"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character Author: Richard P. Feynman | Language: English | ISBN:
B003V1WXKU | Format: EPUB
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!": Adventures of a Curious Character Description
A New York Times bestseller—the outrageous exploits of one of this century's greatest scientific minds and a legendary American original.
Richard Feynman, winner of the Nobel Prize in physics, thrived on outrageous adventures. Here he recounts in his inimitable voice his experience trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and Bohr and ideas on gambling with Nick the Greek; cracking the uncrackable safes guarding the most deeply held nuclear secrets; accompanying a ballet on his bongo drums; painting a naked female toreador. In short, here is Feynman's life in all its eccentric—a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah.
- File Size: 1207 KB
- Print Length: 356 pages
- Page Numbers Source ISBN: 0393316041
- Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company; Reprint edition (June 28, 2010)
- Sold by: Amazon Digital Services, Inc.
- Language: English
- ASIN: B003V1WXKU
- Text-to-Speech: Not enabled
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- Lending: Not Enabled
- Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #10,909 Paid in Kindle Store (See Top 100 Paid in Kindle Store)
- #6
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Scientists - #15
in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Scientists - #16
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Physics
- #6
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Scientists - #15
in Books > Biographies & Memoirs > Professionals & Academics > Scientists - #16
in Kindle Store > Kindle eBooks > Nonfiction > Professional & Technical > Professional Science > Physics
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.
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