Sometimes you come across some books rather late in life (relatively) and wonder why you didn’t read this earlier!
This book is one of those books. ‘Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman’ is an autobiography of sorts. It has chapters from Physicist Dr. Richard Feynman’s earliest days when his curiosity led him to experiment and eventually becoming a scientist, to his stint in the Manhattan Project, and his teaching days and general philosophy in life.
Nobel Prize winning scientist Richard P. Feynman was one of the most interesting characters the field of Physics has produced. He was referenced a lot in ‘The Big Bang Theory’ but I didn’t take notice. But when he made an appearance in the movie ‘Oppenheimer’ playing bongos when the Trinity Test was done, I thought to delve into this book I had only heard praises about.
The title of the book is perfect because some of the stories are absurd. It can also come across as eccentric or even arrogance but one needs to read it objectively. For instance, when the Nobel Prize was announced for Feynman, he jokes about how weird he felt accepting it and meeting the royalty of Sweden. His relationship and general opinion about Humanities are very relatable even today as the world is trying to react to the advent of the Wokeism culture.
What I liked the most was his approach to understand anything! Rote Learning which we suffer from thanks to our educational system has been criticised a lot in this book. He stresses on not remembering definitions or terms, but understanding the concepts.
On a totally different spectrum, he details his adventures of learning new languages, traveling to Brazil and Japan, and being a frequent to pubs and making friends and girlfriends, as if a comedy show is being played out. It would actually be a very interesting one if someone adapts to a biographical TV show.
I enjoyed reading this and would like to read other non technical books of his. I have also heard a lot about the Feynman Lectures where his Physics Lectures were videographed. Anyways the interviews of Richard Feynman are equally interesting.
