A scientist, not a cartoon
Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science by Lawrence Krauss
Since his death in 1988, Richard Feynman has become something of an industry. In addition to several biographies, there are published collections of Feynman’s essays and lectures, including just about every scrap of paper he ever scribbled on. Much of this presents an image of the man as bongo drummer, player of practical jokes and major-league womanizer, who somehow turned out groundbreaking science in his spare time. But let’s face it: when it comes to Feynman’s personal life, we really do not know what to believe. Murray Gell-Mann, Feynman’s long-time colleague at the California Institute of Technology, once famously grumbled that Feynman “spent a great deal of time and energy generating anecdotes about himself”. Most of his adventures do little, if anything, to illuminate Feynman the physicist.
In Quantum Man: Richard Feynman’s Life in Science, the scientist, science writer and eminent spokesman for science Lawrence Krauss focuses on Feynman’s research, thus providing a much-needed corrective to this caricature. What emerges is a portrait of a man who worked long hours to understand physics. Physics was Feynman’s heart and soul, and Krauss has done a superb job of showing this in his book, taking us through Feynman’s oeuvre as if teaching a masterclass. […]
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Published in Physics World on Jun 2, 2011
You would surely lose your wager that Feynman did not read German. Not only did ALL graduate programs in the US require readng knowledge of two languages then and for 25 years more, probably most of his physics courses were taught from German texts–I know mine were, eight years later. I could look up his graduate record here but no need.–pwa
Assuming this were the case, does this not deepen the mystery of why Feynman never mentioned Wentzel’s ‘Feynman’ diagrams?