The Physicist With The Most Interesting Life In The World

A Book Review of ’Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! — Adventures of a Curious Character’

I picked this up some time ago and left it unread. When I finally decided to read it, I didn’t even remember why I got it in the first place. Who the hell is Feynman? For those in my position, he was a famous American theoretical physicist and got the Nobel Prize in Physics in 1965 for his work in quantum electrodynamics.

But I didn’t know this at the time, and I got really confused about why I would be so interested in it to buy it. I almost decided not to read it, but then decided to check the rating on GoodReads, and it was quite high. Oh… maybe that’s why I got it. So I trust the people’s judgment and gave it a shot.

It’s roughly an autobiography but in a better, funnier way. They’re primarily stories from recorded audio conversations that Feynman had with his friend Ralph Leighton. The book is incredible to read because his life baffling interesting. One imagines a theoretical physicist as a super-intelligent nerd that does nothing except surrounding himself with math papers on his desk for hours on end. I’m sure he did, but he did a lot more.

It almost makes me feel bad about my own life reading it, because he has done and experienced so many things, and across so many different disciplines that it almost feels impossible that this was lived by a single person.

A few of the stories are related to physics, which of course one can marvel at his genius, but many are completely random to his career, such as:

• Experiments with ants as a kid
• Causing confusion in a philosophy lecture about Whitehead about the nature of bricks
• Learning how to open safes and getting increasingly good at it to open the safes with all the secrets to the atomic bomb
• Temporarily switching careers to biology just for fun
• Learning traditional Brazilian music
• Learning African drumming
• Learning nude drawing
• Learning Mayan hieroglyphs
• Having hallucinations in a sensory tank with weed and ketamine

Some are so bizarre that initially, they feel like they’re just made up. But once the context and history behind them are explained, you get a sense of how he gets into these things. It really made me eager for new experiences which does not come naturally to me at all.

All the stories were incredibly interesting and fun, and most of all, his personality is delightful. He seems authentic and manages to be unique without really trying to be anything specific. His passion for science and his general curiosity was also fascinating and contagious. Even more so taking into account the time it was written, before pro-science became such a common trope. The fact that he lived in the middle of the 20th century also increased his appeal to me. It was captivating to see some stories which would now seem out of place and how our culture and social norms have changed.

I only have a couple of reservations about the book. The first is that while many stories are completely outside of theoretical physics, some aren’t, and some of those can get pretty technical. Technical to the point where I often had no bloody idea what he was talking about. Personally, that didn’t bother me because the technical details weren’t required to enjoy the story, but I predict that this may bother some people if they’re reading something they cannot understand (and unless you’re very familiar with physics, that will be you).

And while I found his personality delightful, at times it does feel a bit extreme. I saw some reviews that thought he was annoying and made them dislike the book. I totally disagree, but somehow I completely understand the sentiment. I think it’s just a very personal thing, you either like him, or you don’t. You have to try to immerse yourself in his life to know.

It was tons of fun to read, and it’s one of the few books I wouldn’t mind re-reading a few years down the line. For people that like to learn, to play pranks, or most importantly, for people that like to solve problems and tinker with things, then Feynman will look like the most interesting person in the world, and you will be hard-pressed to stop reading page after page.

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