The Pleasure of Finding Things Out

August 2, 1999
A Nobel-winning physicist, inveterate prankster and gifted teacher, Feynman (1918-1988) charmed plenty of contemporary and future scientists with accounts of his misadventures in the bestselling Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! and explained the fundamentals of physics in (among other books) Six Easy Pieces. Editor Jeffrey Robbins's assemblage of 13 essays, interviews and addresses (only one of them new to print) will satisfy admirers of those books and other fans of the brilliant and colorful scientist. Best known among the selections here is certainly Feynman's "Minority Report to the Challenger Inquiry," in which the physicist explained to an anxious nation why the Space Shuttle exploded. The title piece transcribes a wide-ranging, often-autobiographical interview Feynman gave in 1981; an earlier talk with Omni magazine has the author explaining his prize-winning work on quantum electrodynamics, then fixing the interviewer's tape recorder. Other pieces address the field of nanotechnology, "The Relation of Science and Religion" and Feynman's experience at Los Alamos, where he helped create the A-bomb (and, in his spare time, cracked safes). Much of the work here was originally meant for oral delivery, as speeches or lectures: Feynman's talky informality can seduce, but some of the pieces read more like unedited tape transcripts than like science writing. Most often, however, Feynman remains fun and informative. Here are yet more comments, anecdotes and overviews from a charismatic rulebreaker with his own, sometimes compelling, views about what science is and how it can be done.

August 1, 1999
It is an ironic twist of fate that Feynman the iconoclast has become a 20th-century icon. Feynman has a large and devoted following not because of his famous hijinks, or his skill as a bongo drum performer, or even his Nobel Prize in quantum electrodynamics. Feynman became an icon because he was a man of great integrity who did physics because it was fun. This collection of 13 short works is a pleasure to read--the editor has chosen not to correct any of Feynman's grammar or idiosyncratic phraseology. Intended for a general audience, these lectures and presentations cover a wide range of topics, including his early life, philosophy, religion, nanotechnology, the future of computing, Los Alamos, fun with science, science and society, and the Challenger disaster. Recommended for public as well as academic institutions.--James Olson, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago

Copyright 1999 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

September 15, 1999
These dozen easy lectures and interviews are the late Feynman's accessible expositions about his life, about technical topics in computing and physics, and about science's general place in society. Although Feynman was normally an ebullient personality, several of the pieces reveal his pessimism over the deep penetration of society by science: not only was physics beyond the comprehension of the nonmathematical minded, he believed the ability of people to fool themselves was immense, a quotidian example being their belief in astrology, and an exceptional one, NASA's belief that the space shuttle was safe. Hence he was committed to absolute honesty in science, which he impressed on the 1974 graduates of Cal Tech in his commencement speech reprinted here. Other discourses, those recorded for radio interviews or popular magazine articles, show the more upbeat, iconoclastic Feynman, and his fans will enjoy his recollections of his father and of his work on the atom bomb project when he was a somewhat awestruck nobody rubbing elbows with world-famous physicists. A popular addition to Feynmania. ((Reviewed September 15, 1999))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1999, American Library Association.)