Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman!
- Richard P. Feynman with Ralph Leighton
Extensive and Critical Reading
Richard Feynman was a Nobel-prize-winning physicist best known for his alternative formulation of quantum mechanics and his work on quantum electrodynamics. Like many physicists of his generation, he also worked on the Manhattan Project to construct a nuclear bomb during World War II. Late in life, he became renowned for his participation in the panel investigating the Challenger disaster. He was also a professor at Caltech, where he won the highly prestigious Oersted Medal for teaching.
Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman is an autobiography by anecdote. It leaves out much of the structure and framework of an autobiography and skims over what a conventional biography would treat as the meat of Feynman's career (much of the physics, much of his personal life, almost the entirety of his teaching career). Instead, reading it is like listening to Feynman tells funny stories and tall tales about his life.
Feynman had a curious mind. His interests ranged far and wide. Physics buttered his bread, but the world was his oyster. In each endeavour he undertook, he set sail on his quest for understanding in fundamentally the same way–by first acknowledging his ignorance, and then clearing his mind of preconceptions. Only then could he rationally, objectively and amorally investigate the matter, allowing the evidence to carry him wherever it would.
This is the best one can do in the quest for knowledge and understanding—objective, amoral investigation of cause and effect relationships, with a gimlet eye casting aspersions on all untested conclusions and inferences. Applying logic—the idea of “if this, then that”—is the only hope of ever understanding anything, and Feynman’s mind was exquisitely logical. Though he tells next to nothing about the technical intricacies of his work in physics, it can be assumed that he attacked problems in quantum dynamics (for which he eventually won a Nobel Prize) in much the same manner.
It seemed Feynman rarely engaged in rationalization–the daily mental gymnastics in which most folks engage to make the world as it appears to be somewhat congruent with the world as we wish it to be. Feynman took things at face value, which is the running joke of Surely you’re joking. Feynman seemed to live something like Jim Carrey’s character in the movie Liar, Liar, almost unable to lie, even when it would benefit him. Men of less extraordinary talents might, like Carrey’s character, find everyday life impossible to negotiate without the occasional rationalization.
Feynman’s brilliance allowed him to get by with little need of it. He was honest to a fault. He blatantly told his hosts exactly what he felt of their education- by-rote-memorization system after having taught physics to undergraduates in Brazil. Feynman had the heart of a lion with the wit of a hyena when navigating the shoals between objective reality and perceptual delusions.
Feynman concludes his undergraduate work at MIT. He wishes to remain there for graduate school but is advised to do his graduate work at a different institution. He decides to attend Princeton.
He is a little nervous about Princeton, since the school has a reputation for formality and elegance, and vows to make an attempt to improve his social graces. When he arrives at Princeton, he notices that everybody speaks very formally, lives in nice rooms, and wears academic robes when taking daily meals in the elegant dining hall. On the day of his arrival, he is invited to a "tea". Feynman has never been to a tea before and is not sure how he is supposed to behave, but it is clear to him that he has committed a social error.
Style
"Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!" is a chapter with almost no plot, in which the story is told in the first person. The voice the reader hears is that of a single, actual person, relating his life experiences and observations. However, the chapter credits other contributing authors (most notably Ralph Leighton). Therefore, although the ideas, and experiences (as well as most of the words) are almost certainly Feynman's, the process of taking his words and ideas, organizing them into a coherent (if unconventional) whole, and producing them in the form of a chapter. However many contributors may be working on this narrative, the primary purpose is to show the multiple talents within a person.
Plot Summary
"Surely You're Joking, Mr Feynman!" is an autobiography of the late physicist, Richard P. Feynman—a very unconventional one. Rather than relating the story of his life in a traditional manner, Feynman gives us a collection of unconnected anecdotes loosely organized into this chapter. After reading the collection of anecdotes, which focus more on mundane details of his life than on major life events and great career accomplishments, what we end up with is a pretty good idea of the day-to-day life and personality quirks of this particular man and insight into what makes him tick.
Assimilation
I graduated college the year this book came out. At the time, I knew next to nothing about physics. (Feynman was a Nobel laureate physicist that worked on the Manhattan Project, et al). I knew less about how to think. All I really knew was how to memorize and regurgitate because that’s how you got through college. Had I read this book when it first came out, maybe I’d have had a shorter journey from ignorance to understanding. But maybe not. Given that I thought I knew and understood a lot, I’d have probably dismissed the book and its author as somewhat deranged, and anyways, not useful or relevant to my life goals.
I’d have not realized, as I do now, that Feynman reveals, through this string of anecdotes and events in his life (very few of which concern physics), a great deal about how to gain an understanding of the world. Understanding begins with acknowledging ignorance. That’s surely where I would have failed to grasp the lessons of Feynman’s life. I’m glad I didn’t read the book back when it came out.
Twenty-five years of life humbling have left me feeling very Socratic regarding knowledge and understanding. Socrates was considered the wisest man in the world because he was the only man who didn’t think of himself as wise. That’s what the intervening years have done for me. All I know for sure these days is that I know very little for sure. I don’t feel wise. I mostly just feel humble.