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Genius

The Life and Science of Richard Feynman

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 To his colleagues, Richard Feynman was not so much a genius as he was a full-blown magician: someone who “does things that nobody else could do and that seem completely unexpected.” The path he cleared for twentieth-century physics led from the making of the atomic bomb to a Nobel Prize-winning theory of quantam electrodynamics to his devastating exposé of the Challenger space shuttle disaster. At the same time, the ebullient Feynman established a reputation as an eccentric showman, a master safe cracker and bongo player, and a wizard of seduction.

Now James Gleick, author of the bestselling Chaos, unravels teh dense skein of Feynman‘s thought as well as the paradoxes of his character in a biography—which was nominated for a National Book Award—of outstanding lucidity and compassion. Physics Professionals & Academics Science Science & Technology
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What didn’t you like about Dick Estell’s performance?

He is out of a 1960s sci fi B movie narration school. Just so inappropriate for the book. I will struggle to the end because the story is so good, but please...

If this book were a film would you go see it?

as long as Dick Estell wasn't narrating

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I'm considering reading

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I expected this book to concentrate more on the life of RPF than it did but I am grateful to be disappointed - the clues were in the title, after all! This book balances the life of Feynman with the scientific environment of the time and the progress of Feynman and his peers in developing their understanding of the quantum world. It is fantastic. The author conveys the feeling that Feynman was around at a time when scientific endeavour and discover was at its peak - an exciting time of debate and competition towards a deeper understanding of a science in its (comparative) infancy.

I have read the autobiographical books of RPF and watched some of his interviews such as the BBC Horizon one (available on YouTube), but these do not fully reveal just what an incredible mind he had. He never lost the child's curiosity to learn about the world around him and had an obsessive desire to develop the mathematical and intuitive abilities required to do so. This is a frank and honest book relating the good and bad in him, and this makes it all the more enjoyable. Newton said, ?If I have seen a little further it is by standing on the shoulders of Giants? - Feynman took nothing for granted in science and insisted on standing on his own shoulders, and by doing so became one of the most influential and highly regarded scientists of all time.

I highly recommend this book to people who want to learn more about RPF, about the evolution of quantum physics and the people who were pivotal to it and also to anyone curious as to what a Genius really is - This book only emphasises what a much-abused word it has become.

With a constantly active and searching mind, his last words were reported to be 'I'd hate to die twice. It's so boring.'

Excellently narrated.

A Biography/Science masterpiece

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I was leant this book (I mean the brick of a hardback that you turn pages to access) by a colleague and began reading it a couple of weeks ago, then took advantage of an offer to get the audiobook. I'm still some way from the end, but already there are some serious impediments to my total enjoyment.

First is that Gleick, who clearly knows his subject, knows a lot more than just this subject, and lets us know. A biography is a journey following the stream of its subject's life, and it is right to expect some context from the surrounding landscape--it seems to me that Gleick deviates way too far into the surrounding countryside, often leaving the catchment of the waterway he should be following.

Second, and worst, is that Dick Estell is seriously inappropriate as a narrator of a book so centred on scientific narrative. His reading is stilted and uncomfortable, with studied delivery of every syllable. As if that were not enough, he has is own unique pronunciation of primer. Pythagoras and Descartes.

I'm ploughing on--I have a real and abiding admiration of Ritty Feynman, and despite my wider objections, I'm interested to learn of his career through Los Alamos and Caltech to the Committee of Enquiry into the Challenger disaster. I may update this review later...

Genius? Certainly Feynman was, but Gleick...

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