Stories from the life of a maverick physicist make an excellent read

This book will make you wish you were a physicist. To realize that so many quirky and amazing things could happen to one man is utterly amazing. In “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!,” the great American physicist Richard P. Feynman recalls some of the most humorous and amazing stories of his life. Reading anecdote after anecdote narrated by Feynman instills a very entertaining sort of hope: the hope that your own life will take such an adventurous tone and result in as many memorable instances. Regardless of technical background, anyone will be able to appreciate and enjoy this collection of stories and it will likely wind up in your list of favorite books immediately after you put it down.

To support these claims, let me enumerate a few of the more charming pieces of evidence.

First, Feynman always talks about his unyielding curiosity. The reader quickly learns that Feynman is the type of person who will put a claim to the test, anywhere, anytime. While attending an afternoon tea at Princeton, Feynman once found himself deeply engrossed in a discussion about whether a sprinkler head will spin clockwise or counter clockwise if placed under water. Feynman (leading a group of some of the most famous modern scientists) marched straight from the tea table and into the advanced cyclotron lab (where he wasn’t supposed to be) so he could find a large tank of water (that he wasn’t supposed to use). Right on the spot he rigged up a makeshift sprinkler head out of some PVC pipe and tested the various arguments made about the sprinkler’s spin. That’s just the kind of guy that Feynman was.

While working on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos, Feynman took up safe cracking as a hobby. Self-admittedly, he was very amateurish at first; but he became pretty good after a while. Boasting on his safe-cracking skills, Feynman once challenged a senior officer at Oak Ridge national lab, saying that the officer’s personal safe (which contained many of the U.S. secrets regarding the atom bomb) could be cracked in less than 45 minutes. The officer’s retort to Feynman was a challenge: Just let me sit here and watch you crack the safe in just 45 minutes! As Feynman began to work on the safe, he decided to explain to the officer exactly how he would be cracking the combination. Feynman randomly spun the wheel, explaining how to feel the pressure of the lock pins. Another spin and Feynman explained that by checking just the digits ending in multiples of 5, one could find the second number in the combination. Finally, as Feynman explained that finding the third number is what took about half an hour, he gave the wheel a third random spin. Amazingly, these three random spins by Feynman happened to be the exact combination for the officer’s lock! The door swung open and within a few months, Oak Ridge National Labs had replaced all of their safes. That’s just the kind of thing that was always happening to Feynman.

I recommend this book strongly for anyone who likes physics, other people, or the movie Forrest Gump. It is truly energetic, humorous, and thought-provoking. It is filled with curious anecdotes as well as impressive analyses (of the Brazilian education system, for example). You really can’t go wrong with “Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!”