Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! (Adventures of a Curious Character)

Richard P. Feynman, Ralph Leighton, Edward Hutchings

Language: English

Pages: 352

ISBN: 0393316041

Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub

A New York Times bestseller―the outrageous exploits of one of this century's greatest scientific minds and a legendary American original.

Richard Feynman, 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; accompanying a ballet on his bongo drums; painting a naked female toreador. In short, here is Feynman's life in all its eccentric―a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, and raging chutzpah.

Black-and-white photographs throughout

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meeting. The other members had given some kind of ratings to some of the books, and they asked me what my ratings were. My rating was often different from theirs, and they would ask, "Why did you rate that book low?" I would say the trouble with that book was this and this on page so­and­so ­­ I had my notes. They discovered that I was kind of a goldmine: I would tell them, in detail, what was good and bad in all the books; I had a reason for every rating. I would ask them why they had

students who get only chance results. It is very dangerous to have such a policy in teaching ­­ to teach students only how to get certain results, rather than how to do an experiment with scientific integrity. So I have just one wish for you ­­ the good luck to be somewhere where you are free to maintain the kind of integrity I have described, and where you do not feel forced by a need to maintain your position in the organization or financial support, or so on, to lose your integrity. May you

supernatural phenomenon. Arlene had kept this clock by her bedside all the time she was sick, and now it stopped the moment she died. I can understand how a person who half believes in the possibility of such things, and who hasn't got a doubting mind ­­ especially in a circumstance like that ­­ doesn't immediately try to figure out what happened, but instead explains that no one touched the clock, and there was no possibility of explanation by normal phenomena. The clock simply stopped. It

toy frying pan made of metal, about six inches in diameter, with a little metal stick to beat it with. It's an accompanying instrument which makes a tinkly, rapid noise that goes with the main samba music and rhythm and fills it out. So I tried to play this thing and everything was going all right. We were practicing, the music was roaring along and we were going like sixty, when all of a sudden the head of the batteria section, a great big black man, yelled out, "STOP! Hold it, hold it ­­ wait a

attention to where they were going, saying things to each other, like 'G­mu­nu. G­mu­nu.' " His face lit up. "Ah, yes," he said. "You mean Chapel Hill!" He called the next taxi waiting in line. "Take this man to the university at Chapel Hill." "Thank you," I said, and I went to the conference. But Is It Art? Once I was at a party playing bongos, and I got going pretty well. One of the guys was particularly inspired by the drumming. He went into the bathroom, took off his shirt, smeared

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