"In these Messenger Lectures, originally delivered at Cornell University and recorded for television by the BBC, Richard Feynman offers an overview of selected physical laws and gathers their common features into one broad principle of invariance. He maintains at the outset that the importance of a physical law is not 'how clever we are to have found it out but…how clever nature is to pay attention to it' and steers his discussions toward a final exposition of the elegance and simplicity of all scientific laws. Rather than an essay on the most significant achievements in modern science, The Character of Physical Law is a statement of what is most remarkable in nature. Feynman's enlightened approach, his wit, and his enthusiasm make this a memorable exposition of the scientist's craft. The law of gravitation is the author's principal example. Relating the details of its discovery and stressing its mathematical character, he uses it to demonstrate the essential interaction of mathematics and physics. He views mathematics as the key to any system of scientific laws, suggesting that if it were possible to fill out the structure of scientific theory completely, the result would be an integrated set of mathematical axioms. The principles of conservation, symmetry, and time irreversibility are then considered in relation to developments in classical and modern physics, and in his final lecture, Feynman develops his own analysis of the process and future of scientific discovery.
Like any set of oral reflections, The Character of Physical Law has special value as a demonstration of the mind in action. The reader is particularly lucky in Richard Feynman—one of the most eminent and imaginative modern physicists."
"The Pleasure of Finding Things Out is a magnificent treasury of the best short works of Richard P. Feynman, from interviews and speeches to lectures and printed articles. A sweeping, wide-ranging collection, it presents an intimate and fascinating view of a life in science—a life like no other. From his ruminations on science in our culture to his Nobel Prize acceptance speech, this book will delight anyone interested in the world of ideas.
'From the irregular trivia of ordinary life mixed with a bit of scientific doodling and failure to the intense dramatic concentration as one closes in on the truth and the final elation (plus, with gradually decreasing frequency, the sudden sharp pangs of doubt)—that is how science is done.'—Richard P. Feynman to James D. Watson"
"One of the greatest theoretical physicists of the twentieth century, Richard Feynman possessed an unquenchable thirst for adventure and an unparalleled ability to tell the stories of his life. "What Do You Care What Other People Think?" is Feynman's last literary legacy, prepared with his friend and fellow drummer, Ralph Leighton.
Among the book's many tales, we meet Feynman's first wife, Arlene, who taught him love's irreducible mystery as she lay dying in a hospital bed while he worked nearby on the atomic bomb at Los Alamos. We are also given a fascinating chronicle of the investigation of the space shuttle Challenger's explosion in 1986, and we relive the moment when Feynman revealed the disaster's cause by an elegant experiment: dropping a ring of rubber into a glass of cold water and pulling it out, misshapen."
"Many appreciate Richard P. Feynman's contributions to twentieth-century physics, but few realize how engaged he was with the world around him—how deeply and thoughtfully he considered the religious, political, and social issues of his day.In this collection of lectures that Richard Feynman originally gave in 1963, unpublished during his lifetime, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist discusses several mega questions of science. What is the nature of the tension between science and religious faith? Why does uncertainty play such a crucial role in the scientific imagination? Is this really a scientific age? What explains our universal fascination with flying saucers, faith healing, and telepathy?
Marked by Feynman's characteristic combination of rationality and humor, these lectures provide an intimate glimpse at the man behind the legend. At the start of his final lecture he says, 'I dedicate this lecture to showing what ridiculous conclusions and rare statements such a man as myself can make.' Rare, perhaps, and irreverent, sure. But ridiculous? Not even close.
This is quintessential Feynman—reflective, amusing, and ever enlightening."
"One of the most famous science books of our time, the phenomenal national bestseller that “buzzes with energy, anecdote and life. It almost makes you want to become a physicist” (Science Digest).
Richard Feynman, one of the world’s greatest theoretical physicists, thrived on adventure. His outrageous exploits once shocked a Princeton dean’s wife to exclaim: “Surely you’re joking, Mr. Feynman!”
In this phenomenal national bestseller, the Nobel Prize–winning physicist recounts in his inimitable voice his experiences trading ideas on atomic physics with Einstein and Bohr and ideas on gambling with Nick the Greek, painting a naked female toreador, accompanying a ballet on his bongo drums, and much else of an eyebrow-raising and hilarious nature. Woven together with his views on science, Feynman’s life story is a combustible mixture of high intelligence, unlimited curiosity, eternal skepticism, and raging chutzpah."
