The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

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The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman

by Richard P. Feynman, Jeffrey Robbins, Freeman John Dyson (foreword)

4.26 of 5 stars 4.26 · rating details · 3,229 ratings · 170 reviews

The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a magnificent treasury of the best short works of Richard P. Feynman—from interviews and speeches to lectures and printed articles. A sweeping, wide-ranging collection, it presents an intimate and fascinating view of a life in science-a life like no other. From his ruminations on science in our culture to his Nobel Prize acceptance spe...more

Paperback, 270 pages

Published April 6th 2005 by Basic Books (first published 1999)

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Sep 12, 2010 Yaman rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition

المتعة التي نحتاجها دومًا... إنها متعة العلم واكتشاف الأشياء

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May 06, 2013 JJ rated it 4 of 5 stars

I love this man. He is brilliant, seems humble, and funny as hell. This is an excellent collection of some of his ideas and stories, mostly about his life experiences and how he became who he was. Even if you do not have a good understanding of physics or even math you will still enjoy this book. It is not a tractate or a manual but rather a collections of anecdotal stories and interviews that allow anyone to take a peek into the mind of this true badass.

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Nov 15, 2010 Maurizio Codogno rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: finished

Feynman è un nome che dovrebbe essere relativamente noto a chiunque sia interessato alla scienza, e per la precisione alla fisica. Ma è anche stato un oratore sempre pronto a stupire il pubblico con i suoi effetti speciali, e le sue conferenze erano scoppiettanti. Nel primo dei suoi due libri che ho ultimamente letto Jeffrey Robbins raccoglie una "dozzina del fornaio" (cioè tredici) discorsi tenuti dal Nobel presso varie sedi, in modo da dare un'idea della sua arte oratoria... e naturalmente dei...more

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Jan 08, 2009 Chris rated it 3 of 5 stars

Shelves: science

Here's the problem with having high expectations: they're so often dashed.

In my years trawling the web and being a science nerd, I've heard a lot about Richard Feynman. There are legends about him, that he was the Puck of physics - brilliant, untamed, and really, really funny. When I got the book, I was expecting to read a lightning-quick volley of ideas that would set my mind alight with the wonder and infinite possibilities continued within a lifetime's pursuit of science.

Yeah, that didn't qui...more

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Jan 18, 2013 David rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: owned-books

Here is a collection of interviews, lectures and talks over a thirty year period that gives some insight into the remarkable mind of RF. He has given a lot of thought to what constitutes science, and what is not science, and it takes some effort to recognize that he is talking about the difference between knowing the name that has been given to something and actually knowing something about the thing itself. This is a very philosophical question, but Feynman wasn't interested in philosophy. In f...more Here is a collection of interviews, lectures and talks over a thirty year period that gives some insight into the remarkable mind of RF. He has given a lot of thought to what constitutes science, and what is not science, and it takes some effort to recognize that he is talking about the difference between knowing the name that has been given to something and actually knowing something about the thing itself. This is a very philosophical question, but Feynman wasn't interested in philosophy. In fact, he comments at one point on Spinoza and how silly the man was to speculate on issues that men like Newton were actually investigating during the same time.

Several of the talks involved what he called "cargo cult science", or what others might call sympathetic magic. Taking the forms and rituals of science and calling it science when it really is not science.

By far, the most interesting presentation in the book was his famous talk entitled, "There's Plenty of Room at the Bottom" in which he explores what has eventually become the realm of nanotechnology. He uses some simple arithmetic to arrive at the conclusion that it would be possible with the technology of 1959 to inscribe the entire Encyclopedia Britannica on the head of a pin and be able to read it with existing electron microscopes. He goes on from there to explore these regions and begins to set the lower limits for the size of logic gates in a region where quantum phenomena would become involved--which is really the beginnings of quantum computing and the need for designing logic circuits so that they could operate in either direction without loss of information (specifically designing AND/NOR gates that could function equally in forward or reverse without loss of data) so that such machines could function and eventually solve problems. He also talks about other things in this brilliant article, and it got my head spinning in wonderful ways.

These articles are a wonderful glimpse into one of the most brilliant scientific minds of the past century and well worth the time.(less)

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Dec 03, 2012 David Glad rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: ideas

Alternative title could have been "Amusing Anecdotes" from how it starts off, but this probably was a better title for anyone unfamiliar with Feynman and thought him some unapproachable physicist (READ: genius).

Most of it was of a nontechnical nature (which makes it even more easily digestible in audiobook form), except for a 1965 Japan lecture he gave to computer scientists (despite the chapter's forewarning, the terminology would probably be quite familiar to anyone in college these days with...more Alternative title could have been "Amusing Anecdotes" from how it starts off, but this probably was a better title for anyone unfamiliar with Feynman and thought him some unapproachable physicist (READ: genius).

Most of it was of a nontechnical nature (which makes it even more easily digestible in audiobook form), except for a 1965 Japan lecture he gave to computer scientists (despite the chapter's forewarning, the terminology would probably be quite familiar to anyone in college these days with good understanding of computer hardware) and the testimony he gave into the cause of the Challenger Shuttle disaster -- which bureaucrats tried to heavily censor his findings and omit from the final report. (The NASA officials probably thought he would just be some academic who would serve as a useful tool to give the public reassurance/confidence, but were they ever wrong about his thorough nature to anything he undertakes..) Amusing aspect to the 1965 Japan lecture was the Q&A where one of the scientists asked him how you could input information into computers as they get increasingly tiny and (apologies for the metaphor/cliche) apparently not seeing the big picture on how the inputs would get rather standardized and the evolution to complex computer programs/operating systems that would be doing the computations. (As part of Feynman's response was about how the computers wouldn't be used for simple computations, I suspect Feynman kept an open mind about the future.) In fairness to those "shortsighted" scientists, there obviously weren't keyboards, computer mice, or touchscreens back then. Maybe the most intriguing part of the lecture was how a lot of those concepts are still taught in much more depth at the junior/senior undergrad level at universities like Stanford.

There was some overlap in the material about his Los Alamos years and that mentioned in James Gleick's biography of Feynman, but the distinction here was they were almost entirely Feynman's words rather than Gleick's attempts at paraphrasing.

Other interesting snippets I grabbed:
Criticism of being too concerned with the use of the idea, rather than the idea itself.
Importance of recognizing ignorance and leaving room for doubt.
"I don't believe in the idea that there are a few peculiar people understanding math and the rest of the world is normal. Math is a human discovery and it's no more complicated than humans can understand. I had a calculus book once that said 'What one fool can do, another can.'" (Actually keeps going on sounding good, but probably better not to spoil it even if it likely can be found on a web search.)(less)

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Nov 28, 2011 Lo rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was a unique one for sure. If you enjoy watching the "Big Bang Theory", have a group of sciencey friends, or you have some interest in learning about the life of Richard Feynman, then this would be a good book for you to read.

This book is lighthearted and straightforward to read, comparable to listening to one of your grandparents telling stories. However, depending on your nature, you may find this book to be more of a rollercoaster ride. I would be laughing jovially on one page, and...more This book was a unique one for sure. If you enjoy watching the "Big Bang Theory", have a group of sciencey friends, or you have some interest in learning about the life of Richard Feynman, then this would be a good book for you to read.

This book is lighthearted and straightforward to read, comparable to listening to one of your grandparents telling stories. However, depending on your nature, you may find this book to be more of a rollercoaster ride. I would be laughing jovially on one page, and then fuming at the next page.

For example, this book actually gives TERRIFIC insight into the plight of female scientists, especially in the 1960s. It's subtle, you'll have to look for it. However, I think an analysis of Feynman's portrayal and opinion of women would merit a five star book if done properly.

For instance, one thing I was irked by was Feynman's astonishment at the fact that women could comprehend math. He goes on for several pages about how he had always thought that women could only comprehend simple household tasks, but he grants them some "potential" after overhearing two girls at Cornell talk about knitting socks. This was not early in his career - this was when he was teaching at Cornell that he thought this. How many female students had he had and thought the same thing - "oh, yeah they scored well on that test, but it's only because they can memorize things. Now Johnny, he's a bright one...". The sad part is that this thinking has not been vanquished from the scientific community, and Feynman at least is arrogant enough to vocalize his opinions. The great irony in all of this is that Feynman's sister was a well respected astrophysicist, but clearly he didn't think she could properly understand math either.

There are many deprecative motifs similar to the one above that course this book. It took a lot of the enjoyment out of what would have been a pretty decent book.

Grade: B- for offense towards the reader and lack of coherency and depth. A good afternoon light read for those who seek a few chuckles.(less)

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Apr 17, 2010 Dennis Littrell rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: physics

Feynman, Richard P. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman (1999)
Brilliance and charm: Feynman as a teacher

I very much enjoyed this entertaining and delightful collection of lectures, talks and essays by the world-renown and sorely missed Professor Feynman, Nobel Prize winning physicist, idiosyncratic genius and one of the great men of the twentieth century.

I particularly enjoyed the subtle yet unmistakable way he scolded the people at NASA for putting the...more Feynman, Richard P. The Pleasure of Finding Things Out: The Best Short Works of Richard P. Feynman (1999)
Brilliance and charm: Feynman as a teacher

I very much enjoyed this entertaining and delightful collection of lectures, talks and essays by the world-renown and sorely missed Professor Feynman, Nobel Prize winning physicist, idiosyncratic genius and one of the great men of the twentieth century.

I particularly enjoyed the subtle yet unmistakable way he scolded the people at NASA for putting their political butts before the safety of the space program they were managing in his famous "Minority Report to the Space Shuttle Challenger Inquiry." But the chapter that really sold me on Richard P. Feynman, boy wonder grown up, was "It's as Simple as One, Two, Three" in which he explores the ability to do two things at once through an experiment with counting. Such a delight he took in learning as a kid from his friend Bernie that we sometimes think in pictures and not in words. And then the further delight he took in learning that some people count with their inner voice (himself), and others (his friend John Tukey) count by visualization.

I was also loved the chapter, "What is Science?", a talk to science teachers in which Feynman demonstrates that the real difference between science and other ways of "knowing" (e.g., religion) is the ability to doubt. In science we learn, as Feynman said he himself learned, to live with doubt. But in the religious way of "knowing" doubt is intolerable. Feynman gives an evolutionary illustration of why doubt is essential. He begins with the "intelligent" animals "which can learn something from experience (like cats)." At this stage, he says, each animal learned "from its own experience." Then came some animals that could learn more rapidly and from the experience of others by watching. Then came something "completely new...things could be learned by one animal, passed on to another, and another, fast enough that...[the knowledge:] was not lost to the race...," and could be passed on to a new generation.

Now, let's stop for a moment. What a great teacher does--and here and elsewhere Feynman proves himself to be a great teacher (although he said he doubted that!)--is to guide the student just enough so that the student arrives at or anticipates the point of the lesson before the teacher gets there. What is the punch line of this lesson for the science teachers? Namely this: with the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next it became also possible to pass on false knowledge or "mistaken ideas." Feynman calls this a "disease."

"Then a way of avoiding the disease was discovered. This is to doubt that what is being passed from the past is in fact true, and to try to find out ab initio, again from experience, what the situation is, rather than trusting the experience of the past..."

In other words, don't blindly accept the word of authority. Test it for yourself! And this is what science does. It tests and it tests again, and it doubts and it doubts--always.

I loved this because one of my dictums is "always guide the experts"--the lawyer, the doctor, the insurance adjustor, et al. Always guide them because, although they are the experts, you're the one who really cares. To this I can now add that you should also doubt the experts because even though they are experts they can be wrong. And, as Feynman showed in his report on the Challenge disaster, they can be wrong for reasons that have nothing to do with their expertise.

I also liked the commencement address he gave at Caltech on "Cargo Cult Science...and How to Not Fool Yourself." We fool ourselves a lot. The managers at NASA fooled themselves; what's their names of cold fusion delusion fame fooled themselves. Feynman has noted that he has fooled himself. Science, he avers, is a tool to help us to not fool ourselves. He is profoundly right. Without science we would go on fooling ourselves with all sorts of mumbo-jumbo, "revealed" religiosity and scientific-seeming stuff such as Rhine's ESP experiments some years ago at Duke, the entire litany of New Age pseudobabblese, and--yes!--such stuff as the amazing Cargo Cult Science in which some Pacific Islanders, in an attempt to attract the big birds of the sky with their cargoes of goodies, built "nests," that is, landing fields with empty cargo boxes, and faux towers, etc. in the hope that the planes flying overhead would see them and land on their island. Feynman has taken this as an example of pseudoscience, that is, behavior in the form of science without the substance of science, without the "integrity" of science.

The integrity of science, Feynman advised the graduates, demands that all the information about the experiment be given, even detrimental facts. Feynman contrasts this idea with that of advertizing in which only that which makes the product look good is given.

When reading this book it helps to imagine that one is listening to Feynman speak. The text includes repetitions and the omissions which he no doubt conveyed with his voice, expression or gesture. When one reads him this way, some of Feynman's endearing charm and the gentle, self-effacing humor for which he is famous comes through. Here's a joke from pages 206-207: He is at Esalen in a hot bath with another man and a girl. The man begins to massage the girl's foot. He feels something in her big toe. He asks his instructor, "Is that the pituitary?" The girl says, "No, that's not the way it feels." Feynman injects, "You're a hell of a long way from the pituitary, man." And they both look at him. "I had blown my cover, you see--and she said, It's reflexology. So I closed my eyes and appeared to be meditating." Yes, Feynman is a long way from reflexology.(less)

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Jul 18, 2010 Oleg Kagan rated it 2 of 5 stars

Shelves: idea-books

I'd peeked into Richard Feynman's other books so I when I slipped The Pleasure of Finding Things Out into my CD player I expected much of the same. What I got was a Feynman's humor and genius tempered by some strange editorial choices. Why, even though the editor mentioned that he would remove repetition, was there still plenty of it? I'm not just referring here to anecdotes, but also ideas like Feynman's definition of science. Why did the interviews seem like they were edited to hit exactly the...more

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Mar 07, 2013 Hariharan Gopalakrishnan rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: non-fiction, science, bio-autobio-anecdotes

There was a quote from 'Surely you are joking...' that I remember to this day. It goes something like ' There are geniuses, whom, when you see, give you the impression that if only you worked as hard, you can aspire to achieve what they had. Then there are the wizards. You can never understand how they do what they do. Feynman was a wizard'. This book manages to provide a glimpse of , if not the 'how', atleast 'why' Feynman did what he did, in his own words. He comes across as an irreverent, fun...more

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Dec 29, 2011 Ray Norris rated it 4 of 5 stars

I learnt my physics at the feet of Feynman. Metaphorically speaking. As a student of theoretical physics at Cambridge in the 1970's, I spent dreary days in stuffy lecture-halls listening to boring old farts droning on about Wronskians and Greens Functions (ugh!). But then I'd come home and open my copy of the Feynman Lectures on Physics, whose pages brimmed with inspirational tales of quantum mechanics, and quirky ways of looking at the physical world. Feynman made physics fun, and gave me my fi...more I learnt my physics at the feet of Feynman. Metaphorically speaking. As a student of theoretical physics at Cambridge in the 1970's, I spent dreary days in stuffy lecture-halls listening to boring old farts droning on about Wronskians and Greens Functions (ugh!). But then I'd come home and open my copy of the Feynman Lectures on Physics, whose pages brimmed with inspirational tales of quantum mechanics, and quirky ways of looking at the physical world. Feynman made physics fun, and gave me my first real understanding of physics. How lucky were those undergraduates who sat at his feet at Caltech! But, oddly, those Caltech undergraduates taught by Feynman didn't get particularly good grades, and not many continued as physicists. I later found out that, while many of my generation of physicists were driven and inspired by Feynman, the Feynman Lectures were inspirational only to those who had already learnt the basics of physics cooped up in stuffy lecture rooms listening to aforesaid boring old farts. If the Feynman lectures were your only source of physics instruction, then you were lost when an exam question asked you to calculate a Wronskian.

All of which is a very long-winded introduction to the disappointment I felt when this book showed me that my hero had feet of clay. For example (p.178) he cites the case of a first-grade science book which showed pictures of a clockwork dog and asked the question “What makes it move?", hoping the student would answer "Energy". "Wrong!" thunders Feynman. Energy is merely a label for a very subtle concept! If your answer is "energy" then you learned nothing except the definition of the word! Ummm... I hate to question my hero, but isn't the point not to elicit a one-word answer, but to introduce the student to the subtle concept of energy? A good teacher would then use that one-word answer to discuss how energy moves between the chemical energy of the person using the toy, the potential energy stored in the clockwork, and the kinetic energy as it moves. The teacher can then introduce the Law of Conservation of Energy - itself an amazing symmetry of our Universe. But that discussion is much harder if you don’t have the label to start with. And the connection with the Feynman Lectures became obvious: if you've already learnt the label, then Feynman’s discussion becomes inspirational and illuminating. But don't try to introduce these subtle concepts to the first-grade student before they've even found a name for the concept.

Of course, this book presents entertaining tales of the genius mind using simple approaches and clear thinking to hack through the Byzantine complexities of particle physics and exploding Space Shuttles. But you also meet a grumpy old man discussing topics (e.g. religion or philosophy) where he has no special insight, and sounding a bit naive compared to say, Dawkins or Kuhn. Perhaps such discussions are best left unpublished. On the other hand, having feet of clay is perhaps the most human of attributes, and Feynman was, above all, human. Maybe it’s my own fault for keeping him on a pedestal for so long and failing to recognise that he, more than anyone else, earned the right to become a grumpy old man.
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Sep 18, 2009 Robert rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Feynman fans

Shelves: science

For those who might not know, Richard Feynman was a Noble Prize winning theoretical physicist, canny self-promoter and renowned teacher who worked on the Manhatten Project before he had even finished his Doctoral Thesis. Many books by and about him have been published and he has become a kind of miniature industry since his death; almost anybody who attended one of his lectures and scribbled some notes has tried to get them published, there are biographies and a volume of letters, CDs of impromt...more

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Aug 03, 2009 Meredith rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: audio

Audio.
The only thing keeping it from being 5 stars was that I had to [what's the auditory equivalent of 'skim'?:] some of the parts that got too technical...I would have been able to read them and understand, but while driving in the car, listening, I just couldn't follow it.
But I really enjoyed the stuff about his interactions with his father, and especially the last part about his views on faith vs. science. Some of the material was repetitive - the same anecdotes over again, but overall it w...more

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Apr 08, 2013 Artur Galiullin rated it 4 of 5 stars

This book is a collection of short stories, speeches and interviews with Feynman. It jumps from laugh out loud stories of Feynman’s adventures at Los Alamos to his futuristic predictions in nanocomputing, to his philosophical thoughts on the role of science in society. We also get a glimpse at his physics research and the state of the field at his time.

I found most of the fragments very interesting and entertaining. The only downside is that there really is no central theme or idea, other than t...more

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Jan 22, 2010 Elena rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: science-books, in-bookshelf

Like my affinity for Harold Bloom, Richard Feynman can do no wrong in my book. He was a man that thought outside the box, and was ahead beyond the technology of his time. However, what left the most lasting impression in this book is when Feynman turns into a bit of a philosopher and it made me think for days.

Feynman discusses the Heritages of Western Civilization:

Western civilization, it seems to me, stands by two great heritages. One is the scientifice spirit of adventure- the adventure into t...more

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May 14, 2012 Andrew Martin rated it 2 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: read-in-2012

Whatever your opinion of Feynman, you need to reconcile the fact that he's got unbearably retrograde opinions:

"When I was at Cornell, I was rather fascinated by the student body, which seems to me was a dilute mixture of some sensible people in a big mass of dumb people studying home economics, etc, including lots of girls. I used to sit in the cafeteria with the students and eat and try to overhear their conversations and see if there was one intelligent word coming out. You can imagine my surp...more Whatever your opinion of Feynman, you need to reconcile the fact that he's got unbearably retrograde opinions:

"When I was at Cornell, I was rather fascinated by the student body, which seems to me was a dilute mixture of some sensible people in a big mass of dumb people studying home economics, etc, including lots of girls. I used to sit in the cafeteria with the students and eat and try to overhear their conversations and see if there was one intelligent word coming out. You can imagine my surprise when I discovered a tremendous thing, it seemed to me.
I listened to a conversation between two girls, and one was explaining that if you want to make a straight line, you see, you go over a certain number to the right for each row you go up, that is, if you go over each time the same amount when you go up a row, you make a straight line. A deep principle of analytic geometry! It went on. I was rather amazed. I didn't realize the female mind was capable of understanding analytic geometry.
She went on and said, 'Suppose you have another line coming in from the other side and you want to figure out where they are going to intersect.' Suppose on one line you go over two to the right for every one you go up, and the other line goes over three to the right for every one that it goes up, and they start twenty steps apart, etc.-I was flabbergasted. She figured out where the intersection was! It turned out that one girl was explaining to the other how to knit argyle socks.
I, therefore, did learn a lesson: The female mind is capable of understanding analytic geometry. Those people who have for ears been insisting (in the face of all obvious evidence to the contrary) that the male and female are equal and capable of rational thought may have something. The difficulty may just be that we have never yet discovered a way to communicate with the female mind. If it is done in the right way, you may be able to get something out of it." (p. 175-76, which is somewhat hilariously indexed as "Geometry")

This is pretty ugly even for 1966.

Hard to reconcile that this is the same guy who espouses
"I don't believe in the idea that there are a few peculiar people capable of understanding math, and the rest of the world is normal. Math is a human discovery, and it's no more complicated than humans can understand" (194) - until you realize when he says people he means men.

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Jan 31, 2009 T rated it 5 of 5 stars

Shelves: short-stories, non-fiction

An amazing man, with some amazing stories. This is not just a science book but his ideas on different aspects to life.

Two of my favorite stories were of his time rebelling against the censorship at Los Alamos while developing the atomic bomb. Being pulled in and questioned of the code he was using to write his letters wife (a grocery list), and sneaking out the fence and confusing the guards when someone who had never left came waltzing up to come back. All the while picking locks to safes and...more

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May 02, 2010 Brackman1066 rated it 4 of 5 stars

Shelves: feynman, non-fiction

This book is more technical in some areas than either of the two "Curious Character" books, and was written for an audience somewhere between that of those books and the audience of his "Six Easy Pieces*. I'm not a physicist or computer scientist (my degree is in English literature) but my husband has been one or the other for years, and so I admittedly had an advantage from having listened to him talk about what he does.

I very much enjoyed the speeches in this--I think they work fine in print--...more

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Nov 17, 2010 Patrick rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Feynman is a wonderful character, even though often an egotist and misogynist and various other not-so-good qualities.

With that said, this book is delightful to read. Feynman's antics at Los Alamos had me laughing out loud on several occasions, and some of his philosophy (though he'd probably hate me for using that word) on science is interesting and eloquent, though we're not always on eye level.

A slight problem I have with the book is that there are certain things that are redundant. I'm not s...more

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Jul 10, 2012 nutchii added it · review of another edition

Shelves: biography

Some of the content I recognized from Surely You're Joking Mr Feynman, but most of it were gathered articles, lectures and interviews from various other sources. In addition to the chapter on nanotechnology, I found the chapters at the end of the book the most interesting, where Feynman gives his views on teaching, religion, pseudoscience etc. While it is mentioned that he does not like philosophy, he kind of uses arguments derived from his work in science to formulate a way of looking at the wo...more

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May 26, 2011 Milla rated it 5 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Shelves: favourites, non-fiction, science, essays

A wonderful collection of essays, stories and thoughts. I picked up this book completely randomly, just out of curiosity. Personally I was not familiar with Mr. Feynman and my limited understanding of science was limited to what few courses I took in high-school. This book and it's enthusiastic take on things was a sort of an eyeopener for me. And even though I am still very much aware of my own limits when it comes to science and especially anything to do with numbers, I found out that I am abl...more

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Feb 05, 2013 Abdullah Alothman rated it 3 of 5 stars

الكتاب هو مجموعة من محاضرات ومقابلات للدكنور ريتشاد فاينمان أحد أهم علماء الفيزياء الكمية حاصل على جائزة نوبل وأحد العاملين على القنبلة النووية.

الكتاب جميل للغاية ويعطي القارئ نظرة على العلماء الذين عملوا على القنبلة النووية وتبريراتهم لها.

تكلم أيضا عن أهمية النزاهة أثناء تقديم البحوث العلمية ونشر جميع التجارب وليس فقط التجارب التي توافق نتائجها دراستك.

والعديد من المواضيع الأخرى الشيقة، شكواي الوحيدة هي أن بعض الفصول تتكلم بشكل تقني شديد عن مفاهيم قد لا يفهمها القارئ العادي مما قد ينفر بعض القرا...more

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Apr 16, 2012 David Hammond rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book is a bit of a mixed bag. Some of the stories are entertaining, some show a brilliant scientific mind at work, and some provide thought-provoking insights into the role of science in society. Still there is an inelegance to the whole thing. Most of the pieces are from lectures, talks, and interviews that Feynman gave at one time or another, and while I'm sure he is an engaging speaker, they don't transfer to the page all that well. There are also various repetitions of Feynman's pet ide...more

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Jun 13, 2011 Paulo Oliveira rated it 4 of 5 stars · review of another edition

Richard P. Feynman is wonderful, a genius (no doubt about the works in the back of the book). His view of the world is unique and he surely had a lot to teach (even though he constantly says he doesn't). Most of his talks are really inspiring and motivational, while making you want to search deeper into subjects (he especially talks about the difference about knowing something and understanding something). He talks about science and religion, teaching and morals, his wonderful adventures in Los...more

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Dec 13, 2007 Eric rated it 3 of 5 stars · review of another edition Recommends it for: Armchair Scientists

I've always heard that Richard Feynmann was the "bad boy" of the early quantum physicists (If a physicist can really be described as such). I had tried listening to one of his lectures, and though he was an engaging teacher, I was missing two things: a view of the blackboard he was writing on and any sort of understanding of what he was talking about.

This is a series of short essays, speeches and interviews done by (or on) Feynmann. Some of the science of it was beyond me, but generally this was...more

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Oct 19, 2007 Mara rated it 4 of 5 stars Recommends it for: inquisitive minds

Shelves: nonfiction

This is mostly a book of essays by Feynman on a number of different subjects, and less the personal stories that have exemplified his other books, but with a mind as quick and witty as his, they're as pleasurable as his adventures. Again, my only grumpiness is with his adamantly irrational atheism--he points out how rightly impossible it is for us to fully understand how the universe works and then uses that as a reason why God must NOT exist, which doesn't really strike me as scientifically rig...more

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Apr 03, 2013 Robin Brooks rated it 5 of 5 stars

I found the essays to be inspiring and provocative, particularly chapters one through four. The more technical chapters were harder for this lay reader to follow. Feynman is eloquent on topics ranging from the role of science in society to the true purpose of education, a topic close to my heart. In his words, "We should teach them wonders...the purpose of knowledge is to appreciate the wonders even more. And that the knowledge is just to put into correct framework the wonder that nature is." p....more

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Oct 18, 2012 Anjalique rated it 3 of 5 stars

About twenty pages into this book, I nearly closed it and put it back on the shelf. Having little background in science/physics/computers, I found that there were entire chapters in this book that I did not understand. I chose to skip those few and read what I did understand.

I especially enjoyed the sections that discussed science as it relates to society, the value of science in general, and especially the relation between science & religion. Those parts I heavily underlined.

While I can see...more

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Feb 17, 2012 Chris rated it 4 of 5 stars

My father says that almost the whole world is asleep.

Everybody you know. Everybody you see. Everybody you talk to.

He says that only a few people are awake and they live in a state of constant total amazement.

(Joe vs the Volcano, 1990)

Richard Feynman was one of those few people. This collection of some of his occasional works is patchy, but suffused with infectious joy and infectious rationality - two things our 'civilisation' is badly in need of.

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Apr 17, 2013 Steven Mays rated it 3 of 5 stars

This book was OKAY... just okay. It's a bunch of speeches, interviews and stories about and by Feynman. I guess going into this book I had some preconceived notion that this eclectic, nutty professoresque character would have some more interesting stories, but alas, the stories weren't that interesting, and his take on science was not that refreshing. There were a few stories in here that were repeated like 3 times, it kind of reminded me of a teacher saying "If I repeat it more then once, it's...more

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About Richard P. Feynman

Richard Phillips Feynman was an American physicist known for the path integral formulation of quantum mechanics, the theory of quantum electrodynamics and the physics of the superfluidity of supercooled liquid helium, as well as work in particle physics (he proposed the parton model). For his contributions to the development of quantum electrodynamics, Feynman was a joint recipient of the Nobel Pr...more

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“Wir müssen unbedingt Raum für Zweifel lassen, sonst gibt es keinen Fortschritt, kein Dazulernen. Man kann nichts Neues herausfinden, wenn man nicht vorher eine Frage stellt. Und um zu fragen, bedarf es des Zweifelns.” — 1 person liked it

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