Review: Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character
Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!: Adventures of a Curious Character by Richard Feynman
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman is an authobiography on none other than Richard Feynman. If you haven’t heard of him, he is a Physicist, professor, integral member of the Manhattan project, and nobel prize winner. In this book he also professes he is an artist (specifically drawing nudes), drum player, linguist and safecracker.

Feynman has a real knack for writing which made this entire book quite interesting. His childhood fixing radios and solving problems was very cool and a gentlemen proclaiming “He fixes radios by thinkin!” made by chuckle.

He also has some good ideas about teaching. How we teach towards the test instead of understand the significance or application. “I couldn’t see how anyone wcould be educated by this self-propagating system in which people pass exams, and teach others to pass exams, but nobody knows anything.” I have found many times I don’t take the time to understand the underlying principles very often, because the requirement is to know what you need to know for the test. Without a test or exam, it is the exact opposite…

This was also my first book about the manhattan project and Feynman was among Oppenheimer and Von Neumann in the development of nuclear power. Getting a behind the scenes look was very informative and worth the price of admission alone.

I give this book a high 3 stars and think any logically thinking or scientific minded person may really enjoy it.  You can purchase the kindle version from Amazon here.

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