Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
By Richard Feynman

Subtitled "Adventures of a Curious Character", this memoir by physicist Richard Feynman plays up both aspects of "curious".

As we follow Feynman's antics from MIT to Princeton to the Manhattan Project at Los Alamos to his adventures in Brazil, it's easy to see how Feynman's peers might have had the impression he was a bit odd. And yet the driving force in all of Feynman's activities was an unquenchable curiosity about the world around him and about the people he encountered.

Feynman isn't the typical image that comes to mind when one thinks of scientists. Scientists who are "typical" don't learn to play the bongos and end up marching in Samba bands during Carnivale in Rio de Janeiro. Nor do they become established artists holding gallery shows to exhibit their drawings, or get reputations a major players in Las Vegas. And they certainly don't spend their time learning safe-cracking or investigating out-of-body experiences in isolation tanks. Feynman did all of those things while he was making major contributions to the field of particle physics.

Feynman makes an effort at humility in places, but can't help reporting his exploits with a certain amusing swagger. He clearly enjoyed a life of being a royal pain-in-the-rear to many of the people he worked with, government officials especially. His efforts to be "helpful" were not always seen as such, especially his foray into safecracking at Los Alamos during and after the Second World War.

Feynman discusses a whole range of fascinating topics in this book, spending relatively little time on physics and instead on concentrating on his many other interests, his interpersonal relationships (he was married three times, and also wrote quite a bit about his efforts to meet women in between), and his scuffles with government and university bureaucracies. In one amusing anecdote, he agrees to give a talk for a government program only on the condition that he will not sign his name more than thirteen times in the required paperwork. When a 14th signature is required for him to receive his check, he refuses and decides that he will just not take the money, only to be told that there is no legal way for the government NOT to pay him. Feynman got great enjoyment from giving the runaround to figures of authority.

This is an enjoyable memoir that will be worthwhile to anyone interested in the personalities behind the science, and its descriptions of the Manhattan Project are a fascinating look at the beginning of the Atomic Age. The book is very accessible to non-scientists and makes for an entertaining read regardless of interest in or understanding of physics.

Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman was book #4 in my goal of reading 50 books in 2010.