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Perfectly Reasonable Deviations From The Beaten Track: The Letters Of Richard P. Feynman :: 0738206369
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| Finding out about someone by reading their correspondence is a fundamentally different thing than reading their biography. Letters offer both more intimacy with the subject and at the same time a crucial distance--the exact distance the letter-writer intended from the people to whom he was writing. In Perfectly Reasonable Deviations from the Beaten Track, Michelle Feynman collects her famous father's letters to reveal a warm, honest man with high expectations for himself, his loved ones, and the human race. Long before Richard Feynman won the Nobel Prize, he was a smart, skinny graduate student at Princeton, writing letters to his mother and relating the mundane details of college life. "Dear Mom.... The raincoat came O.K. It is very nice," he writes. By the time he finished his Ph.D., Feynman had fallen for Arline Greenbaum, who had already been diagnosed with tuberculosis. Their tragically short marriage is set in letters against Feynman's first job--working on the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos, New Mexico. Even while working on top secret physics, Feynman was an enthusiastic correspondent, jumping eagerly at the chance to encourage a young scientist, correct a public misperception, or tell a goofy joke to his family. Self-effacing, charmingly down to earth, and occasionally cranky, these letters cover Feynman's entire career, although in the fits and starts one would expect from a collection such as this. His own words to students, spouses, daughters, and fellow scientists reveal Feynman's brilliance far more effectively than any biographical lens ever could. --Therese Littleton Editorial Descriptions are usually submitted by the manufacturers, publishers and authors. Contact us if you are one of them, and wish to change the above description. |
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Author: Guest
Freeman Dyson writing in 'The New York Review of Books' considers Feynmann to be along with Einstein and Hawking, one of the three legendary physicists of the twentieth century.He writes," The public made him into an icon because he was not only a great scientist and a great clown but also a great human being and a guide in time of trouble. Other Feynman books have portrayed him as a scientific wizard and as a storyteller. This collection of letters shows us for the first time the son caring for his father and mother, the father caring for his wife and children, the teacher caring for his students, the writer replying to people throughout the world who wrote to him about their problems and received his full and undivided attention."
This book of letters spans the entire period of his career from his Los Alamos days to his work as the most perspicacious investigator of the 'Challenger disaster'.
It shows how many- sided, innovative, creative and flexible he could be in responding humanely in so many different kinds of situations.
It adds a major dimension to the appreciative picture of him his many readers and students have.
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Author: Guest
Almost everything written by and about Feynman is refreshing, like a breath of mountain air, or, more often than not, a much-needed slap on the face. These letters are no exception. Much of this effect is a result of his take-no-prisoners attitude when it comes to purveyors of intellectual hokum-In particular, his insistence that what one is working on be falsifiable. In other words, if what you're working on is not testable or not at least foreseeably testable to see if you are correct or incorrect, then what you are doing is not science, it is philosophy, and rather bad philosophy at that.
These sort of refreshing reminders are particularly important today when "string theory" is all the rage, as popularised by Brian Greene et al, a theory which, even Greene admits, will probably not be testable in your or my lifetime.-Feynman, terse as always in such matters, expresses his opinion about string theory in one of these letters---"I don't believe in it." It is ironic that Greene cites Feynman so often in his books.
But String theory aside, Feynman enthusiasts will find perhaps a wider, more three-dimensional perspective in these letters than in other books.---They will find, in his letters to friends students admirers etc., wonder of wonders - a wise, articulate man.
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Author: Guest
I must admit, as much as I have enjoyed reading previous books about the "most curious character", I wasn't certain I would enjoy reading a collection of his letters nearly as much as I enjoyed stories of his exploits and other adventures. How wrong I was; I loved reading through this book!
While previous books such as "Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman" are marvelous introductions to the complex and fascinating man Feynman was, I felt that after I read through these correspondences, I had been introduced to him in a far deeper, more profound way. The letters to his first wife, as she is slowly dying of TB, are touching, poignant, and, at time, funny. They are a beautiful, intimate glimpse into the soul of a man who possessed one of the greatest thinking minds of the past two hundred years.
The collection spans the life and career of Richard Feynman, from Los Alamos to the "Challenger" Hearings, one of the last things he was able to do before he died. Many of the letters are responses to young people asking for educational and vocational advice--here you see the true teacher come through in Feynman's words. "Follow you curiosity and your passion!", would be a fair paraphrase of much his advice. "And ignore what others want you to do." Wise counsel from a man who lived his life in just such a way.
I would recommend highly this treasure, lovingly edited by Feynman's daughter, Michelle.
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Author: Guest
A persons letters reveal much more about what they really think and believe than do a collection of their lectures and interviews with friends because there is nothing impromptu or unconsidered in what they have to say. In writing letters, Feynman had time to consider and revise his thoughts and this collection of his letters paints a vivid and accurate picture of the true Feynman.
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Author: Guest
This is an excellent book that gives a compelling portrait of a great scientist, a fascinating personality, a decent human being. But it is a long book and gives far too much detail for anyone with a merely casual interest in Richard Feynman. Nearly 500 pages of letters to and from Feynman could either captivate you or bore you, depending on your level of interest. I wish I had known him personally; this book has reinforced that wish, and has partially satisfied it.
Feynman was single-minded in his devotion to science: "This [physics research] is, in my mind, of even more importance than my love for Arline" (his first wife). Yet he was surely loving and devoted to her, as is particularly clear in a heart-breaking letter he wrote to Arline after her death.
He was willing to correspond with ordinary people---particularly young people and teachers---about science, giving them good advice about what science is and how it should be studied and how it should be taught. "Stay human and on your pupil's side" was one bit of advice he gave to a mathematics teacher struggling to help his students with "new math." "You must fall in love with some activity" was a recurring theme in his advice to young people.
Feynman even responded to at least one crank (who accused Feynman and others of suppressing the crank's views on relativity), pressing him respectfully but persistently to answer a simple question that got to the heart of the scientific issue. (He evidently never got an answer.)
He refused all offers of honorary degrees, as a matter of principle, knowing how hard he had worked to get his earned degree.
He refused all requests from institutions for letters of recommendation concerning their own people: "What's the matter with you fellows, he has been right there the past few years---can't you "evaluate" him best yourself?"
He was often wry, as in this response to one congratulatory note when he won the Nobel prize: "I am sorry that I am unable to accede to your desire that I do not answer your note, as the machinery that I have set up for answering congratulatory letters does not permit that degree of flexibility. We suffer from the computer age."
He was deeply concerned when he thought he might have caused unhappiness. One former student, for instance, thought little of his own ability to work on "worthwhile" problems; Feynman wrote at length, fearing that he as a teacher had given the student a false idea of what was worth working on, and trying hard to reassure him that the worthwhile problems are the ones you can solve.
He could be touchy when the media wanted to prove that Feynman-the-scientific-genius was human by showing a picture of him playing the bongo drums: "I am human enough to tell you to go to hell" was his response on one such occasion.
He was not a religious man (" I told him that I was as strong an atheist as he was likely to find ..."), but he was a highly principled man, who refused, for instance, to be included in a book of Jewish Winners of the Nobel Prize, for reasons that he carefully delineated in a long letter to the author of that book. A single quote from that excellent letter will have to suffice here: "... intelligence, good will, and kindness is not, thank God, a monopoly of the Jewish people but a universal characteristic of mankind in general." When the author a year later asked permission to include him in a similar publication, he told her to see his previous letter "to understand why I do not wish to cooperate with you, in your new adventure in prejudice."
He was a model of brevity: "Dear Malcolm: I did work on the atomic bomb. My major reason was concern that the Nazi's would make it first and conquer the world. Sincerely, Richard P. Feynman."
He was kind and encouraging to laymen who wrote him with scientific ideas: "So your idea is at the forefront of high energy physics today. I hope you are not too disappointed that it had already been thought of."
He was always willing to admit his own ignorance and his own errors: "I made a mistake, so the book is wrong ... and you goofed too, for believing me," he wrote to one student at another college, who had gotten an exam question wrong after trusting a book he wrote.
He could be modest: "I judge from your letter that in Venezuela you are teased badly if you are a professor and you say you don't know or are not sure. I am glad that I am not so teased because I am sure of nothing and find myself having to say "I don't know" very often. After all, I was born not knowing and have only had a little time to change that here and there."
He could be blunt: "Thank you for your letter. Write me again, and lose a little weight!"
He could be charming: "Maybe it would help you with your problem about my being an American to know that my wife is an Englishwoman from Yorkshire. She has probably improved me greatly."
He could accept chastisement: "Thank you for your observations of my behavior at the Colloquium. You are probably right." "Thank you for your letter concerning my remarks in the L.A. Times. You are right, I am a jerk for telling the reporter my personal feelings and reactions to the Nobel Prize."
Michelle Feynman has done an admirable job of assembling this revealing and entertaining collection of letters, shedding light on the life and character of one of the great scientists of the 20th century.
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