Surely you must be joking Mr Feynman

I first heard of Richard Feynman about 10 years ago, when an ex-classmate enthused about how reading Dr Feynman's book made him want to pursue a career in physics. Intrigued, I picked up one of his textbooks but soon gave up as I was not able to follow as quickly as I wanted.

Fast forward to present day and I came across two of his semi autobiographical works : 'Surely you are joking, Mister Feynman!'  and 'What do you care what other people think?'

These collections of stories were not written by him, but were rather written by his friends who had heard of these stories recounted by him, and decided that the stories had to be preserved for posterity.

The first story that stood out for me was on Feynman as a kid, where through his perseverance, he taught himself how to invent machines such as intruder alarms, and also how to fix appliances such as radios.  That gave me a brief bout of inspiration which lasted one weekend, where I made my own excel spreadsheet to help with work (that my colleagues ended up not using).

Another interesting story is about how he (again) taught himself to pick locks and then safes , which reminded me of my brief interest in lock picking some ten years back. I once opened some other peoples' locked drawers by fluke, and panicked when I could not lock them back.

Yet another tells of how his father taught him to learn through understanding and not by rote, and how his father instilled in him that sense of curiosity that enabled him to be a scientist. All these in spite of the fact that his father never received much formal education. I can only hope to be able to do the same for my children one day.

Some other stories are similarly inspirational, such as where he participates in the Manhattan Project and meets all sorts of legendary scientists, some are pretty cool, such as when he learns to draw and play Brazilian bongo drums. There are also serious issues, such as his investigation of the Challenger shuttle disaster, and also the state of education in general.

The books are also not without controversy, as Feynman shares about experimenting with drugs (though he does say that it's not good for mental health).  His stories also attracted criticism from his peers such as Murray Gell-Mann who remarked that while Feynman was a brilliant scientist, he spent much effort generating anecdotes about himself. Gell-Mann also complained that Feynman's books failed to give Gell-Manm credit where due, and in the end, Feyman did have to issue revisions to his stories to make them more balanced.

All in all, a good read which gives some insight into a fascinating life.