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34th out of 2,086 books
—
3,723 voters
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
Richard Feynman (1918-1988), 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; painting a naked female toreador - and muc...more
Paperback, 352 pages
Published
April 12th 1997
by W. W. Norton & Company
(first published January 1st 1985)
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Jun 01, 2008
Otis Chandler
rated it
5 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Curious cats
Recommended to Otis by:
Adrian
Shelves:
nonfiction,
science
This book was a pure delight. The subtitle "Adventures of a Curious Character" is spot-on. Feynman gave an amazingly human and honest view into his philosophy and take on life, thought a series of stories.
One thing that struck me most deeply was his passion for learning new things. You would think a world-famous Physicist would just be passionate for Physics - but Feynman was curious about everything he saw. He dabbled in art and was successful enough to have a show, he joined a Brazilian Bongo...more
One thing that struck me most deeply was his passion for learning new things. You would think a world-famous Physicist would just be passionate for Physics - but Feynman was curious about everything he saw. He dabbled in art and was successful enough to have a show, he joined a Brazilian Bongo...more
17 likes · like · see review
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Actually I originally read this book when I worked at Scribners in 1989, but remembered how great it is and reread it a few months ago.
Feynman is a physicist who taught at Cornell and Princeton, worked on the Manhattan Project and won the Nobel Prize. He's also a complete hoot. The book is a series of autobiographical stories -- pranks pulled as a student at MIT and at Los Alamos, teaching himself to paint, scientific discoveries he made, his three marriages, how he was rejected by the draft boa...more
Feynman is a physicist who taught at Cornell and Princeton, worked on the Manhattan Project and won the Nobel Prize. He's also a complete hoot. The book is a series of autobiographical stories -- pranks pulled as a student at MIT and at Los Alamos, teaching himself to paint, scientific discoveries he made, his three marriages, how he was rejected by the draft boa...more
This book of anecdotes is written in a very casual, fun way that makes it easy to read. The problem is that the author, Nobel-Prize-winning physicist Dick Feynman, is annoying. All the anecdotes involve him discovering a hidden talent, using it, delighting others (or himself if that's his real goal) and then being applauded for it (sometimes only by himself). For example, he discovers that he's a great artist, musician, safecracker, and critic. Everything revolves around him showing off and bein...more
38 likes · like · see review
Oct 08, 2009
Lance Greenfield Mitchell
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Shelves:
my-top-books,
comfort-reads
Brilliant, inspirational and very funny!
There can be no argument that Richard P Feynman was a genius. He has been a hero of mine since I was very young, probably because my father also greatly admires him and spoke to me about Feynman and his unique personality from time to time.
There are some great stories in this book and they will make you laugh out loud. Feynman was always so full of life and he was curious about absolutely everything from a very early age. He would always want to know, "How...more
There can be no argument that Richard P Feynman was a genius. He has been a hero of mine since I was very young, probably because my father also greatly admires him and spoke to me about Feynman and his unique personality from time to time.
There are some great stories in this book and they will make you laugh out loud. Feynman was always so full of life and he was curious about absolutely everything from a very early age. He would always want to know, "How...more
Everyone has a collection of favorite stories that they enjoy telling; but it's unusual for the stories to be so good that a friend insists on writing them down, so that other people can appreciate them too. When I read this book, I almost feel that Feynman's telling the stories himself. Well, when that happens in real life, you always want to join in; here's my personal best effort at a Feynman-type anecdote. I hope it's now far enough in the past that the people concerned will see the funny si...more
14 likes · like · see review
Laugh out loud funny. My dad read this outloud to us when we were kids - I'm guessing at the exact year - and the whole family literally cried with laughter many times during the performance.
Feyman's other memoirs are good too, but this is the funniest. I still think of it often. For instance, every time I use a combination lock, I think of his safe-cracking phase, and how it's every child's dream to learn how to crack safes and get at all that secret and valuable stuff. Which really sums up th...more
Feyman's other memoirs are good too, but this is the funniest. I still think of it often. For instance, every time I use a combination lock, I think of his safe-cracking phase, and how it's every child's dream to learn how to crack safes and get at all that secret and valuable stuff. Which really sums up th...more
10 likes · like · see review
This amusing little book of anecdotes had an alarmingly influential role in my life. It convinced me of the odd notion that it would be a good idea to go to Caltech and major in physics. In retrospect, this would have been a better idea had I been born around 1930 and was starting my scientific career around 1940, but nowadays it's a tough slog in physics, both money-wise and also discovery-wise. I think that people like Bohr and Planck and Einstein and Feynman discovered all the good stuff in p...more
10 likes · like · see review
Oct 24, 2008
Leippya
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommends it for:
Everybody
Shelves:
real-people
A fascinating read, and also surprisingly hilarious! I didn't expect to burst out laughing while reading the autobiography of a physicist but that's what ended up happening -- Feynman definitely was a first class prankster! Although physics are often mentioned, you don't need to really know about it to be able to enjoy the book; this is more about his life than his work. It's a joy to read about how much this man enjoys learning, not only physics but also music (bongo player!), painting and so o...more
4 likes · like · see review
Oct 19, 2007
Mara
rated it
4 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
curious characters, nerds, and anyone who likes an adventure
Shelves:
nonfiction
When it comes to Feynman's humility, I think this is a case of "The lady doth protest too much". He is constantly asserting that prizes, awards, accolades, and the regard of others mean nothing to him, but then you have to wonder what the point of this book was? (Post-mortem interviews with his friends also seemed to indicate the humility was feigned, and pretty poorly so) Still, that and Feynman's vehement atheism are my only marks against this book which ought to inspire people everywhere, ins...more
There ain't any books about stubborn men, who are among the most curious creatures in the universe, love to play bongos and paint nude models, jump every now and then into sense-deprivation-hallucination-trigger capsules and master the art of moving their egos out of their bodies so that they can watch themselves from outside, can crack any damn safe in the world, steal people's doors, make an atom bomb, experiment with their own dreaming and ant psychology, study at MIT and Princeton, teach at...more
3 likes · like · see review
Jan 22, 2008
Anurag
rated it
5 of 5 stars
·
review of another edition
Recommended to Anurag by:
Ganguly(My Phsics Prof.)
I read this book during graduation and I have read it over 10 times since. It has recollections made by Richard Feynman. Strange as it may seem that the semi autobiography of Nobel winning scientist is so humorous and a great pick for light reading.
The single most best thing about the book is that it doesn’t have any plot; you can flip open to any chapter and start reading. This book contains a series of pranks that Feynman pulled during his time as a student at M.I.T, his time with his three wi...more
The single most best thing about the book is that it doesn’t have any plot; you can flip open to any chapter and start reading. This book contains a series of pranks that Feynman pulled during his time as a student at M.I.T, his time with his three wi...more
This is an excellent book that should be on anyone's top 50 books on Science. It captures the texture and spirit of the scientific community in an authentic voice of an important physicist who witnessed some of the most important science of the 20th Century, including the development of the atomic bomb. It is funny, personal and (sometimes brutally) honest. It makes scientific thinking transparent, allowing the reader to participate in science as a process or a mode of thinking. It allows outsid...more
A fantastic book. This work recounts a number of chronological stories in Richard Feynman's life, taking us through his childhood, education, work on the Manhattan Project, career, and more. Most of the stories are hilarious. Feynman is consistently intriguing and inspiring.
One of the more amusing stories is "Safecracker Meets Safecracker" - while working on 'The Bomb' at Los Alamos, Feynman learned how to get into the locked file cabinets on the base. When he needed a document and couldn't fin...more
One of the more amusing stories is "Safecracker Meets Safecracker" - while working on 'The Bomb' at Los Alamos, Feynman learned how to get into the locked file cabinets on the base. When he needed a document and couldn't fin...more
My favorite Feynman. Michelle (the wife) and I had a book swap where she picked a book for me and I picked a book for her. I made her listen to this one. See her review of it for how non-scientist persons may like this book. As for me I loved it. Feynman was a very inspiring writer, he just makes you want to go out and discover and experiment and ask 'why?'. I find his personality to be almost childlike in curiosity and naiveness. I find his books to be very genuine as he's able to make feelings...more
Disclaimer: I am a nerd, and I am made even nerdier by my enjoyment of reading biographies of nerds past. But as scientist (auto-)bios go, this is one of the best.
The good news for lesser nerds than I is that the style is not overly science-y, but it is definitely indicative of the way Feynman's mind work. Many of the stories are great anecdotes for whipping out at cocktail parties (i.e., Feynman used to do work over lunch at strip clubs because [he claims] the food was cheap and people tended t...more
The good news for lesser nerds than I is that the style is not overly science-y, but it is definitely indicative of the way Feynman's mind work. Many of the stories are great anecdotes for whipping out at cocktail parties (i.e., Feynman used to do work over lunch at strip clubs because [he claims] the food was cheap and people tended t...more
There’s presumably a rule where only smart people are awarded Nobel Prizes in Physics. Richard Feynman was no exception. This memoir is filled with anecdotes from his childhood spent fixing radios, his experiences as a young man doing bomb research at Los Alamos up through his days as a renowned professor at Cal Tech. The central theme was always that this is one smart cookie. It was interesting to pick up on his thought processes. It probably didn’t feature as much pure science as most of his o...more
6 likes · like · see review
Feynman is somewhat of a rascal, one with undeniable genius, but a rascal nonetheless. I expected this to be a book that would confirm my ideal of the contemplative and infinitely wise physicist along the lines of Einstein, Born, and Oppenheimer, but instead, this turned out to be an account of the adventures of the boyish Dick Feynman getting into all sorts of troubles and adventures. Feynman is the exact opposite of what one would expect a Nobel laureate physicist would be like. He is rough ar...more
This book has an unusual style. The book begins with a sickeningly smug nostalgic journey through the childhood of a genius. Feynman was clever, he knew it and he wanted to prove it to everyone he met with endless smug anecdotes from his childhood! He seemed forever uneasy, and so overcompensated by trying to be the life and sole of every party. He always attempting to get into situations that would make good stories later, probably so that he could hide behind this flamboyant image and keep peo...more
Per sua ammissione, Feynman aveva in testa solo la fisica. Ed in quello era, come disse Bethe, un grande mago. Tuttavia ha avuto molte e diverse esperienze nel corso della sua vita, dimostrando quantomeno di essere aperto alla sperimentazione - sebbene fosse fisico teorico.
Questa è la prima parte del racconto delle sue vicende, che lo seguono dall'infanzia alla maturità. Seduttore di donne, suonatore di bonghi, pittore, conferenziere, elettrochimico e altro ancora: Feynman proietta una immagine...more
Questa è la prima parte del racconto delle sue vicende, che lo seguono dall'infanzia alla maturità. Seduttore di donne, suonatore di bonghi, pittore, conferenziere, elettrochimico e altro ancora: Feynman proietta una immagine...more
May 05, 2009
Immen
added it
I've just read this, quite illegally, on http://www.gorgorat.com/, somewhat to my bemusement.
I wasn't really intending to read the whole thing -- I remember how impossibly long it seemed my first time through, when I must have been 8 or so. Actually, it was so impossibly long, I didn't get through all of it. I distinctly recall I found the chapter "7 percent solution" difficult to follow. But it's funny reading this again! I just kept tumbling along from story to story, and all sorts of memorie...more
I wasn't really intending to read the whole thing -- I remember how impossibly long it seemed my first time through, when I must have been 8 or so. Actually, it was so impossibly long, I didn't get through all of it. I distinctly recall I found the chapter "7 percent solution" difficult to follow. But it's funny reading this again! I just kept tumbling along from story to story, and all sorts of memorie...more
Feb 21, 2009
Liz
rated it
3 of 5 stars
Recommends it for:
Anyone who wonders how a scientist thinks
Recommended to Liz by:
Mark--child genius
I found a 16 year old stranded at a coffee shop and gave him a ride home. This child turned out to be some sort of prodigy, who described his passion for physics, time travel and quarks.
I felt like a 3 year old, talking to a physics professor about a subject I have never studied. He was fascinating, inspiring and willing to explain complex theories--at my level of understanding.
When I dropped him off, I asked for a reading list of his favorite "beginner" physics books. The above is the first re...more
I felt like a 3 year old, talking to a physics professor about a subject I have never studied. He was fascinating, inspiring and willing to explain complex theories--at my level of understanding.
When I dropped him off, I asked for a reading list of his favorite "beginner" physics books. The above is the first re...more
I've always been interested in Richard Feynman, and loved his quotes and any interviews I've seen, but had never actually read one of his books. This compendium of stories (as told to his friend Ralph Leighton) give a great overview of this eminent physicist and his wide range of interests. The diction is straightforward, undecorated, conversational, and jumps from subject to subject: his early childhood tinkering with radios, practical joking in college, experiments with ants, adventures in loc...more
Initially, I was concerned that this book would be too esoteric. Instead, it is an entertaining and wonderfully written memoir that spans Feynman's many lives as a true renaissance man; from musician to artist/painter, and from physicist on the Manhattan Project to Nobel Prize winner. Interspersed throughout is his life as a con man and prankster, perhaps one of the earlier social engineers.
The writing is matter of fact and straight-forward. When physics is needed to make a point, Feynman prese...more
The writing is matter of fact and straight-forward. When physics is needed to make a point, Feynman prese...more
Long after his death, Professor Richard Feynman (1918-1988) is still an admired person in the scientific community. In addition to being an accomplished physicist, he was also known for being an extremely outgoing and eccentric person who loved other people. Feynman wasn’t the stereotypical nerd who wasn’t able to communicate with people and turned people off; he was a person who had more trouble in social situations and often thought differently than others, but tried very hard to operate in a...more
Richard Feynman wrote a very entertaining autobiography. Open-eyed and prepared to question everything, and to be honest about what he saw and felt, he upset many people while making himself indispensable to others. He was also something of a trickster.
He worked on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, a very junior researcher who soon had the ear of the "heavy hitters" because he was unafraid of their greatness and reputations, and they could count on him to give an unvarnished asse...more
He worked on the Manhattan Project in Los Alamos, New Mexico, a very junior researcher who soon had the ear of the "heavy hitters" because he was unafraid of their greatness and reputations, and they could count on him to give an unvarnished asse...more
Richard P Feynman was a very unique and extraordinary man. As I rapidly devoured this book, his ability to tell the wonderful stories of his life were a great source of entertainment and insight. The novel (it seems part autobiography, part life philosophy manual) progressed more or less chronologically. He highlights the laboratory of his childhood, higher education, working on the Manhattan Project during WWII, becoming a (non-stereotypical) professor, life journeys to Brazil and Japan, and ma...more
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?"), unafrai...more
God, do I love this man. That one of the grand physicists of the 20th century could be so completely human, so entertaining in off-the-cuff remarks, so side-splittingly funny, so genuinely self-deprecating yet as genuinely arrogant -- I don't know anyone like him, but I wish to hell I had known him while he was alive.
As a Brooklyn Jew, he comes across as a melding of Jimmy Breslin and wacky Uncle Moshe. In rapid-fire recountings, complete with verbal sound-effects, he traces his upbringing, acad...more
As a Brooklyn Jew, he comes across as a melding of Jimmy Breslin and wacky Uncle Moshe. In rapid-fire recountings, complete with verbal sound-effects, he traces his upbringing, acad...more
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman Review
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" is a curious, well informed book. However it is lacking in many different departments, enough so that it made the book feel lifeless, boring, and empty. The book is basically about Richard Feynman, a pretentious, wise-cracking physics professor, and all of his adventures. He travels around the world, doing physics and stuff, and has an ending. The book has a rather straightforward beginning, sags on and feels clunky in...more
"Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!" is a curious, well informed book. However it is lacking in many different departments, enough so that it made the book feel lifeless, boring, and empty. The book is basically about Richard Feynman, a pretentious, wise-cracking physics professor, and all of his adventures. He travels around the world, doing physics and stuff, and has an ending. The book has a rather straightforward beginning, sags on and feels clunky in...more
The only way I can describe this book is comparing it to my favorite meal; Pepperoni and Bacon Pizza sprinkled with goldfish. The goldfish, in this sense, represent the countless stories that are used to tell Richard Feynman's personal memoir, while the pizza represents a normal story about someone's life. What I'm getting at is this; Goldfish are made of baked cheese, right? and shouldn't baked cheese belong on a pizza? in most cases, YES! but would you really WANT to add more, awkwardly place...more
| topics | posts | views | last activity | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Science and Inquiry: * November 2012 - Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman | 23 | 124 | Feb 04, 2013 05:58pm | |
| Feynman | 20 | 219 | Feb 01, 2013 02:46am | |
| Goodreads Librari...: Books merge needed | 4 | 24 | Jan 08, 2012 01:43am | |
| The Aspiring Poly...: Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! | 9 | 37 | Sep 28, 2011 10:54am |
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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“You have no responsibility to live up to what other people think you ought to accomplish. I have no responsibility to be like they expect me to be. It's their mistake, not my failing.”
—
427 people liked it
“When it came time for me to give my talk on the subject, I started off by drawing an outline of the cat and began to name the various muscles.
The other students in the class interrupt me: "We *know* all that!"
"Oh," I say, "you *do*? Then no *wonder* I can catch up with you so fast after you've had four years of biology." They had wasted all their time memorizing stuff like that, when it could be looked up in fifteen minutes.”
—
40 people liked it
More quotes…
The other students in the class interrupt me: "We *know* all that!"
"Oh," I say, "you *do*? Then no *wonder* I can catch up with you so fast after you've had four years of biology." They had wasted all their time memorizing stuff like that, when it could be looked up in fifteen minutes.”
