Rating: 
Summary: Find out
Review: Anyone who became familiar with Richard Feynman from his hugely popular memoirs What Do You Care What Other People Think, and Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman will find The Pleasure of Finding Things Out an intermediate step between those books and the dense scientific texts behind his Nobel Prize and reputation as one of the 20th century's great minds.This book is not meant to be entertaining, but I suppose a glimpse into Mr. Feynman's mind cannot help but be entertaining, even when it is a series of lectures based entirely on science. Here he talks about what he calls the "thrill" of boldly finding out what no man knew before, on subjects ranging from the discovery of the reasons behind the crash of the space shuttle Challenger to the atomic bomb project at Los Alamos and from the role of science in society to his Nobel acceptance speech. And while it is not specifically written with the non-scientist in mind, a strong background in science is not necessary to understand and enjoy the wind-ranging collection of philosophies, musings, and remarks collected on these pages.
Rating: 
Summary: Great Book for anyone interested in Physics and Mathematics
Review: I bought this book because I was familiar with Feynman and his work with QED. It's a fantastic book that contains lectures and interviews about Feynman's childhood and work on the Manhattan Project, to the future of computer technology, as well as many more subjects. This man had an awesome life that anyone interested in math or science would aspire to. The book is interesting and easy to read. I'm in 11th grade and I can understand it, so anyone who is at all familiar with physics and has a decent mathematical background will do fine reading it.
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Summary: different but in a way too different
Review: I found this book to be complicating as it jumped from subject to subject. It wasnt really that informative. It gave out the authors personal information and feelings rather than actual facts. I guess it was something that one with the same mind frame as him could relate to. I had to read this book for school. I got nothing out of it, except the ignorant and close minded thoughts of the author. The grammar was also terrribe. It wasnt written in a way that one could follow. I had to use my imagination to kind of figure out the authors feelings of whatever he was talking. It was written in a way as if he was actually talking to in person rather than through a book. But I do have to say that it was different. I guess if you are into and study science it is the book for you. But its not really a book to learn from. Instead its more like a book to say "Oh! I feel that way too." To conclude, I dont know what to say to those of you who are into science, but to those of you who do not have much of an interest in it i would reccomend that you choose another book.
Rating:
Summary: Brilliance and charm: Feynman as a teacher
Review: I very much enjoyed this entertaining and delightful collection of lectures, talks and essays by the world-renown and sorely missed Professor Feynman, Nobel Prize winning physicist, idiosyncratic genius and one of the great men of the twentieth century. I particularly enjoyed the subtle yet unmistakable way he scolded the people at NASA for putting their political butts before the safety of the space program they were managing in his famous "Minority Report to the Space Shuttle Challenger Inquiry." But the chapter that really sold me on Richard P. Feynman, boy wonder grown up, was "It's as Simple as One, Two, Three" in which he explores the ability to do two things at once through an experiment with counting. Such a delight he took in learning as a kid from his friend Bernie that we sometimes think in pictures and not in words. And then the further delight he took in learning that some people count with their inner voice (himself), and others (his friend John Tukey) count by visualization. I was also loved the chapter, "What is Science?", a talk to science teachers in which Feynman demonstrates that the real difference between science and other ways of "knowing" (e.g., religion) is the ability to doubt. In science we learn, as Feyman said he himself learned, to live with doubt. But in the religious way of "knowing" doubt is intolerable. Feynman gives an evolutionary illustration of why doubt is essential. He begins with the "intelligent" animals "which can learn something from experience (like cats)." At this stage, he says, each animal learned "from its own experience." Then came some animals that could learn more rapidly and from the experience of others by watching. Then came something "completely new...things could be learned by one animal, passed on to another, and another, fast enough that...[the knowledge] was not lost to the race...," and could be passed on to a new generation. Now, let's stop for a moment. What a great teacher does--and here and elsewhere Feynman proves himself to be a great teacher (although he said he doubted that!)--is to guide the student just enough so that the student arrives at or anticipates the point of the lesson before the teacher gets there. What is the punch line of this lesson for the science teachers? Namely this: with the passing of knowledge from one generation to the next it became also possible to pass on false knowledge or "mistaken ideas." Feynman calls this a "disease." "Then a way of avoiding the disease was discovered. This is to doubt that what is being passed from the past is in fact true, and to try to find out ab initio, again from experience, what the situation is, rather than trusting the experience of the past..." In other words, don't blindly accept the word of authority. Test it for yourself! And this is what science does. It tests and it tests again, and it doubts and it doubts--always. I loved this because one of my dictums is "always guide the experts"--the lawyer, the doctor, the insurance adjustor, et al. Always guide them because, although they are the experts, you're the one who really cares. To this I can now add that you should also doubt the experts because even though they are experts they can be wrong. And, as Feynman showed in his report on the Challenge disaster, they can be wrong for reasons that have nothing to do with their expertise. I also liked the commencement address he gave at Caltech on "Cargo Cult Science...and How to Not Fool Yourself." We fool ourselves a lot. The managers at NASA fooled themselves; what's their names of cold fusion delusion fame fooled themselves. Feynman has noted that he has fooled himself. Science, he avers, is a tool to help us to not fool ourselves. He is profoundly right. Without science we would go on fooling ourselves with all sorts of mumbo-jumbo, "revealed" religiosity and scientific-seeming stuff such as Rhine's ESP experiments some years ago at Duke, the entire litany of New Age pseudobabblese, and--yes!--such stuff as the amazing Cargo Cult Science in which some Pacific Islanders, in an attempt to attract the big birds of the sky with their cargoes of goodies, built "nests," that is, landing fields with empty cargo boxes, and faux towers, etc. in the hope that the planes flying overhead would see them and land on their island. Feynman has taken this as an example of pseudoscience, that is, behavior in the form of science without the substance of science, without the "integrity" of science. The integrity of science, Feynman advised the graduates, demands that all the information about the experiment be given, even detrimental facts. Feynman contrasts this idea with that of advertizing in which only that which makes the product look good is given. When reading this book it helps to imagine that one is listening to Feynman speak. The text includes repetitions and the omissions which he no doubt conveyed with his voice, expression or gesture. When one reads him this way, some of Feynman's endearing charm and the gentle, self-effacing humor for which he is famous comes through. Here's a joke from pages 206-207: He is at Esalen in a hot bath with another man and a girl. The man begins to massage the girl's foot. He feels something in her big toe. He asks his instructor, "Is that the pituitary?" The girl says, "No, that's not the way it feels." Feynman injects, "You're a hell of a long way from the pituitary, man." And they both look at him. "I had blown my cover, you see--and she said, It's reflexology. So I closed my eyes and appeared to be meditating." Yes, Feynman is a long way from reflexology.
Rating:
Summary: Read Feynman as he speaks his mind out
Review: If you want to immerse yourself in the human side of the great Richard Feynman without having to struggle with a book full of equations, then this book is for you. As the subtitle of the book suggests, this book is a compilation of short works by Richard Feynman. Most of them are transcriptions of public talks and interviews, some other are short essays and one of them is the famous report he made after participating in the committee that investigated the reasons behind the explosion of the Challenger space shuttle. Throughout the book you learn how much of an influence his father (who was a simple uniforms salesman) was on Feynman's deeply scientific mind as well as on his irreverent attitude towards authority. Standing out among the many chapters is 'Los Alamos from Below', in which he talks about the whole experience of being part of the Manhattan project. From the moment in which he was invited to participate in the project, all the way to his analysis of the morality of creating the atomic bomb, years after it was completed. In this chapter you also learn about his infamous ability to crack safes. My favorite passage is where he describes what science is to a group of science teachers. I love the way he explains how the human ability to learn from others experience and to pass this knowledge from one generation to the next is both a blessing and a curse of our species, and why science is the cure for it. After reading this book, you really end up with a clear idea of why Richard Feynman is one of the most revered scientists of the twentieth century.
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Summary: Euros well spent!
Review: Richard Feynman achieved something like cult status, almost on a par with Stephen Hawking and for some time I resisted the temptation to read him. This was partly because physics is not my area of interest and also because Hawking was such a disappointment with his naïve belief that the final unified theory of everything would soon be invented. Also it seemed that the Hawking books are much bought but little read, thereby diminishing the status of cult figures in science writing. On the way back from the Popper Centenary Conference, in the airport Frankfurt, curiosity won over skepticism, also I had a few euros to unload, so I took on board this collection of "best short works". I now consider the euros well spent and Feynman fully deserving of respect and admiration. Under the circumstances, with a satchel of Popper stuff from Vienna, the most striking thing about Feynman was his relentlessly critical, imaginative and enthusiastic approach to everything, especially science. In short, he lived and breathed the philosophy of Karl Popper. That might have surprised him because it is hard to say whether he had the most contempt for philosophers or for the soft social sciences. Maybe Feynman is too hard on the social sciences. It is helpful to remember that physicists restrict their predictions to model systems, otherwise they settle for explanations in principle. We can explain in principle the trajectory of leaves that fall off a tree but nobody would be expected to predict which ones will end up in the street and which will fly up on to the roof and block your gutter. Similarly in some areas of the social sciences (those that are not pure ideology and verbalism) we can predict tendencies, such as increased prices due to import restrictions, without being able to predict the size of the increase due to the many other factors that are involved in setting prices. Feynman had the incredible good fortune to be in the right place at the right time but that would not have worked if he did not have the capacity to do the right thing at the right time as well. Like all great artists and scientists, he was captivated by his work, so at times nothing else mattered. That saved him from nerves, even as youth, when he found himself lecturing to an audience that included Einstein and other great men in the field. His hands were shaking when he took his papers from the envelope to start talking . "Then something happened to me which has always happened since...If I'm talking physics , I love the thing, I think only about physics, I don't worry where I am; I don't worry about anything". This probably also saved him from being disabled by the impending death of his first wife who was fading away while he worked on the Big Bomb at Los Alamos. His capacity to focus on the physics and not the audience made him an invaluable foil for Bohr. Everyone else was so overawed by Bohr that they never challenged his ideas. "I was always worried by the physics; if the idea looked lousy, I said it looked lousy...later Bohr said to his son `He's the only guy who is not afraid of me, and will say when I've got a crazy idea...when we want to discuss ideas, we're not able to do it with these guys who say everything is yes, yes Dr Bohr. Get that guy first.'" Like most collections of occasional pieces, there is a tendency to repetition of key themes such as the uncertainty of all knowledge and the inferior nature of the social sciences. Also it tends to lack continuity and physics buffs will probably find that it lacks depth. This is because almost all of the pieces were written for general audiences and for most of us the lack of depth is a strong point because we only get lost in the depths.
Rating:
Summary: The 'extended' Feynman
Review: So you've read all the usual books on Feynman and by Feynman.... but where this one scores over the others is in portraying a picture of Feynman the readers are mostly unaware of. Beuatifully touched upon is the relationship between Feynman and his father, and how his father influenced his thinking and helped him grow. Another pearl in this is Feynmans report on the Challenger inquiry, which clearly is Feynman at his rarest best - explaining the workings of space ships and Nasa politics and hence the cause for failure, in such simple terms that one cant help but be amazed at the genius of the man. There are also essays whic clearly show Feynman as the father of modern Nanotechnology and explain its possibility with breathtaking simplicity. This is a must read for those who have read the other Feynman books, and is worth keeping. The only reason I have kept it at 4 stars and not 5, is that the book is a little desultory at times, from its title and hence, alleged purpose. But who cares about a few carelss brush strokes in a masterpiece?
Rating: 
Summary: A grab-bag of a book.
Review: This book is a hodge-podge of personal and professional reminiscenses and interviews. Feynmann tells stories about building the A-bomb, his Dad, teaching his children, curiosity, learning, "the big picture," and how he learned that different minds work differently. I enjoyed parts of the book, particularly the parts most related to the book's title, like how his Father taught him scientific curiosity. It is obvious that a lot of people have respect for Feynman, and I don't doubt he earned it. But as a story-teller, while he is sometimes interesting, frankly a lot of the time he is rather incoherent. The interviews are especially inarticulate, fumbling for words. I guess you had to be there. Elsewhere, Feynman comes across as another famous scientist piddling in other fields in his spare time. As an educator he is interesting, though not always fully syntactical. What he teaches well is his own infectious enthusiasm for "finding things out." Like some other scientists who are not very familiar with other fields, he tends to depict that pleasure as an almost exclusively scientific one. But of course Confucius, Origen, and Augustine knew the same pleasure, as do we in the contemporary humanities. As a teacher myself, I agree that enthusiastic curiosity is itself the greatest lesson. Feynman communicates that well, among other things. Feynman admits that "in a field that is so complicated that true science is not able to get anywhere, we have to rely on a kind of old-fashioned wisdom." It would be truer to say that science is one in a continuum of epistomological methods, from the most direct (and limited), like math, to "hard sciences" like physics and chemistry, to "soft sciences" (paleontology) and up through history to psychology and finally theology. Like many scientists, and antagonistic philosophers (Rorty), Feynman confuses epistomological "hardness" with rationality, in the sense of finding out what truly is, and being reasonably certain about it. The odd thing about Feynman's excursions into other fields is that he admits, "I'm still a very one-sided person and don't know a great deal." His editors think he's just being modest, I guess. Most of the time Feynman treats religion with formal respect (one gets the feeling he's been scolded before and doesn't want to pour oil on the fire). He is, in fact, rather ignorant on the subject, refuting silly heresies, and thinking he has got to the heart of the matter. At one point he compares the "Catholic religion in the Middle Ages" to Hitler and Stalin. I'm not Catholic, but in my opinion that reflects poorly on his understanding of the historical roots of science and democracy. For all Feynman's love of science, it's a pity he should be ignorant of where it came from. That such a grab-bag of a book would inspire the loyalty that is revealed in reviews below, is something I have great sympathy for. But it also demonstrates what many observers have commented on, the priest-like status that scientists have attained in Western culture. Books like this make me mourn for the sins of modern thought: over-specialization, the cults of celebrity and science, and philosophical confusion about how we know things. The book did make me think about how to teach, however, and introduced me to an interesting scientist. author, Jesus and the Religions of Man
Rating: 
Summary: scraping the bottom of the feynmaniana barrel
Review: This book is yet another posthumous compilation of Feynman's musings. With each successive book - starting from the wonderful transcriptions of Leighton, Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman - they have been declining in quality for years. Well, this is a hodgepodge of paper scraps and even raw oral interviews that have been thrown together to exploit just about the last drop of these kinds of things, and I can say that I don't think the process should continue. There are some amusing things in this book and some interesting details, but there really isn't anything special except for the fact that Feynman enjoys the personality cult associated with a zany physics genius. He was an original character and, in physics, a truly great thinker. But that doesn't make every last little thing that he ever said or scribbled down interesting, except to uncritical devotees who live with the fantasy that everything he said was better than worthwhile. Indeed, if you know about something in great depth he writes (well talks) about, his views appear as superficial as the rest of non-specialists on the subjects. Where he is truly interesting in on physics, mathematics, and science - and the overwhelming majority of what he produced on those subjects is already available. I would not recommend this book, except as a source of Feynman trivia if that is your bag. Indeed, I had heard most of these things before - either in films about the man or from his earlier writings. As such, that makes this book the crassest attempt to commercially exploit the legacy of this great man yet again. If such a thing were possible, the editor should be ashamed.
Rating:
Summary: scraping the bottom of the feynmaniana barrel
Review: This book is yet another posthumous compilation of Feynman's musings. With each successive book - starting from the wonderful transcriptions of Leighton, Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman - they have been declining in quality for years. Well, this is a hodgepodge of paper scraps and even raw oral interviews that have been thrown together to exploit just about the last drop of these kinds of things, and I can say that I don't think the process should continue. There are some amusing things in this book and some interesting details, but there really isn't anything special except for the fact that Feynman enjoys the personality cult associated with a zany physics genius. He was an original character and, in physics, a truly great thinker. But that doesn't make every last little thing that he ever said or scribbled down interesting, except to uncritical devotees who live with the fantasy that everything he said was better than worthwhile. Indeed, if you know about something in great depth he writes (well talks) about, his views appear as superficial as the rest of non-specialists on the subjects. Where he is truly interesting in on physics, mathematics, and science - and the overwhelming majority of what he produced on those subjects is already available. I would not recommend this book, except as a source of Feynman trivia if that is your bag. Indeed, I had heard most of these things before - either in films about the man or from his earlier writings. As such, that makes this book the crassest attempt to commercially exploit the legacy of this great man yet again. If such a thing were possible, the editor should be ashamed.
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