Rating: 
Summary: A Real Genius!
Review: Richard Feynman is certainly one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century,one who belongs to the small group of the chosen few(Einstein,Bohr,Pauli ,among others)and one who fully deserves to be called a genius!His biography by James Gleick is nothing short of excellent:it is very well documented and very well written.For those who want to understand the role played by Feynman in the advancement of modern physics, and especially in the genesis of the theory of Quantum Electrodynamics,this book is a must!It also gives a thorough account of Feynman's life, which makes very good reading ,even if one is not interested in physics...
But a five- hundred- page book will always contain a few paragraphs which are not at the same level as the rest of the book!One such paragraph will be found at page 177,where the author wastes the reader's time in explaining Hans Bethe's mental calculation ability in the "squares-near-fifty trick".Apart from the fact that this sort of ability has nothing to do with genius and is within reach of any intelligent High School student,James Gleick explains it wrongly!He says that"...the difference between two successive squares is always an odd number,the sum of the numbers being squared.That fact,and the fact that 50 is half of 100,gave rise to the squares-near-fifty trick".In fact ,the trick is based on the "remarkable identity" (50+/-a)^2=2500+/-100*a+a^2.Nothing to do with the difference of two successive squares!Fortunately,the book does not contain many passages like this one!
Rating:
Summary: A Real Genius!
Review: Richard Feynman is certainly one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century,one who belongs to the small group of the chosen few(Einstein,Bohr,Pauli ,among others)and one who fully deserves to be called a genius!His biography by James Gleick is nothing short of excellent:it is very well documented and very well written.For those who want to understand the role played by Feynman in the advancement of modern physics, and especially in the genesis of the theory of Quantum Electrodynamics,this book is a must!It also gives a thorough account of Feynman's life, which makes very good reading ,even if one is not interested in physics...
But a five- hundred- page book will always contain a few paragraphs which are not at the same level as the rest of the book!One such paragraph will be found at page 177,where the author wastes the reader's time in explaining Hans Bethe's mental calculation ability in the "squares-near-fifty trick".Apart from the fact that this sort of ability has nothing to do with genius and is within reach of any intelligent High School student,James Gleick explains it wrongly!He says that"...the difference between two successive squares is always an odd number,the sum of the numbers being squared.That fact,and the fact that 50 is half of 100,gave rise to the squares-near-fifty trick".In fact ,the trick is based on the "remarkable identity" (50+/-a)^2=2500+/-100*a+a^2.Nothing to do with the difference of two successive squares! Fortunately,the book does not contain many passages like this one!
Rating:
Summary: A wonderful insight in the person Richard P. Feynman
Review: The author not only succeeded in portraying the wonderful
life-loving Richard P Feynman but also in writing a book even a layman (my girlfriend) could enjoy.
Writing about Feynman is a rewarding experience, I think, for an author. All the ingredients are there:
Creativity, drama, originality and fun. He (Feynman) rubbed shoulders with the all the great players in the scientific community of the 20th century. I was always interested in the people around the development of modern physics.
Feynman was one of the key players in that field.
I recommend this book to everyone interested in original people.
Rating: 
Summary: A very tough read
Review: The author rambles on, jumping back and forth in time, between completely unrelated subjects. Just when it begins to get interesting, we jump back in time to some boring and irrelevant story of childhood, then when we come back, we are on a different story... ? It's good because it's about Feynman, but the writing is just terrible. I couldn't finish it.
Rating: 
Summary: Well Researched: great insight into a great mind
Review: The author's research is extraordinary and this book really makes you come away "knowing" Feynman. Gleick must have talked to every living person who ever knew Feynman. His narrative is very well done and he blends Feynman's life with his science very nicely. If there is a weak point, it is in Gleick's description of Feynman's work. You get the idea that he must think all his readers are ignorant of Physics because some of his descriptions leave the reader wondering what Feynman did exactly rather than marveling at his genious work. But if you pretend to not know any Physics, then you should really enjoy this extraordinary life of one the greatest physicists and personalities of the 20th century.
Rating:
Summary: Superb example of how even a genius is human.
Review: The book is one of the best biographies of Feynman, it motivated me to find out more about this great man of science. I was really drawn to the human side of Feynman. I was a bit disappointed that the book ended with what seemed to be a cursory look at his later years. I would have liked to learn more about his outlook on life, science, religion, etc in the latter part of his career. I enjoyed the book immensely
Rating:
Summary: Think you're bright. Read GENIUS and be humbled by Feynman.
Review: The magic and GENIOUS of Richard Feynman will inspire you, humor you, and awaken you to the wonderful world of physics. I couldn't put it down. My bet is you won't be able to either. Gleick tells all: youth to death; electrons to muons; enemies to sex partners. What more is
there?
Rating:
Summary: A dead man that heard voices.
Review: The scientists who were building the first atomic bomb at Los Alamos during World War II allowed Richard P. Feynman to become their expert in chain reactions and in solving mathematical equations, both highly abstract matters that are subject to mistakes when people think that they can jump right to the conclusion. After the war, people who had been serving in the military for the duration were ready to get out, and the draft was being used to replace them; Feynman was found psychologically unsuitable for military service by the shrink who examined him for the draft board, and who must have thought that Richard P. Feynman was extraordinarily honest for an American, for Feynman was willing to admit that he heard the distinctively Hungarian accented voice of Edward Teller in his own head after Feynman met Teller, and the resonance of that idea might have been the perfect bit for giving any militaristic intellectual mental health care worker the creeps. One of the exceedingly strange things about Feynman was that he thought workers should be aware of the dangers involved in the materials that they were working with, and the secret project that he was working on allowed him to go to Oak Ridge, Tennessee to warn those involved in uranium enrichment of the possibility of a chain reaction if some critical proximity threshold was crossed. Depleted uranium is a substance that isn't concentrated enough to actually explode in a radioactive chain reaction, but the reluctance of the government to admit that other dangers might be present when tons of such stuff are used in battle might be an indication of how willing the government is to keep anything secret if it has any reason for not wanting people to know. Feynman is lucky he was never tried by a military tribunal using secret evidence, but he seemed to feel awful about being found psychologically unsuitable, as his letter to the draft board which is printing in this book shows, at least to people who are as aware of the nature of a totally comic society as I am. You might have to read this book to convince yourself that I'm not really making this stuff up.
Rating:
Summary: The definitive guide
Review: There are many books by and about Feynman. The quality of Gleick's research and writing makes this book more comprehensive than any other biography on Feynman and this book also explains many complex physics ideas and concepts in simple language. This book energises the lover of physics and bestows the ability to understand high level concepts to the layman. By all accounts this is what Feynman was about and this book is essential reading for both physicists and couch-scientists. Incidentally the only people I've met who don't like the book are physicists who don't like Feynman all that much! For everyone else, enjoy. I have 3 copies and I'm keeping every single one of them!
Rating:
Summary: Feynman's early life well reported but fails badly later on.
Review: This book does a fine job covering Feynman's childhood and early carreer. His tumultuous personal life is brought into clear focus. The effect of Feynman's genius on his personality and science is made clear. The book's first flaws begin when Gleick tries to relate the physics. I got the feeling the author didn't really grasp it himself, thus his explanations fall short. It especially failed to convey, with the scientific explanations, that Feynman was a "magician" in that his scientific breakthroughs were made intuitively, with little or no logical connection from past knowledge to the latest development, though they were often correct. As the book moves on to Feynman's later years, it deteriorates rapidly. One wonders whether Gleick ran into a publishing deadline as he attempted to complete this book. I do not have the book in front of me at the moment, but I think Gleick crammed something like the last 20 years into about 40 pages. He failed to convey the light of genius as it dimmed and tried to resusitate itself. The book left me wanting more of Feynman, but less of Gleick.
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