Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman !

I had never come across the name Richard Feynman till I was in the second year in college, when one of my classmates referred to him during one of our conversations.  I never realized how wonderful a character he was, till I read this book.  I would not even call this 'his' book, since this is more like a collection of audiotaped coversations compiled by his friend, Ralph Leighton.  This book gives a very matter-of-fact portrayal of Richard Feynman, who I have come to admire very much, after reading about him extensively.  Nobel Laureate in Physics in the year 1965 for his contributions to Quantum Electrodynamics, he was also known as a prankster, juggler, safecracker, and a proud amateur painter and bongo player. He was regarded as an eccentric and a free spirit. He liked to pursue multiple, seemingly unrelated, paths, such as biology, art, percussion, Maya hieroglyphs, and lock picking !

When I finished the book, there were several distinct impressions that I was left with, and there were several impressions that were proven wrong, all of them to do with scientists in general.

The first impression that was proven wrong was that scientists are universally, socially inept...!!  Feynman does not make any secret throughout his book of his frequent attempts to woo attractive girls (many a time being successful as well !), his affinity to visit (topless) bars and his tendency to display an uncharacteristic flamboyance.  In fact I felt that he was just a normal guy and a genius scientist at the same time !

The second impression that was proven wrong was my personally held belief that a Nobel prize winning scientist must be such an expert in his domain that he is very unlikely to have any interests outside this domain.  Feynman was an avid bongo player, safecracker, linguist (he tried his hand at learning Portugese - he chose Portugese against Spanish since at the time of enrolling, he saw an attractive blonde waiting in queue to enrol for the Portugese course...!!!), and an interest in a wide variety of topics.  Being a genius in the first place never seemed to dampen his zest for life, or his tendency to be a prankster in general...!!!  I have chosen the image of Feynman playing the bongo, displayed below, just to show what a non-conformist he was !  He was also very resentful of formality, and was uncomfortable to receive the Nobel Prize while adhering to the normal tradition ! Likewise, he was also blunt in his scientific observations and criticism, even towards eminent physicists like Albert Einstein, Neils Bohr, and others....

The book is arranged more or less chronologically, starting from Feynman's early exploits with vacuum tube radios during his childhood.  I particularly loved his commonsensical approach to solving problems - how by just opening a radio set, and looking out for a burned out component, he could identify the faults with ease !  Throughout the book, his core belief stands out - the belief that common sense should guide scientific approach.  In various points in his book, he points out the real meanings of some of the concepts as viewed from a practical perspective, yet those which are not understood even by university graduates.  The most prominent example of this was the French curve, which we see in set squares - he remarks that the French curve is a special curve in which, at the lowest point in the curve, the tangent is horizontal.  This is not something Feynman has discovered - for any curve, the tangent of the first derivative (lowest point) is always zero (horizontal) ! He demonstrates clearly how much we are all focussed on learning by rote, and not by understanding.  We already know the concepts, but we dont know what we know !  He reiterates this painful aspect of rote learning when he serves as a consultant to the Brazilian government on education.  Against all convention, he speaks without any hesitation on the flaws of scientific education in Brazil, which, to a large extent I feel, applies also to India.  He consistently drives the message that science in general is so much fun and enjoyable, if only it was dealt so by the educational system.  At another point in the book, he makes the same point when he is asked to review high school text books in the United States - he finds that the books are so inadequate in making science education interesting, and even throws some light on how the system of book review and approval in the American education system relies heavily on relationships between publishers and reviewers, than on the larger interest of the student community in general.  I fully agree with Feynman - Science is indeed fun, if only the educational system realizes this, India would produce a far greater number of scientists of worldwide reckoning.

Another prominent theme that comes out is how security lockers, however elaborate they are, are limited by the weakness of the human being that uses that locker so far as its strength is concerned.  He demonstrates this by cracking the combination lockers in the office of a very senior scientist while working at Los Alomos laboratory as part of the Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb - these lockers hold very highly guarded national secrets on atomic bomb design.  He cracks them, just by second guessing what the combination numbers will be....!!! Unbeknown to the already shocked scientist, he further plays a prank on him by opening ALL his combination lockers, and leaving a trail of clues about the identity of the 'locker thief' !!!  

There are several other aspects that Feynman touches in his book, but one does not feature here, probably because the event took place after the publication of this book.  This was  his role as a member of the Rogers Commission that investigated the Challenger Disaster that took place in 1986, in which 7 NASA astronauts perished - a prominent member of the team was Christa McAuliffe, a civilian school teacher selected as a crew-member, under the 'NASA Teacher in Space Program'.  I was able to research his role in this investigation, and was able to get a picture of a more sober, philosophical Feynman.  Pictures of the disaster, and Christa McAuliffe, the civilian school teacher from Boston, who perished therein, are captured below.

The human face of Feynman comes out in his acerbic and blunt remarks about the NASA administration, where he blames the communication disconnect between NASA project managers and engineers, which resulted in clear safety warnings being ignored prior to launch.  He demonstrates the complete abscence of the required resilience of the fuel tank O-rings (these O-rings failed, and eventually led to the disaster) by using a glass of cold water in a press conference !  He also blames the improper use of statistics by NASA to underplay the safety margins of these launches - he proves that NASA's statistics are so flawed that if NASA is to undertake space shuttle launches every single day, it would take 274 years before an accident can occur !!!!  What moved Feynman (and me, to the greatest possible extent), was that NASA presented its clearly fantastical figures as fact to convince a member of the public, schoolteacher Christa McAuliffe, to join the crew. Feynman was not uncomfortable with the risk factor, but felt strongly that the recruitment of laypeople required an honest portrayal of the true risk involved, and considered this a moral failing on NASA's part to give an honest picture of the risk involved.  He went on to remark, "for a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for nature cannot be fooled".


(words in contrasting font colour are not mine - they are taken from Wikipedia, for the simple reason that I did not want to dilute the message...)

When I finished the book, and my research about Feynman, I realized two things - he was a both a scientific genius, as well as a normal guy next door with all the normal 'interests'.  He was blessed with the brains of a genius, along with loads of common sense.  And needless to add, he was at times sober & philosophical, driven by moral values....

Perhaps it was his common sense that made him a genius.  Common sense is, after all, not very common, and so are geniuses !