Richard Feynman

[Squeech]

Fascinating character.

A colleague of mine at work just handed me a new collection of his stories, called Classic Feynman. If you've read his two non-scientific books, it's basically that material, in chronological order. It also contains a CD of him telling some of the stories, and a forward by Freeman Dyson, and an epilogue by Alan Alda. I'm reading the latter right now, and I was struck by this passage:

"Like Dante in his time, he could say the most exquisitely subtle things in the language of the common people. He was an American genius, and like many American artists, he was direct and colloquial-- not afraid to take a look at the ordinary, and not afraid to go deeply into it to reveal the extraordinary roots of ordinary things."

That's exactly right. We're so used to people using language to obfuscate-- both the soi-disant experts and their reliance on jargon (recently I've gotten very annoyed at the word "anthropogenic," used by climatologists to indicate that human action is responsible for global warming-- it's true, but it's not helpful to use an arcane polysyllable) and the Bushies and their contrived folksy bullshit. Feynman was the real deal, as a scientist, as a raconteur, and especially as an explicator.

If you've never seen it, you absolutely must read his lecture called "Cargo Cult Science." It's in this book. It's brilliant.

[Mayberry Machiavelli]

1. "Surely you're joking, Mr. Feynman"--one of my fave books to give as gifts

It is a series of autobiographical stories of his life, from childhood, including topics as diverse as science discoveries, picking up women, Las Vegas, and his experiences on the Manhattan Project. The sense of childlike wonder and discovery permeates every aspect of his approach to life, which is of course why he was a great scientist.

Cargo Cult Science is one of the essays at the end of the book. Highly recommended.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0393316041/qid=1149619480/sr=1-1/ref=sr_1_1/104-8908381-6241518?s=books&v=glance&n=283155

[Squeech]

2. Thank you

for the reference. His other non-technical book is called Why Do You Care What People Think, and it contains more stories on most of the above topics, plus his account of his work on the commission to investigate the cause of the Challenger explosion. And if you like those, his collegue Ralph Leighton wrote Tuva or Bust, the story of how they tried to get permission to go to Tuva. (The short version of that story is, Feynman never made it. Tuva was an "autonomous" Soviet republic for most of the duration of the story, and the Soviets didn't want to allow one of America's most prominent nuclear scientists loose in the land where they built and tested their nukes. And the funny part is, Feynman didn't actually care about that, he just wanted to visit Kyzyl, the city with no vowels, and hear Tuvan throat singing in person.)

[hfojvt]

3. I happen to skim through that

and read where he played practical "jokes" on some waitresses. I wanted to beat the crap out of the a$$hat.

Helped to develop the atomic bomb, a notorious practical joker according to wiki. I'm not impressed. Some people think that puns are the lowest form of humour. I think practical "jokes" are lower.