Richard Feynman

Richard Feynman was an American theoretical physicist and Nobel laureate whose memoir Surely You're Joking, Mr. Feynman! is a beloved classic of wit, curiosity, and unconventional genius.

Richard Feynman was one of the greatest physicists of the twentieth century and also, by most accounts, one of the most entertaining company. Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman!, compiled from recorded conversations with his friend Ralph Leighton, is a collection of anecdotes from his life: cracking safes at Los Alamos, learning to play bongo drums, picking up women in bars, teaching himself to draw, arguing with philosophers and artists. The physics is present but not foregrounded; this is primarily a book about a restlessly curious mind and how that curiosity plays out across every domain it encounters.

The book is enormously enjoyable. Feynman’s voice is immediate and unpretentious, his stories are genuinely funny, and his passion for understanding things from first principles is infectious. More than almost any other popular book about science, it conveys what it feels like to delight in problems rather than solutions — which is probably why it has influenced so many scientists and engineers across generations.

It is worth noting that some of the stories, particularly those involving women, reflect attitudes that belong to a less reflective era. Feynman’s own account of manipulating women for entertainment reads differently now than it might have in 1985. The book’s pleasures are real, but they come with that asterisk.