Review by Choice Review
This is yet another collection of excellent articles by the late, great American physicist Richard Feynman. Some of the articles were originally published in obscure, small-circulation journals, and some are transcripts of talks or interviews that Feynman gave over a very distinguished career as researcher and educator. They range from "Role of Scientific Culture in Modern Society" (1964) to "Minority Report on the Space Shuttle Challenger Inquiry" (1986). Feynman demonstrates his genius for rational thinking in each case and explains difficult concepts with the deftness of someone who was a master teacher. All the essays are aimed at a lay audience. They demonstrate the clear sightedness, prescience, and brilliance of a world-renowned scientist mixed with equal portions of impish humor that was his hallmark. The 13 articles, not arranged chronologically, were collected from several sources and are thoroughly pleasurable to read in any order. There is a good index. All in all, a book for every student and for all ages. All levels. N. Sadanand; Central Connecticut State University
Copyright American Library Association, used with permission.
Review by Booklist Review
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. --Gilbert Taylor
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
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. (Oct.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
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 readÄthe 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.ÄJames Olson, Northeastern Illinois Univ. Lib., Chicago (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
More gems from the Feynman factory. If some things are old or borrowed, it hardly matters: there are enough new or unfamiliar to charm fans. Since the Nobel laureate's death, there have been biographies, ``as-told-to'' accounts, and various interviews and selected writings that continue to reveal the workings of one of the most remarkable and inventive minds in physics. But part and parcel with the revelations of genius are the pranks and idiosyncrasies that have built the Feynman legend of bongo player, gambler, bon vivant, and girl watcher. The current collection replays a few of those choice bits. But it's much more a picture of Feynman as passionate and scrupulously honest scientist, insisting always that truth is never absolute. There is much homage to his father, who inspired the habit of asking questions that go to the heart of the matter of how and why things work. A wonderful Caltech graduation speech allows him to contrast real with pseudoscience and speaks to the absolute necessity of providing one's peers with all the information they need to judge one's work. There's a lovely reminiscence of himself as a nervous 24-year-old asked to present a seminar at Princeton before a group that included Eugene Wigner, John Wheeler, Wolfgang Pauli, John von Neumann and Albert Einstein. When it's over, Pauli gets up and turns to Einstein and says, don't you agree that this theory cannot be right? To which Einstein replies, ``N-o-o-o.'' ``Nicest no I ever heard,'' Feynman says. The collection includes Feynman's insightful minority report on the Challenger disaster, his well-known disdainful comments on philosophy and behavioral science, his despair of today's cultural ignorance of the nature of science, and his prescient thoughts on parallel processing for computers and principles of miniaturization we now call nanotechnology. All said, of course, in the idiom of the boy from New York whose pleasure in finding things out affords the reader another sort of pleasure.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
