark Twain. He proves once again that it is possible to laugh out loud and scratch your head at the same time.

Buzzes with energy, anecdote and life. It almost makes you want to become a physicist.

A chain reaction is not a bad analogy for Feynman's life. From a critical mass of gray matter it goes off in all directions, producing both heat and light.

Feynman is legendary among his colleagues for his brilliance and his eccentricity.... It's hard not to smile all the way through.

A chain reaction is not a bad analogy for Feynman's life. From a critical mass of gray matter it goes off in all directions, producing both heat and light. "

Feynman is legendary among his colleagues for his brilliance and his eccentricity.... It's hard not to smile all the way through. "

A storyteller in the tradition of Mark Twain. He proves once again that it is possible to laugh out loud and scratch your head at the same time.

Quintessential Feynman funny, brilliant, bawdy . . . enormously entertaining."

About this edition

• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Publication date: 1997
• ISBN 10: 0393316041
• ISBN 13: 9780393316049
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 352