Richard Feynman: A Life in Science

Rating:
Summary: Sycophantic, adoring, uncritical...but read it anyway
Review:

The opening sentence of the Prologue reads, "Does theworld really need another book about Richard Feynman?" Goodquestion.

Here's another good one: why am I recommending a book I didn't like?

Let's take the authors' question first. The answer is, maybe, but it probably didn't need this one.

Many of you might remember Richard Feynman as the Caltech physicist who cut a large swath through the bureaucratic tangle surrounding the investigation into the Challenger disaster about a decade ago. In the middle of a press conference called to boldly announce lack of progress, he quietly took a small piece of the material used to make the O-rings that separate sections of the shuttle's solid rocket boosters, squeezed it tightly in a clamp and dropped it into a glass of ice water. A few minutes later, he retrieved the cold-soaked chunk, released the clamp and what do you know: the O-ring material didn't spring back to resume its former shape. End of investigation.

Viewed in context, it was probably among the least of this extraordinary scientist's accomplishments. However, it was the most accessible to the general public, which brings us to the real heart of the matter.

In the entire history of civilization, there are a small number of intellectual leaps that stand out as the crowning achievements of the race. An example is Newton's astounding revelation that the laws governing the motions of planets are the same as those that cause apples to fall from trees. In the twentieth century, we were blessed with two such feats of imagination. The first is Einstein's General Theory of Relativity, which probably ranks as the biggest of them all because it dared to put forth postulates that were completely counterintuitive - who would believe that things get bigger and heavier as they go faster, or that time itself slows down in the presence of a gravitational field, or that the very concept of 'simultaneous' events is illusory? Einstein's great contribution wasn't the theory itself, but the invitation to others to think outside the boundaries of empiricism and take nothing for granted, including a goodly number of our most grounded notions.

This license to ignore common sense in evolving strange concepts from seemingly innocuous first principles underlies the second great intellectual revolution of this century, that of the development of quantum physics. One of Einstein's innocuous first principles was that the speed of light is constant regardless of the motion of the observer. This gave rise to insane-sounding conjectures, such that gravity bends light, every one of which has thus far proven true in experiment. The innocuous first principle of quantum physics is that the universe at its most basic is not smoothly continuous but granular. Everything ultimately boils down to something which can no longer but subdivided. There is a smallest allowable length, mass, even the tiniest unit of time that can possibly exist. (First principles again: the reason that the speed of light is the speed limit of the universe is because it is the rate at which light travels over the smallest unit of distance in the smallest unit of time).

That doesn't sound too difficult to deal with, but when you work forward from this simple supposition, things start to get so weird that Einstein himself denied them to his dying day...and he was one of the founders of quantum theory. The most axiomatic concept we possess, for example, is that cause precedes effect. Something happens, and this causes something else to happen. I drop an egg - then it breaks. But in the quantum world, this concept is abandoned. Sometimes, things happen now because of something else that hasn't happened yet, but will soon. Other times, things happen for absolutely no reason at all.

Other strange results make themselves apparent as well. We think of such things as electrons as, well, things, little point-like particles whizzing around in the space enveloping atoms. But quantum physics shows us that electrons can also be thought of as waves, little different from light waves. So which is it, really? The answer, really, is that an electron isn't really much of anything until we do something to make it pop up in one of its two forms, wave or particle. Otherwise, it's just hanging around in a phantom zone of marginal reality with no real objective form at all. Truly, as one physicist has put it, quantum particles are the dreams that stuff is made of.

The glory of quantum mechanics is that it goes to the very heart of the very heart of the physical universe, putting to scientific test theories that heretofore were the province of speculative philosophers with entirely too much leisure time on their hands. Kant might have made his reputation espousing the objective reality that lies at the core of everything ("the thing within the thing"), but the modern physicist can just say no to Kant, and prove it.

And so the quantum theory, without question, is the most profound statement that has ever been made about the way things are, and hardly anybody in the whole world has any idea what the hell these guys are talking about. And that's a very big shame.

The problem is that, in a very literal sense, mathematics is the language of physics. And it's not just simple algebra we're talking here but a brand of mathematics so esoteric that there are even rules for canceling out countervailing infinities when they become too troublesome to deal with directly (e.g., if the attraction between a proton and an electron is a function of the distance between them, then the attraction must be infinite when they're touching...a major no-no). Relativity is pretty mathematical, too, but it's not difficult to explain what that mathematics means, though, in the real world.

The meaning of the mathematics of quantum theory is more difficult to explain in real world terms, but not impossible. The problem is that physicists who are in total agreement on the math can differ wildly on the meaning. This forms the basis for one of the liveliest ongoing debates in the history of science.

As I said, this lack of visibility among the general populace is a shame, because delving into the quantum world even a little will pretty much shatter any latent complacency you might harbor concerning the nature of things. Which brings us to both Richard Feynman and John Gribbin.

Feynman was not in on the ground floor of the evolution of quantum theory; he was too young, having been born when the groundwork had already been laid. However, he was arguably one of its foremost developers, coming up not only with fresh ideas and novel concepts, but with general conceptual tools that would allow others to make their own contributions. The reason his is not a household name is that, while one can easily give the average Joe a pretty good feel for Einstein's theory of relativity over a long cup of coffee, this is not as easily done with quantum theory. Suffice it for our purposes here to note that the Feynman contribution known as QED is the single most successful theory of the physical universe ever. To use Feynman's own analogy, its accuracy is akin to measuring the distance between New York and Los Angeles and being off by the width of a human hair. Awarding him the Nobel for QED was a giant yawn of a no-brainer.

So what is QED? It tells you how photons interact with electrons. Gave you shivers, I know. That's why few outside the field know who Feynman really is or what he did. Truth is, Feynman was an intellectual giant who made many incredible contributions to physics, concepts so important they changed forever the way physicists would think about their field.

(Continued in Part Two...)

Rating:
Summary: Problematic but readable
Review:

(...Part Two:)

This brings us to the Gribbin's rationale for writing yet "another book about Richard Feynman." Thing is, Feynman had one whale of a good time doing physics. He did it because it was fun, and when it wasn't fun, he didn't do it, instead dabbling in fields as diverse as biology, computing and bongo drumming. He was also, hands down, the finest teacher of physics who ever lived. As a first-year physics undergraduate myself, my sharpest memory before I left that field was of sitting alone in dreary, windowless room on the second floor of the physics building and popping in a videocassette of something called The Feynman Lectures. I slumped down in the chair, prepared to be bored into madness, doing this only because a good friend asked me to.

When the tape ended about an hour later, I blinked as I came out of a trance and finally brought my jaw back up, and realized that I had been in the presence of greatness. It was a performance, not a lesson, an exposition of physical principles delivered by a guy so nutso in love with the topic that oftentimes his voice choked with barely-repressed laughter. He had a clarity of style so compelling you couldn't resist absorbing the knowledge if you tried. The Lectures have since become classics, along with written compilations of other talks that have gone on to become best-selling books.

The Gribbins set themselves the task of bringing out these other sides of Richard Feynman, and in that sense they succeed only barely. First, there is really nothing new in this book that hasn't been dealt with elsewhere, and better, most notably by James Gleick in his book, Genius.

Second, while a great of simplification is absolutely necessary to convey some sense of the topic without overwhelming the novice, there are many statements in this book that are unnecessarily absolute, definitive and downright misleading. Telling us that QED explains "everything there is to explain about interactions involving electrons and photons [and] everything there is to explain about weak interactions" is inappropriate, giving us the impression that, on the day QED was published, all research in this area came to a screeching halt.

Third, and perhaps most unforgivably, you quickly come to realize that this book is less a careful examination of a man's life and work than it is a fawning, sycophantic adoration that attempts to elevate a mere mortal into the status of near-deity. This completely non-critical worship (of a man neither of the Gribbins ever met) becomes wearing and tedious after a while, especially when the authors provide testimonials from other notable scientists that add nothing of substance to the idolization, but seem to be some kind of attempt to externally validate their opinions, as though they themselves may have realized they were overdoing it and brought in evidence to prove to us they weren't kidding.

And just when we think we've had about enough of that, they crank it up another notch, this time in the form of a competition to see who among the elites of physics was the very best, starting on page 189. We learn that Feynman made more major contributions in a greater number of decades than any other physicist, including Einstein. We learn that, had the Nobel committee had their heads screwed on correctly, Feynman would rightfully have won three prizes, not just one. And just in case the clearly superior box score is still not evident, we learn that Murray Gell-Mann, the brilliant Nobelist who shared a secretary with Feynman at Caltech, was really a somewhat nasty sonofagun who was more interested in looking smart than being smart and, if you read between the lines, probably didn't really deserve his own Nobel prize.

Well, then: why do I think you should read this book? Because I feel that anything that has an outside chance of getting nonscientists to think about the quantum world is worth pursuing.

When I was in elementary school, we had a series of about a hundred biographies of well-known Americans: Knute Rockne, Thomas Edison, Abraham Lincoln, Glenn Cunningham, etc. Geared for kids, these books were breezy, easy editions that read more like public relations releases than serious studies of people's lives. But we read them and, in many cases, they stuck with us when we got older and spurred us on to read more serious works about these people.

Richard Feynman - A Life in Science reads a lot like those books. I've read nearly all of John Gribbin's books on physics and he is the John Grisham of the field, coincidence of name notwithstanding. The best way for the amateur to come to the physics is through the people who made the physics, and the Gribbins do a reasonably good job of interweaving the two. There is a great deal of oversimplification of the science, but the fact is that there is no other way to do it and keep the difficult mathematics out of it. So, in the sense of introducing you to an extraordinary character (when Feynman got bored during his work on the Manhattan Project to develop the atomic bomb during World War II, he cracked top-security safes just for laughs), and extraordinary science, the book has merit, and won't tax your brain too much.

However, if you're willing to tax your brain just a wee bit more, here's a much better idea: Read Genius by James Gleick, and In Search of Schroedinger's Cat by John Gribbin. The former is the best yet look at Feynman's work and life, and the latter may be the best single-book introduction to quantum physics for "the average Joe" you're likely to come across. My criticism of A Life in Science aside, perhaps only Isaac Asimov rivals Gribbin in his ability to translate the most arcane of scientific theories into breezy readabilty for popular consumption.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent, balanced biography of Richard Feynman
Review: ÒRichard Feynman--A Life in ScienceÓ is a welcome addition, another view from yet another aspect. Other biographers have stressed different sides of Richard Feynman--magician, joker, non-conforming oddball, but this one is true to its subtitle, focusing on Feynman the scientist. For that was what Feynman was, first and foremost--incredibly inventive, irreverent and unconventional, yes, but underlying it all, an inquiring mind, a physicist of the very best. If you have more than a nodding acquaintance with science, and want to know what made such an extraordinary person tick (not that weÕll ever know it all), this is the one to read.

Rating:
Summary: An even mix of anecdotal and empirical Feynman
Review: Gribbin & Gribbin outline their goal right at the outset: to bring both the flavour of Feynman the magician, and the wizardry of Feynman the scientist, to a larger audience which might otherwise not be aware of his remarkable contributions to 20th-century physics. In that goal they are successful, though the work's primary weakness is a palpable distinction between the enthusiasm with which its two elemental ingredents are communicated.

I am no physicist, and did not regard the book as an opportunity to try and become one, but I am now sufficiently intrigued to have a go at Feynman's introductory lectures.

In that sense, [of] QED, the Gribbins have fashioned an explorer.

Rating:
Summary: A thoroughly enjoyable introduction to Feynman
Review: I can't remember ever reading a biography quite as enjoyable. The authors are to be congratulated for their perfect blend of scientific and personal anecdotes. You won't find any of Feynman's lectures here, but you will come to understand why Feynman is so revered. The author's write, "Does the world really need another book about Richard Feynman? We think so, or we wouldn't have written it." I agree with them, and I'm sure you will too. A wonderful book.

Rating:
Summary: Well worth reading
Review: I love anything Feynman, like a great many people out there, but I found this book to be depressingly amateurish. The authors are overly infatuated with their subject and seem intent on breathlessly convincing us how wonderful Feynman was, as if we couldn't figure it out for ourselves.

To me, the most annoying feature of the book was the endless direct quotes from other Feynman books. Just what service is this book providing?

I wouldn't be so harsh if it weren't for the fact that Glieck's "Genius" has already covered all of the topics presented here, and with much more clarity and detail. I have trouble justifying why another biography was necessary. Without "Genius," this book would probably be more palatable.

The great thing that "Genius" did that this book never attempts, is to make Feynman human. Yes he was brilliant, yes he was funny, yes he was an incredible teacher. But he had a dark side as well, and "Genius" explores that without flinching.

In the end, I'd recommend passing this one up and getting "Genius".

Rating:
Summary: A thoroughly enjoyable introduction to Feynman
Review: ÒRichard Feynman--A Life in ScienceÓ is a welcome addition, another view from yet another aspect. Other biographers have stressed different sides of Richard Feynman--magician, joker, non-conforming oddball, but this one is true to its subtitle, focusing on Feynman the scientist. For that was what Feynman was, first and foremost--incredibly inventive, irreverent and unconventional, yes, but underlying it all, an inquiring mind, a physicist of the very best. If you have more than a nodding acquaintance with science, and want to know what made such an extraordinary person tick (not that weÕll ever know it all), this is the one to read.

Rating:
Summary: Well worth reading
Review: Richard Feynman was clearly a giant among giants. He was also the most human of beings. Quantum electrodynamics and related topics can be among the most esoteric of any. Writing a book that adequately portrays such a variety of topics can be a forbidding task. This book meets the challenge admirably. While much if not most of the material can be found elsewhere, the clarity of the descriptions and explanations of the technical topics is excellent. Well worth reading.