Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life

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Summary: A touching insight into Feynman and his unique take on life
Review: A lover of physics, I always have enjoyed reading biographical or semi-biographical works of physics revolutionaries that give insight into the brilliance and often eccentricity that they exhibited in their everyday lives. Of all the famous physics personae, few are surrounded with as much wonder and legend as Dr. Richard Feynman.
The man, who has always intrigued me, not only had a deep love and appreciation of the universe he dedicated his live to understanding but of life itself. Famous just as much for his goofy personality and biting sense of humor as he is for his Nobel Prize-winning work in subfields of theoretical physics such as Quantum Electrodynamics and superfluidity, Richard Feynman is portrayed in this book in a much more touching way.
Not the strange bongo-playing Caltech physics professor, or lock picking Manhattan Project character he was in his youth, Feynman is instead portrayed as a reflective, dying man with no regrets and the same immense curiosity that had driven him his whole life.
Much of the book is taken verbatim from tape recorded conversations the author had with Feynman while he was a research fellow at Caltech. One detects the same sense of humor he or she may find in many of his lectures from decades before, but in addition sees a much more serious side of Dr. Feynman, who has accepted death as his final experiment which he hopes to find "IN-ter-ES-ting." The tone of the entire memoir is very sad and reflective, but reveals tremendous insights regarding life, happiness, the universe, persistence, and wonder. These insights come not from Dr. Feynman's tremendous knowledge or intelligence, but from his equally impressive wisdom.
Now, parts of the book did seem a bit presumptuous of the author in that he only knew Feynman for a couple years, and not terribly well. When I first began the book (I read it in one sitting...not that it's terribly short) I was a bit disturbed by this fact, but I soon realized that this allowed for a point of view often uncommon to biographical works. His objectivity in observing Feynman is not tainted by years of knowing the man, but only by the immense respect and love the author has for the man who first introduced him to physics when he borrowed The Feynman Lectures on physics from a library while in Israel.
The author gives the feeling that he is experiencing Feynman not as one who has known him for years, not even one who has spent months researching him for a biography, but instead as one of us, the "normal people," would experience the man. We don't just see just the brilliant scientist, but a few short glimpses at the man himself that reveal more about the heart of passionate scientists than any impersonal account could.
This book is not a biography. Nor is it just about the Nobel laureate Dr. Richard Feynman. It is much more about what it is like to dedicate your life to science, and where every person's sense of wonder and awe should fit into his or her life. The book repeatedly mentions Feynman's disdain for philosophy and psychology, which is I believe intentionally ironic as both are more the focus of the book than Feynman diagrams, path integrals, or quantum energy states. The books speaks of discover not in the context of specific examples, but in the form of general abstraction and contemplation that gives the reader a greater appreciation for discovery as a human quality that we all possess. Because, as Feynman said, hell, if an ape can make a discovery, we all certainly can.

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Summary: Physics for the Beach
Review: "It's supposed to be fun," said the late, great physicist Richard Feynman, speaking of science. The Nobel laureate and emerging cult hero was watching a rainbow at the time and speaking to Leonard Mlodinow, a troubled junior colleague not sure he belonged at Cal Tech, the best physics grad school in the world.

Feynman's life, from his work on the bomb as a junior scientist, to his Nobel Prize, to his emergence as a cultural figure, was a long quest to have fun, to avoid responsibility, to always be working on things he described as "IN-ter-ES-ting." There are few great thinkers, perhaps none, who combined the search for truth and the search for fun as thoroughly as Feynman did.

My first encounter with the legendary Richard Feynman was in the late '70s as an undergraduate. My physics professor informed me that, "If you want to be a physicist, at some point you need to get and read The Feynman Lectures. I will often take one into the woods with me and just sit and read it for pleasure." I went immediately to the Harvard Coop and bought the three large red volumes that reside, always in a prominent place, on every physicist's bookshelf.
Some years later, I was asked to lead a faculty book club discussion of Feynman's zany book of memoirs, Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman. That this volume and the revered lectures could be the work of the same human being is nothing short of astonishing. How could the clown of Surely You're Joking have also been the genius who wrote The Feynman Lectures?

Leonard Mlodinow's Feynman's Rainbow is a light-hearted look at Feynman through the eyes of a nervous junior physicist intimidated by working at the same school with some of the 20th century's greatest scientists. I read it while sitting in my gazebo, enjoying the first warm day that Boston has seen in a while. It was a delightful experience.
Feynman's Rainbow is about Feynman, of course, and it contains extended quotations recorded by the author in personal conversations. But it is also about Mlodinow and his uneasy experience as a newly hired whiz kid at Cal Tech. Mlodinow did some great work in grad school on "extra dimensions," which continues to be a hot topic. This work got him an especially juicy appointment as a sort of academic free agent. He recounts with dread his department head telling him what this meant:
"You, Dr. Mlodinow ... are accountable to no one but yourself. You may choose to teach if you wish ... or you may choose not to teach. You may conduct research in physics, or ... biology, or in any other field you wish. If you want, you can use your time to design sailboats! We give you this freedom because we have judged you to be the best of the best, and we have confidence that, given the freedom, you will do great things."

Mlodinow felt the enormous pressure of such expectations and recounts with brutal honesty his experiences as he wandered about Cal Tech looking for a great project, a great mentor, something to justify the confidence that had been placed in him. In the course of these troubled wanderings, he spent time in the offices of some truly interesting characters, the accounts of which offer the reader a marvelous insider's look at how science is done at one of the world's premier institutions.

We meet Murray Gell-Mann, the brilliant but insecure Nobel laureate who developed the theory of quarks, yet has a continual need to impress anyone with his knowledge of linguistics and other areas unrelated to physics; John Schwarz, who works alone for many years on string theory; and Stephen Wolfram, who eats rare roast beef a pound at a time. We meet a poor soul known as the Gardener, who was given tenure too soon, was unable to do anything of value in physics and spent all his time gardening. But, mainly, we meet Feynman, again and again, as he and Mlodinow chat about all sorts of interesting things, including dying of cancer, which Mlodinow thought he might do and Feynman actually did.

Mlodinow's personal story is, in its own way, every bit as interesting as Feynman's. The dust jacket mentions that he left Cal Tech to write in Hollywood for such high-powered venues as Star Trek: The Next Generation. Reading between the lines of the book, one might reasonably conclude that he continued to come up dry in his search for a project in physics and eventually left to pursue writing, another of his passions.

Feynman's Rainbow offers priceless insights into the culture of science - the cranky, eccentric, very human people who do it, the quixotic way that it is done and the extraordinary passion that is required to do it well.

And, as an added bonus, it is written so well that you can take it to the beach.

Rating:
Summary: A decent book and easy read
Review: "Feynman's Rainbow" is especially for those looking for a nice, easygoing and fun introduction to physics. This was exactly what I wanted, and it was what I got. Mlodinow makes the themes of physics approachable--partly, I think, by only giving you what you need to know for his fleshing out of the characters and pursuits and worldviews (I enjoyed the Greek/Babylonian contrast) of Feynman, Gell-Mann (sp?), himself, and various other physicists. But it's also about life, as you will have deduced from the title. It's nothing soul-searchingly profound--not quite, at least--but it is sensitive and human. I could sympathize with Mlodinow's trepidation at being asked to work at Caltech; the worries and struggles, mostly with himself, to get where he was going--to find out, even, where he was going.

Feynman comes across as a guy you would have liked to meet, if you could stand having your cliches boxed out of you. I did not like so much the passages where Mlodinow gives us his words verbatim. Sometimes I got the ideas behind them and occasionaly liked them -- but they are written in a conversational style which sometimes seemed awkward. But they were, after all, the man's words, and one could not have expected Mlodinow to doctor them I suppose.

Anyway, I recommend this book, but I doubt I will be re-reading it. Though who knows. It was so short, easy, and concisely satisfying, that maybe a couple of years from now I'll give it another go.

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Summary: Some time with Feynman
Review: "Some time with Feynman" is the European title of this book. It may be less poetic that the US title, but gives a better idea of its content and what inspired his author.

Even as a non scientist, and like many, I wish I had met professor Feynman or attended one of his lectures. Leonard Mlodinow had this privilege. Through the transcripts of his personal tape recordings, he relives with us the readers the times when he could go down the hall and speak to his brilliant yet so human colleague.

Sharing the positive nostalgia of someone remembering a friend, no matter how notorius, isn't that a bit meeting that friend ?

A very enjoyable little book !

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Summary: Lite and Loving
Review: A short, light memoir by a student of Feynman (Research fellow, Berkeley Ph.D.). This book says more about the self-importance of the author than about Feynmann, nevertheless it has some very good points. My favorite is the contrast of Feynman with his colleague Murray Gell-Mann (Babylonian vs. Greek). Also, ultimately Feynmann cuts through all the philosophical introspection about "why one does science." His answer--it feels good. Notwithstanding the academic background, the author here is a screenwriter for StarTrek: Next Generation and other things. He seems to have learned a certain versatility from Feynman. The writing is smooth, tight, enjoyable.

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Summary: Guidance for the blind
Review: As a physicist-turned-freelance writer, this book struck home for me in a big way. Mlodinow addresses issues that every budding scientist must deal with in his or her own way, and I would personally recommend that anyone exploring a career in science read this.

The book explores a lot of common misconceptions about scientists and specifically, physicists, by following Mlodinow's own personal story. In this way he manages to show the reader some of the more common pitfalls of the young science enthusiast in ways that could be life-changing to the right people. I only wish I had read this as a student at MIT; perhaps it wouldn't have been so difficult for me to arrive where I am if I had that opportunity back then.

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Summary: A mixture of affection and respect for a scientific giant
Review: Author and physicist Leonard Mlodinow shares his experiences as a young post-doc at the California Institute of Technology, where he had an office just up the hall from Richard Feynman, in this candid and funny memoir.
Feynman - who, when Mlodinow showed up at Caltech, was already living with the cancer that eventually took his life - was an inspiration to the young physicist, who first discovered an interest in physics when while working at a kibbutz in Israel. An old copy of Feynman's book The Character of Physical Law was part of the kibbutz's small library, and it helped Mlodinow decide on his next step - a Ph.D. in the sometimes strange field of particle physics. When the newly minted Doctor's thesis caught the attention of some of Caltech's faculty, Mlodinow found himself offered an unusually plum position on Caltech's faculty.
While at Caltech, Leonard struck up an acquaintance with Feynman, even coaxing the opinionated, occasionally cranky genius to commit his thoughts to cassette tape in a series of interviews. What might have turned into an abstruse version of Tuesdays With Morrie set in the halls of elite academia becomes - thanks to Mlodinow's courage in including himself as a player in the story, and through the graces of Feynman himself, who had little patience for mentoring or moralizing - a cleanly direct exploration of career anguish and punctured hero worship that ripens into a true affection.
It's also about more than Professor Feynman: the book takes his attitudes and his reflections to heart (none more so than the pure and concentrated pleasure Mlodinow observes Feynman taking in the small details of everyday life), but Mlodinow makes room in his account for a small cast of characters that broaden and enrich the story by providing context, contrast, and unexpected sympathies. When the young post-doc, fretting over the physicist's version of writer's block, takes his stoner buddy Ray to a physics lecture, only to run into both Feynman and Murray Gell-Man, Feynman's (mostly) friendly rival and counterpart on campus, Mlodinow forgets to worry about his stalled professional arc from brilliant post-doc to Next Big Thing, and sweats instead over what Ray might come out and say to the touchy, curmudgeonly Grand Old Man of physics. Naturally - and behind young Leonard's back - the two strike up an instant rapport.
Mlodinow's sometimes prickly encounters with Feyman's secretary and self-appointed watchdog are a hoot, as are the passages in which Leonard (and we, his readers) meet the various chaps all up and down the hallway - Constantine, a flashy sort with a fabulously glorious actress girlfriend and a penchant for panache and adventure, John Schwartz (yes, that John Schwartz, the fellow who came up with string theory), and one unnamed chap who, mired in limbo with no Big Idea to pursue, seems to spend his hours tending to a small plant nursery in his office. Young Leonard fears that he will end up a mirror image of this last, whom he dubs "Dr. Gardner," but a brush with his own mortality - and Feynman's sometimes brusque influence - exert themselves, and Mlodinow quits worrying quite so much and learns to follow his bliss.
Along with his small, memorable roster of dramatis personae, Mlodinow folds into his story a fair amount of modern physics theory, making the mysteries of the mathematical universe and the tantalizing goal of a Grand Unified Theory of nature resonate with his own youthful quest for truth, beauty, and happiness. There is also an instructive rumination present on the different philosophies in science - the "Greek" versus "Babylonian" points of view. (The know-better Murray Gell-Man follows the rational, experiment-oriented Greek model, while the more playful Feynman embodies the Babylonian appreciation of intuition and phenomenon.)
"The forces of nature are disparate, but in fine balance," Mlodinow writes at one point, and in his effortlessly charming style, he seems to adopt this as his slogan: for all its assorted and not obviously connected themes, Feynman's Rainbow moves gracefully and with a tender mixture of respect and affection for a man who shone with a child's sense of wonder, and who was also one of the twentieth century's great scientific minds.

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Summary: Fun Reading, thought provoking, and IN-ter-ES-ting
Review: I greatly enjoyed reading this one! Of course the author's encounters with Feynman are wonderful, and make this book attractive. However, in addition to that, we are given some insights to other notable scientists (e.g. Gell-Mann, Schwarz, Wolfram). Plus, the author's writing is just plain fun to read! He interjects his own bit of humor, coupled with his curious thoughts on everything from his own self-doubts to theoretical physics! As for some of the other reviewers that feel misled by the title of this book...I do not! This book is not about Feynman per se, it is about a person's struggle (Mlodinow's) with various problems in his life and how others have helped him along his journeys in life. Feynman does play a significant role indeed, although he is not the entire focus of the book. Anyone who enjoys reading about Feynman or science, should enjoy this one! In the end, you will understand why Mlodinow calls this "Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life."

Rating:
Summary: Fun Reading, thought provoking, and IN-ter-ES-ting
Review: I greatly enjoyed reading this one! Of course the author's encounters with Feynman are wonderful, and make this book attractive. However, in addition to that, we are given some insights to other notable scientists (e.g. Gell-Mann, Schwarz, Wolfram). Plus, the author's writing is just plain fun to read! He interjects his own bit of humor, coupled with his curious thoughts on everything from his own self-doubts to theoretical physics! As for some of the other reviewers that feel misled by the title of this book...I do not! This book is not about Feynman per se, it is about a person's struggle (Mlodinow's) with various problems in his life and how others have helped him along his journeys in life. Feynman does play a significant role indeed, although he is not the entire focus of the book. Anyone who enjoys reading about Feynman or science, should enjoy this one! In the end, you will understand why Mlodinow calls this "Feynman's Rainbow: A Search for Beauty in Physics and in Life."

Rating:
Summary: Move along... nothing to see here
Review: I guess I'm not sure what I expected but the book does not live up to the hype. The book seemed more about a phase in Mlodinow's life; Feynman, Gell-Mann, Helen, and the garbageman neighbor just happened to be there at the time -- like the cast of a play. Getting an insight into physics from reading this book is like learning about bartending by watching Cheers, or medicine by watching Scrubs. It's a good, light read, reminiscent of a well-told recount of an eventful personal vacation.